eBook, Self-Publishing, Starving Writers Gain Ad-Supported ePublishing

eBook, self-publishing, on-demand publishing – these ideas have been proposed for a dozen years. 

Rather than sell books, can an author earn enough from advertising to compensate his/her sweat equity?

The Writing Ecosystem

Ten years ago, BLOSM (i.e. By the Light of the Silvery Moon) analyzed the book publishing funnel. In rough figures, 10 million authors have the ability and would like to be published. 100,000 get published each year. 1,000 make more than $10,000 per book. The rest earn a small advance.

The ecosystem fails authors, publishers, and the reading public. Only book retailers, with full rights to return unsold books, benefit. 

How the Internet Changed Writing

Today, the publishing business is still centric around selling a bound volume. Internet success stories include:

• Amazon extended the life of Long-Tail books through on-demand publishing and a huge inventory of titles.
• Amazon has gained traction with the Kindle. Sony has had some success with their eBook reader.
• Bloggers have gained fans and tested ideas through their blog; and won publishing contracts as a result. Problogger has reported on his and other successes as a book author.
• Hundreds of top writers have blogs – to extend the marketing of their works beyond the publisher efforts. 
• Thousands of great writers have published online, gaining millions of fans. But, at eCPM of $1.00 or less from CPC ads, these popular writers have not been able to sustain via advertising alone.

BTW, ebook is green. We save trees; gasoline to drive to the library or the book store; the massive waste to move books from forests, to print shops, warehouses, retailers, and a home; and equal waste to recycle or dispose of old books. If you prefer the form factor of a book, for the sake of the environment, buy an iPhone or an eReader.

The Ad-Supported Book Model

An author and his friends approached tEarn with the idea for ad-supported books. Rather than ads that clutter the pages of his work, exitmercials appear between the chapters of a work. Sample works online include the classic works of Jane Austen and some non-fictional works. 

We extended our exitmerical features to support the effort. This includes better display on an iPhone as an eBook reader (i.e. 10 million and growing) and large screen TV’s (i.e. 26% of home users) where one can read while sitting in the comfort of a couch.

• At estimated mature value of $0.30 per adpack view and a 10 chapter book, we estimate that each reader is worth $3.00 gross. This beats the royalties of less than $1.00 earned through book publishing.

• With just a few thousand readers, success of the model beats the advances available through publishing. Thus, niche non-fiction and fictional works can benefit – without print. 

• Further, the model scales. Works can become best-sellers scaling through the Internet to reach millions of fans. Low-friction access to content requires no credit-card commerce. Great works can be supported solely by advertising revenues. 

Can Exitmercials Support Starving Writers

Can high eCPM exitmercials support starving writers? 

We’re monitoring the results with this group of authors. Success brings benefits to both readers and writers without friction. Let’s wish all the best.

To learn more, visit http://onlinepublishing101.blogspot.com/

Amazon to Launch Content Delivery Network against Akamai and Limelight

Amazon to Launch Content Delivery Network

This morning, Amazon announced that it would soon launch a content delivery network (CDN). This new service, which does not have a name yet, will be complimentary to Amazon’s existing web services and will work seamlessly with S3, Amazon’s online storage solution. Like most of Amazon’s web services, this new product will not require a contract and does not have any minimum-usage requirements. Amazon did not announce a specific launch date, but it expects the new service to be available by the end of this year.

With this new service, Amazon is going up against a number of established companies, including Akamai and Limelight, which are almost synonymous with content delivery. While these larger CDN providers tend to target enterprise customers, though, Amazon’s pay-as-you-go plan seems to be geared towards smaller businesses and developers who might not have a sustained need for a complex CDN solution.

Just like Amazon’s S3 and E2 shook up the market for online storage and cloud computing, this new CDN solution will surely drive down the prices for content delivery. At first, however, Amazon’s new service will not support streaming video or live broadcasts. Because of this, Akamai and Limelight don’t have to fear the competition with Amazon just yet, but we would be surprised if Amazon did not add more video specific features to its CDN in the future.

Preemptive Move

Interestingly, as Om Malik points out, New-York based Voxel just announced a CDN solution based on S3. Amazon rarely pre-announces new services, so we definitely agree that this announcement today should be seen as a preemptive move by Amazon.

NEWS: Self-Publish Your Own Magazine With MagCloud from HP Labs

Ed: An iTune for magazines? $0.99 per issue? POD option for subscribers and publishers. Does this counter the current trend of free content supported by advertising?

Self-Publish Your Own Magazine With MagCloud

from ReadWriteWeb by Sarah Perez

Have you every wanted to run your own magazine, but never had enough money or a large enough audience to make it worthwhile? Well, if there’s one thing that the self-publishing industry can cater to, it’s the long tail. Now, thanks to a startup called MagCloud, even the smallest of ventures can produce their own, professional, full-color magazine and without the costs normally associated with hiring traditional publishing companies.

