By DJ Francis, Author, OnlineMarketerBlog.com

Charlene Li, formerly of Forrester Research and co-author of Groundswell, does with Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform How You Lead what so few authors would find possible: making a convincing argument regarding a real and very powerful movement in the zeitgeist, despite it being inherently fuzzy to understand and difficult to prove.

But just because it is difficult to determine ROI, does not mean the elements of open leadership are not effective. From Li:

“In actuality, the activities taking place on [social sites] are inherently highly measurable, but we have not yet established a body of accepted knowledge and experience about the value of these activities versus the costs and risks of achieving those benefits.” (page 77)

The Value of Ethics

And not only is this leadership style actionable and (somewhat) measurable, but it also serves as a venue for your personal values. My favorite aspect of this book is the relation of an open leadership style to the leader’s own ethics.

Li writes in great detail about trust building, personal values and humility. Social technologies and open leadership simply allows broader activation of the leader’s (your) personal values.

When she speaks of humility, Li notes that open leaders accept “that their views…may need to shift because of what their curious explorations expose.” (page 169) She quotes Ron Ricci, Cisco’s VP of corporate positioning, as saying “Shared goals require trust. Trust requires behavior. And guess what technology does? It exposes behavior.” (page 198)

You begin to understand that Li isn’t railing against command-and-control operations nor does she dive off into kumbaya territory. But she does convince the reader that a world of ubiquitous social technologies, business transparency, and digital communication will require a different kind of leadership.

Open Leadership Isn’t Trying To Be The New Groundswell

As a huge fan of Li’s previous book, Groundswell, I couldn’t wait for Open Leadership. But they really are two different animals.

I found myself wishing there was more about the inevitability of openness. That – along with KPIs and a few other fundamentals – are given short shrift. Maybe there’s not a lot to say. Maybe not many studies have been done.

But unlike Groundswell, which was data-driven and highly intuitive, Open Leadership doesn’t provide enough ammo for younger leaders to march these ideas into the C-suite.

In order for these ideas to be enacted, one likely must already be in some position of leadership. While Groundswell provided the facts and figures for anyone to persuade doubters, Open Leadership does not. It’s an idea book, not a textbook. That’s OK – just something to know before you begin reading.

Buy The Book

Overall, I wholeheartedly recommend Open Leadership. It’s innovative, smart, and unlike any book you’ve read before. All that and it’s highly convincing as well. Do yourself (and your employees) a favor and read this book.

[I received a free advance reading copy of this book from Jossey-Bass publishers, but that did not influence my review of the book. I profoundly apologize to Ms. Li for a stunningly late review of the book she kindly sent me. Better late than never, I hope.]

This article was originally published at OnlineMarketerBlog.com, and has been reprinted with Mr. Francis’ permission.

DJ Francis writes OnlineMarketerBlog, a business blog about content strategy, online marketing, and social media. He also serves as a Senior Content Strategist at Critical Mass, Chicago.

Topic: eReaders: The New Mass Market?

This episode of The Roundtable will be webcast live at 1pm EDT on Thursday, September 2, 2010.

• Register to participate LIVE.
• Subscribe to the audio podcast.
• DBW Members can access the on-demand archive of The Roundtable.

Featuring:

Laura Dawson, Publishing Industry Consultant
Pablo Defendini, Interactive Producer, Open Road Integrated Media
Bridget Warren, Former Co-Owner, Vertigo Books

Special Guest:

Jane Litte, co-founder, Dear Author

Moderated by:

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Dir. of Programming & Business Development, Digital Book World

Links:

Barnes & Noble Planning Big Push to Increase Nook Sales
Julie Bosman, New York Times

In September, the chain will begin an aggressive promotion of its Nook e-readers by building 1,000-square-foot boutiques in all of its stores, with sample Nooks, demonstration tables, video screens and employees who will give customers advice and operating instructions. By devoting more floor space to promoting the Nook, Barnes & Noble is playing up what it calls a crucial advantage over Amazon in the e-reader war: its 720 bricks-and-mortar stores, where customers can test out the device before they commit to buying it.

Random House, Kobo, and Fairmont Hotels Partner to Loan E-Readers to Guests

Lynn Andriani, Publishers Weekly

Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis said, “Travelers are a great fit for the Kobo offering and a group that is eager to engage in e-reading. We know that travelers do not want to carry heavy books in their luggage, and vacations provide the perfect time to relax and catch up on reading. This partnership allows Kobo to expand our reach and offer our service to an important segment of our customer base.” In addition to the Random House library, Fairmont guests can purchase books from Kobo’s e-bookstore.