About MagCloud

MagCloud is another project to emerge from HP Labs. Earlier this year, HP Labs launched BookPrep, a print-on-demand service for out-of-print books. Now, they’re delivering MagCloud, a project devoted to providing small independent publishers the ability to publish digitized magazines as well as economically print on demand. Using HP’s Indigo technology, the magazines are printed when ordered in full color on 80 lb paper with saddle-stitched covers.

How To Use MagCloud

To get started with creating a custom magazine, you must first create a PDF of your content using a tool that outputs high-resolution PDFs, like Adobe InDesign. You’ll also need to have a PayPal account in order to sell the magazines with the markup you choose. Since the service is in beta at the moment, orders must be sent to a U.S. shipping address. Publishers can request an invitationhere.

Browsing the MagCloud Selections

For those just interested in reading the MagCloud produced zines, you can create an account and then browse the selections of magazines available or subscribe to receive email notifications from the publisher as to when new issues are available. You can also choose to subscribe via RSS, but the feed does not contain the magazine’s content as posts, only notifications when new issues are released.

There are already tons of magazines to browse through in diverse categories ranging from Art to Food to Literature to Finance and so much more. For example, RWW readers might be interested in the soon-to-launch magazine “The Rubyist” (for Rubyists, by Rubyists), which will focus on technical content and happenings in the world of Ruby, Rails, and Merb. Or for the more business-minded, the magazine “Professionally Speaking” may appeal, which gives tips on public speaking, giving presentations, etc.

Another great thing about a self-published magazine is that you can just purchase the issues you’re interested in – the same as buying from the newsstand. You don’t have to commit to a full subscription.

Previewing a MagCloud Magazine

A Great Addition To The POD World

As we noted earlier this year, the print-on-demand industry has really been heating up. Amazon launched CreateSpace and another Lulu-esque service called Wordclay began offering paperback publishing. Even casual publishing outfits like CafePress and Blurb have continued to offer options for less serious writers. Now, MagCloud seems to be a perfect addition to join the POD space. If you want to join MagCloud yourself, the signup page is here.

Top 100 Advertisers Shifted $1 Billion To the Web Last Year At The Expense Of TV And Newspapers

from TechCrunch by Erick Schonfeld

The top 100 advertisers in the U.S., who represent 41 percent of total advertising spending, shifted about $1 billion last year from TV and newspapers to the Web. An analysis from Ad Age shows that overall media spending in “measured” categories (TV, print, radio, Web) by the top 100 advertisers was flat in 2007, with 0.3 percent growth to $61.3 billion. But spending on Web display ads rose 33 percent to $4.2 billion. The article notes:

Put another way, these top-tier marketers increased measured internet spending by $1 billion; slashed newspaper spending by $674 million; and cut TV budgets by $406 million.

This is yet one more piece of evidence that dollars are flowing from traditional media to the Web. The analysis is based on data from TNS Media Intelligence for 2007. TNS only measures display advertising, and not search…

NEWS: (Only) Two Visions for the Future of Blogging?

(Only) Two Visions for the Future of Blogging?

An interesting battle of the blogging titans was covered in the “Bits” section of today’s New York Times. It’s basically an exchange between popular technology bloggers (and blog owners) Michael Arrington and Rafat Ali. Their differing views are worth examining because they touch on a hot button issue in blogging and journalism: How are new for-profit business models impacting blogging and the journalistic integrity of bloggers?

In their personal scrap Mr. Arrington and Mr. Ali are tackling the difficult question of profitability models for blogging. Mr. Arrington seems to favor a monopoly approach, where blogs are brought together to form a kind of trust to benefit everyone. Mr. Ali, on the other hand, is apparently attempting to attract venture capital support for individual blogs to create verticals targeting niche markets.

What their disparate visions don’t directly address is the individual blogger who either doens’t get paid, doesn’t get paid enough to do it for a living, or has no intention to blog for money. What will happen to these independents as blogging becomes more “professional”, increasingly vetted, and commercialized? In short, is blogging worth paying attention to and will it survive intact if it doesn’t attach itself to a business model of sorts?

Where’s the Innovation in Business Models?

Chris O’Brien

I’ve been following closely a theme that has developed here in recent days. It began last week with David Sasaki’s post about thelegacy of the Knight family, continued with Dan Gillmor’s call for more entrepreneurial thinking in journalism, and was amplified byJ.D. Lasica’s call for newspapers to innovate or die…

While there is far too little happening on this end, there are some efforts to identify a way toward a more sustainable journalism that are worth noting:

• Newspaper Next: Sponsored by the American Press Institute, Newspaper Next just released the second version of their research called, Making the Leap Beyond Newspaper Companies.Newspaper Next has been instrumental in pushing newspapers to look beyond ads for revenue. And they map out how to get there by creating a framework for newspapers to begin identifying opportunities.
  At the same time, the latest report chastises newspapers for being too timid when it comes to innovation, especially on the revenue side: “On the business side, too, innovation must happen faster because core revenues are declining steadily. But even when launching new products for consumers, companies are mostly sticking to existing business models.”