CVS to sell $100 Sylvania netbook and $179 e-reader this fall, Tylenol not included
Joanna Stern, engadget

Watch out Kmart, CVS is getting its very own $100 smartbook and $180 e-reader and there’s nothing you can do about it! We’ve gotten a hold of some marketing materials which confirm that this fall your neighborhood drugstore will be stocking a Sylvania  netbook running Windows CE and a color e-reader…. There are a few more details on the 7-inch LookBook e-reader after the break, but it will pack 512MB of storage space, a full keyboard and will have access to Kobo’s e-book store. Seems like some good old cheap tech to us, but we’re willing to bet that more than a few CVS shoppers will be tempted to throw one of these into the basket along with the deodorant and shampoo.

E-Reader Watch: Kindles Head To Staples; Borders Lowers E-Reader Prices
Staci D. Kramer, paidContent

Target won’t be the only bricks-and-mortar retail outlet for Kindles much longer. Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) is adding the Staples office supplies chain to the mix this fall, making that two options for would-be buyers to try out the device. The deal will put Kindle in Staples—the chain has more than 1,500 U.S. stores—just in time for the 2010 holiday season. Staples’ global presence suggests the possibility for some international expansion but U.S. consumers are the target for now as in-store e-reader competition heats up.

Sony’s latest e-readers: Understanding the trade-offs and global strategy
Larry Dignan, ZDNet

Sony’s new e-readers are a vast improvement over its previous versions. The latest Sony Readers are lighter, show off touch navigation on an E-Ink screen and could be worthy choices in the e-reader wars vs. Amazon and Barnes & Noble. But there are trade-offs in the devices that could pay off—or blow up—for Sony. Understanding the Sony Reader trade-offs requires you to zoom out. From a U.S. perspective Sony’s moves may be confusing. On a global scale, Sony looks quite logical.

Twitter (as RTd by @digibookworld)

RT @babetteross: Are dedicated eReaders now Mass Market when you can buy them at Staples and Target?  I think so…. #dbw.

RT @emilyw00: #DBW Harvard Bus Rvw Press partnered with Kindle for short content b/c they noticed a strong demand from business travelers.

RT @jennybullough: ereaders won’t replace mass market until they drop below $99 and are avail in Walmart & other mass merch @jane_l #dbw

RT @emilyw00: #DBW Cruz is finally targeting the kids’ market with a simple reader, seems like a smart move. http://ow.ly/2yElU

RT @jennybullough: Confusion about formats and DRM and interoperability is a big barrier to mainstream adoption of ereading @jane_l #dbw

RT @MatthewDiener: Most genre mass markets are all but dead after 3 mos; eBooks pricing will drop below $5 after print is stripped. #dbw

RT @emilyw00: #DBW mass market was original find your readers where they live – supermarket. still is, but digital can take that further.

RT @jennybullough: Have ebooks killed the romance mmpb? <- our customers tell us they read MORE b/c of ebooks, mix of print and ebook #dbw

RT @jennybullough: ebooks give backlist a new life — if priced right, can take sales away from used books: @jane_l #dbw

In Nash’s proposed model for his start-up Cursor, authors stop carving out rights. They hand almost everything over to the publishers and give them maximum flexibility to experiment with format, pricing, sampling, enhancements, and territory – BUT, for a very limited time.  At the end of those 3-5 years, everyone reassesses.

A switch to this kind of contract would upend the current business model in publishing and force the legacy businesses into a massive reorganization, probably involving no small degree of shrinkage. Is this the way forward?

In this free WEBcast, Rethinking Contracts and Copyrights, we will explore the conflicts and opportunities presented by digital rights (ebooks and beyond), and discuss alternative models that publishers and authors are experimenting with.

• Are ebooks a primary or subsidiary right?
• What are viable alternatives to life-of-copyright contracts?
• How can publishers fully exploit “a fairly broad basket of rights”?
• Are such deals in an authors’ best interests?

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS

• Jason Allen Ashlock is the co-founding Principal and Manager of Movable Type Literary Group, which seeks to meet the needs of an industry in transition by serving authors and publishers at each point on the creative continuum. Prior to MTLG, Mr. Ashlock worked as an Associate Agent with Marianne Strong and Associates, while completing graduate work in both American literature and Religious Studies.
• Devereaux Chatillon is a media and commercial litigator in Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP’s Litigation Practice. During her 30-year career, Ms. Chatillon has worked in all facets of the media and entertainment industry, including most recently as Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Scholastic Corporation, the global children’s publishing, education and media company. Ms. Chatillon has also counseled and represented book publishers, movie studios, magazines, newspapers, internet content providers, television and cable entities, and independent film producers.
• Jim Hanas is the author of Cassingle: Five Stories (2009) and Single: Two Stories (2006), two e-book collections of short stories that previously appeared in McSweeney’s, Fence, One Story, the Land-Grant College Review, Joyland, and elsewhere. In the fall, Joyland and ECW Press will release Why They Cried, an expanded e-book collection including these and other stories.
• Richard Nash ran Soft Skull Press, now an imprint of Counterpoint, from 2001 to 2007 and ran the imprint on behalf of Counterpoint until early 2009. He’s now consulting for authors and publishers on how to reach readers and developing a start-up called Cursor, a portfolio of niche social publishing communities, one of which will be called Red Lemonade. He was named one of “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World” by Utne Reader, and one of “15 Twitter Users Shaping the Future of Publishing” by Mashable.com.

Moderated by Emily Williams, co-chair, BISG Rights Subcommittee.

Rethinking Contracts and Copyrights will be webcast live on Tuesday, September 28th @ 1pm EDT / 10am PDT

If you’re on Twitter, why not tell your followers about this WEBcast, too:

I’m attending Rethinking Contracts and Copyrights on 9/28 @ 1pm EDT: http://bit.ly/byPPO9 #DBW

Book deals were pretty simple once upon a time.

There was just the book: hardcover, paper, a creature of the educated elite, the bookshop and the library. The author was lucky if he made it past the editorial gatekeepers and he signed his work up for life of copyright, or until the book went out of print, in which case it was to all purposes dead.

Some publishers had bookish friends ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​abroad and through correspondence or the occasional overseas trip a book would get translated and published in another country, and the publisher would kick a little money back to the author. When agents got involved they saw a new potential revenue stream in those foreign rights and the savvy ones started carving those out and keeping them for the author (over the publishers’ strenuous objections at the time).

When paperbacks took off, through lucrative deals with paperback publishers, that became another right to carve out, as did film, and book club, and serials, and audio.  Some of these rights — like film – are almost never sold to publishers anymore; others — like paperback — are still included routinely in book deals but publishers have to pay for them; and still others — like audio — may be sold to the print publisher (at a price) or retained and sold separately to an independent audiobook house.

Which brings us to the question of the moment: ​​​​​​​​​​​​where will ebook rights​​​​​​​ end up?

Publishers are now strenuously making the argument that ebooks are like paperbacks, a primary right, and they cannot create a publishing strategy for a title without controlling rights to both print and digital.  Some agents and independent e-publishers, meanwhile, foresee a future in which ebooks are just one more right to carve out, like audiobooks, to sell to the print publisher at a price or to an independent digital house. But around the edges of debates about the old model, a new possibility is arising.

What if ebooks force a wholesale re-thinking of the contract for books in all shapes and forms?

The argument goes something like this: in entering the ebook world we’re moving from the most stable and mature market for creative works that exists — the 500-year-old print book market — into the vast unknown. It makes no sense to demand that an author turn over rights to the publisher for the rest of his or her life plus 70 years when no one can tell what the market might look like 10 or 20 years from now. On the other hand, if the agent is too aggressive limiting what rights are granted with an eye to what might happen in the future, the publisher has no room to experiment and innovate.

One approach is a generous rights grant limited by clauses that force a renegotiation after a few years or in the event of a general market shift, and many agents are now doing this.  But this approach fails to contemplate the possibility that ebooks may provoke severe disruption in the market causing publishers and booksellers to crack under the pressure of disappearing margins, remaking the book world in the ebook’s image, on an altogether less physical plane, and leaving the path a book takes from author to reader unalterably changed.

This is the world the revolutionaries dare to contemplate, and in anticipation they have written a new kind of book contract.

Rethinking Contracts and Copyrights

Ebook publishers have unsurprisingly been in the vanguard of offering new terms to authors, often as a way of competing against the big established print houses.  RosettaBooks, under agent Arthur Klebanoff, and the new Diversion Books, established by agent Scott Waxman, both offer 3-5 year contracts based on the proven principle that the future is hard to predict and flexibility for authors is key.