• VillageSoup: Ask Richard Anderson, one of the founders, what kind of business he’s in, and he’ll tell you community hosting. Not journalism or media. Though he does publish two local newspapers. Richard is also a News Challenge winner. He sees businesses as members of the community who buy subscriptions to the site (which include the ability to run ads, but also many other services).

• MinnPost and New Haven Independent: Both sustained by NPR-style funding models (foundation support, member subscriptions).

• ProPublica: Paul Steiger’s new public interest journalism project, funded by foundations and a few rich people.

• The Public Press: An embryonic effort by Michael Stoll to build a non-commercial news organization in the Bay Area (disclosure: I’m one of many, many folks who have advised him on this project).

• Representative Journalism: Leonard Witt’s plan to have a community pool its resources to hire a journalist to cover it.

• The Next Newsroom Prototype: This represents maybe some of the best, most comprehensive thinking I’ve seen on the business and content side. (Note: This is different than my Next Newsroom project). But this draft plan, formulated by Chris Peck and Bill Densmore (with contributions from many others) contains a number of intriguing concepts, such as a community ownership plan and new ways to think about delivery of the print product. And its overall goal is to de-emphasize the dependence on ad sales. Read and it and steal some of these ideas. Better yet, print out a copy, and give it to your friendly, neighborhood venture capitalist.

What Journalism Needs: A Product People Want

When journalists were asked in a recent survey to identify the most important aspect of their work, 91% said “make my publication successful by creating appealing content for its audiences.”

What a turn-around from the not too distant past when such sentiments would have been denounced in many newsrooms as pandering to the public and giving people what they want, not what they need.

How Can Ads Support Community News?

I’m going to be posting weekly questions here on Idea Lab to spark discussion by the various authors, as well as our community of readers. This week I’d like to follow up on the recent theme of new business models for local news sites. Many small hyper-local community sites start up with Google AdSense ads and other automated, quick ways of bringing in a small revenue stream. Eventually, though, they need to make more money than that, and must turn to local businesses to advertise. But it’s difficult to entice small businesses online, as they are more likely to employ Google AdWords if they do anything at all. So how can community news sites get local businesses to advertise, and is there something they can offer the businesses beyond just a display ad or a place in an online directory? Is there a more creative partnership they might have, where reader/contributors could give the business honest feedback on the site — positive and negative?

NEWS: Blogging: the equal of in-depth narrative journalism?

Blogging: the equal of in-depth narrative journalism?

At the Nieman Narrative Conference, Nieman fellow Josh Benton offered up what Poynterblogger Roy Peter Clark, a self-described veteran of writing conferences, characterizes as “the most dynamic presentation” on blogging that he has ever seen. 

Benton proposed that eye-witness reporting in real-time via blogs is a interesting and complementary component to long-form narrative journalism. The theory was derived from a work by author James Fenton, an advocate for what he terms “journalism in its natural state,” in which natural journalism is an antidote for the vanilla, rehashed wire copy that frequently crops up. 

Benton then went on to create a chart that he calls The Benton Curve of Journalistic Interestingness (see photo). In this view, blogging becomes “a form of critical reportage rather than a form of standard commentary or self-expression,” writes Clark. 

Benton described two different periods in which a story is at its “most interesting:” right after the event, and then later on, once an investigative writer has moved beyond the basic what, when, where, how, and why, and found a unique angle for a long form narrative piece.  Conversely, the story is at its least interesting when it’s in the “conventional reporting” stage, in between blogging and narrative. 

No one would argue that blogs are becoming an increasingly important news source. And they do have more liberty to search out what’s interesting. But is conventional reporting as trite as Benton’s chart would have it seem?

Let us know if you think Benton is on to something.

Source: PoynterOnline

Ed: Timeliness versus depth of analysis.

Investigative journalism struggling to survive

The Columbian Journalism Review asks the question: If newsrooms are in a state of financial woes, will investigative journalism, which is expensive and time-consuming, survive? 

While bigger papers are holding onto it, regional and local papers are finding it difficult to do so. 

Investigative reporter Loretta Tofani conducted a freelance investigation of hazardous Chinese labor practices, which was rejected by three papers before The Salt Lake Tribune picked it up. Because The Tribune could not afford its own investigative work, Tofani had to finance her whole investigation on her own. “It was very difficult doing [the Tribune story] as a freelancer. I’m not sure if I would do that again,” said Tofani.

Though finding papers to publish investigative reports is not easy, investigative journalism is not giving up yet. The Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting attracted 120 entries this year, a number that is consistent with past years. 

Also, Paul E. Steiger, former Wall Street Journal managing editor, heads ProPublica, a nonprofit, non partisan investigative journalism project that hopes to be the “best financed shop for investigative journalism.” 

Investigative journalism is a valuable form of journalism because it “is one of the things [investigative reporters are] able to make a difference in that not everyone else can,” according to Washington Post reporter Dana Priest.