Richard Nash, the former publisher of print indie Soft Skull who is now setting up Cursor, a new publisher proposing an innovative crowd-sourced digital+print model, has been more vocal about overturning the copyright status quo.  In a manifesto on his blog Nash laid out his own version of the change principle: ”The publishing industry is in a state of turmoil. New sales channels are arising, new formats, new terms of sale.  Authors deserve the chance to renegotiate as the industry evolves.”

Nash thus offers Cursor authors 3-year renewable contracts, in return for “a fairly broad basket of rights in the license…in audio, in English-language outside the US, in magazine republication, in translation”.

In this model, authors stop carving out rights.  They hand almost everything over to the publishers and give them maximum flexibility to experiment with format, pricing, sampling, enhancements, and territory – BUT, for a very limited time.  At the end of those 3-5 years, everyone reassesses.

If the publisher has done an outstanding job and turned the book into a bestseller,  they might now have to cough up more royalties.  If the publisher has failed to sell the book or exploit some of the rights they were ceded, the author may continue with the house on a more limited basis or may withdraw the book altogether and take it elsewhere.  The author gets far more flexibility and control over the book’s fate than was ever possible with a life-of-copyright contract, but has to accept a full partnership role: the publisher will no longer pay a significant advance or assume the lion’s share of the financial risk.

A switch to this kind of contract would upend the current business model in publishing and force the legacy businesses into a massive reorganization, probably involving no small degree of shrinkage.  Is this the way forward?

The answer depends on your understanding of the digital transition we’re in the midst of.  If ebooks are like paperbacks, a new format that will cause some disruption but ultimately expand readership and learn to coexist peacefully with previous formats, then the old business model with its grip on life-of-copyright may well survive.

If, on the other hand, today’s ebooks are the harbinger of an all-digital future that will crack the walls of print and bring them crumbling down, well in that case…the revolutionaries are at the gate.

Emily Williams is co-chair of the BISG Rights Subcommittee and a former literary scout who currently works as an independent publishing consultant.

Why Print Publishing Will Never Die
Ditchwalk, Mark Barrett

Publishing is a flawed business, but books are not flawed devices. Print publishing will never die because even today a book is still a completely functional delivery system for the content it contains.

E-books, Piracy Peril or Promotional Possibilities?
TorrentFreak, Ben Jones

If e-book pirates are killing the industry as some people seem to believe, this free CD would have guaranteed that the book will sell badly, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The hardcover went on sale June 20th and the e-book CD went up the same day. Yet the book was #13 on the New York Times (NYT) bestseller list for July 2nd. It had slipped a bit to #24 the next week, and then to #26 the week after. But if e-books are killing the industry, how could a niche book (book 12 in a sci-fi series) sell so well? Especially when sci-fi fans are the ones most likely to be technologically oriented, and thus more likely to read e-books?

Should Kids Get Ebooks in School?
Library Journal, Eric Hellman

The previous study had problems with control methodology, but more importantly, it neglected staffing or funding levels. Achterman’s re-analysis of the data showed that it’s not having a library that helps students, it’s having sufficient staff to allow librarians to have meaningful interaction with students and teachers. This is a conclusion that transcends the form of the library’s content. Neither books nor ebooks will teach kids how to answer questions all by themselves.

Libraries; the Answer to Free Online Comics?
Early World, Robin Brenner

What about libraries? Tokyopop, announced at San Diego Comic-Con that they are making a variety of their titles available via Overdrive. More recently, they announced that the fan favorite title Hetalia: Axis Powers will be released immediately via ereader Zinio  and Overdrive, even though the US paper street date is not until September 21st (I’ve already asked our collection development team to snap up the title for our Overdrive collection). Hetalia is an example of the problem we all face in trying to meet fan interest. As Deb Aoki points out at the Digital Piracy panel, Hetalia is a property that is already astronomically popular here in the US. Every major convention over the past year has been flooded with fans dressed as Hetalia characters, long before the series’ release date. Clearly, these fans have read Hetalia illegally online. Tokyopop’s release, via Overdrive or in print is already behind that market.

The Big Bets – Which Tech is the Games Industry Backing?
FUTUReBOOK, by Paul Rhodes

The first thing I noticed, perhaps shockingly to all of us in books publishing right now, is that the big games companies really aren’t that bothered about the iPad. Very few were demoing product on it, and fewer still were announcing significant development for the device. It would seem the smaller, more agile companies that have addressed the market early have dented the desire of the big boys to really commit to that platform. Established franchises will always make the port across, but it seems it’s not a device that new IP will be broken out on. The titles I played felt overwhelmingly like bolted-on afterthoughts to the main show on PS3 or Xbox 360.

Why Innovation Is Beginner’s Luck
Bloomberg Businessweek, G. Michael Maddock and Raphael Louis Vitón

You could almost hear the things that people in the music, movie rental, and auction business (just to pick three examples) were saying when iTunes, NetFlix, and eBay came along. “What are these people thinking? Don’t they know about the existing rules, the channel headaches, the legal hurdles, the technical hurdles, what’s been tried before and failed, the demands of the sales agents, the way our products and services are purchased, the demands of our customers and their customers?” Uh, no, they didn’t. And neither will the competitor who will seemingly come from out of nowhere to upend your industry. And that is your takeaway.

Tweet of the Week

That’s just a taste of what you may have missed this week. To stay on top of the most interesting news, commentary and tweets related to publishing, keep in touch via our RSS feed, follow us on Twitter, join your publishing colleagues in our LinkedIn group, and connect with the broader DBW Network.

“The first publisher willing to stand up and bid on a new publishing model will set the standard for the future. But don’t wait too long; the perfect model is out there and someone is going to beat you to the punch.”

–Andrew Davis, Seth Godin and the Flower Clock

Seth Godin’s decision to not publish his theoretical next book(s) via traditional channels has caused a predictable stir amongst the pundit class, with proclamations about “The Death of Publishing” coming from many of the usual suspects looking to scare up page views. Predictably, few have acknowledged the unusually nuanced statement Godin actually made about his situation:

“The thing is–now I know who my readers are. Adding layers or faux scarcity doesn’t help me or you.”

It’s similar to J.A. Konrath’s stated rationale for signing on with AmazonEncore a few months back, though at a graduate level:

“I signed a print deal with a company that can email every single person who has every [sic] bought one of my books through their website, plus millions of potential new customers.”

While Konrath simply chose a different intermediary to publish his books, Godin has reached a point where his platform is diverse enough, and his connection to his readers is so firmly established, that both the traditional book deal and format have faded in importance for him. It’s a pretty good example of what a non-fiction transmedia creator’s platform might look like.

Is his move a bellwhether for the industry? Yes, but not for the pessimistic reasons most are noting.

As Shiv Singh pointed out, “Godin believes in the power of his brand and is betting everything on it.” It’s a pretty safe bet, though, a natural next step in the direction he’s been paving the way for for years. It’s a step the vast majority of authors aren’t in a position to take yet, even many of the biggest names, because their platforms are still pretty much limited to books.

But publishers have the same opportunities to transition from a business-to-business approach to a business-to-consumer approach, and engage directly with their readers via what Singh presented as the “Community Manager Driven” model.

In his presentation at the Digital Book World Conference in January, Singh framed his community-driven approach like this:

1. Consumers act not as individuals but as communities too
2. You need to find the communities online and market to them
3. You must know the lifetime value of a customer and a community
4. And provide discounts based on that lifetime value too

Just because the customer has already bought the book, it doesn’t mean you should forget about him or her.

Godin found his community long ago, online and offline, and has built a platform beyond his books that few authors (or publishers) can match. He blogs daily, speaks widely, and educates, inspires and empowers his community to achieve their own goals.  He uses a variety of digital tools to connect and engage with his community, and most importantly, he enables them to connect, engage with and empower each other.

The main difference between Godin and most publishers (and authors) is that he knows who his readers are and what they want, as opposed to what intermediaries tell them they want, and he’s reconfiguring his platform accordingly, focusing on “audiobooks, apps, small digital files called PDFs and podcasts.” I have no doubt that if the demand from his readers is there, and there will surely be some, he will also publish more print books, though perhaps not through Portfolio but via POD.

While he’s not short on ego, his platform isn’t all about him; his focus is on serving his community.

“If you can just assemble these 30,000, 50,000, 100,000 people who love literary fiction, then you’ve earned the right to be the ringleader, the leader of that tribe—and you’ll never, ever again have trouble selling literary fiction.”

–Seth Godin, How to Fix the Publishing Industry

Farrar, Straus and Giroux’s aptly named “Work In Progress” is an intriguing step in that particular direction, and there are numerous other examples of publishers making bids on new publishing models, not necessarily to set the standard for the future — in the digital age, there is no “standard” and nothing’s “perfect” — but rather to better serve their unique community of readers, existing and potential.

Godin’s move isn’t a threat to the future of publishing; it’s yet another sign that those who are most connected to their communities will be the ones best-suited to manage the risks of the “digital transition” and seize the myriad opportunities that are there for the taking.

That’s a good thing.

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez is a published poet and writer, and active blogger since 2003. In 1998, he founded and led a thriving poetry slam community in NYC (a little bit louder) that has since evolved into the non-profit literary arts organization, louderARTS. An old and new media pragmatist, social media realist, and marketing strategist, he views publishing as a community service, and is optimistic about its future.

I’ve discovered that “Something is Dead” headlines attract a lot of attention so I couldn’t resist using one myself today. With Seth Godin announcing that he’s going to ditch his traditional publisher (Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin), does it mean that book publishing as we know it is dead?

I find this topic especially interesting as it’s something that I discussed at length when I spoke at the Digital Book World Conference [click for video] back in January.

Here’s my take. Seth Godin is among the most popular best-selling marketing authors and his latest book Linchpin sold over 50,000 copies. The publisher probably played a big role in the editing and the distribution of that book. However, for future books, Godin is planning to release them over the Internet in electronic book formats as well as in the form of apps, small digital files and even PDFs.

What does this mean?

1. Seth Godin knows his readers better than his publisher does. Godin has realized that he really knows his readers. He knows what they want, he knows how to reach them and he knows quite clearly what he wants to share. He has is own marketing platform via his blog and his twitter account, too. He doesn’t need a publisher to play that role for him. And with the Internet he can distribute his book to his readers electronically.
2. Seth Godin believes in the power of his brand and is betting everything on it. At the most fundamental level, this is a brand play. You’ve got to believe in yourself and in your words if you want something to work, he’d say himself. And that’s exactly what he’s doing. He’s putting his money where his mouth is. Will he sell as many books? Fewer? Will he reach new readers versus just his fans? Time will tell but it’s an adventurous move without a doubt.
3. Seth Godin doesn’t believe his publishers provide him enough value. By saying that he’s going to sell his book online and directly to his readers, Godin is basically saying that his publishers aren’t providing him enough value. He appreciates the need to have a strong editor (and he’s going to hire one independently) but everything else is not valuable enough for him. Publishers should be worried, and so too should Barnes and Noble and Borders. If other leading authors adopted this model they’d all be in trouble.
4. Seth Godin knows that the book format itself is worth a second look, too. There’s a secret about writing books that no one likes and having just been through the process, I’ve witnessed it first hand. You have to fill the pages. Even if your idea and what you want to convey only needs a 100 pages, you are obligated to stretch it out into 200 or 300 pages. That’s how books are made. You have to conform to those guidelines. If the book is too thin, publishers won’t be able to charge enough for it. Godin recognizes that micro-book formats as well as audio files and apps are worth exploring as mechanisms to share his ideas. That way he’s not limited by the structure of the book market.
5. Seth Godin has figured out the economics are in his favor. I’m guessing that for every book of his sold, Godin gets probably 15% in royalties. That’s not bad when you’re selling 50,000 books priced at $17.13. He’s made $2.5 per book sold or $128,475 in total.But imagine if he sold online only where he’d probably get something closer to 80% in royalties. He’d make a whopping $685,000. Imagine if he only sold half online versus through the book chains (the distribution channels that the publisher owns), he’d still make $342,600. Or if he sold just a quarter, that would be $171,300. I don’t think it is hard for him to sell 12,500 books directly. He doesn’t need a publisher to be better off.

Time will tell whether other leading authors adopt a similar model. For an author, nothing is better than being able to get closer to your reader. The question is whether this model will work and whether other authors have the personal brand, the distribution platform and, most importantly, the courage to try something like this.

I’d argue that if book publishers followed the model I outlined in this deck, they’d be less worried about what’s happening around them.

This post was originally published at Going Social Now and has been reprinted with Mr. Singh’s permission.

Shiv Singh is a recognized digital marketer who focuses on how brands are being forced to transform with the evolution of digital communications and social media. In September 2009, he was recognized by Ad Age as a Media Maven, and is the author of “Social Media Marketing for Dummies.” He has been with PepsiCo since July 1st, 2010 where he is responsible for digital in its beverages business. Prior to that he worked at Razorfish for over eleven years (one of the largest interactive agencies in the world and part of Publicis Worldwide).

Hetalia editor on digital-first strategy

• Also, the ongoing battle against illegal scans weighed into our decision to release it early. To read it for free, the digital edition of Hetalia can be borrowed from libraries through OverDrive. It will not be available if the library didn’t order a copy so you should definitely encourage your library to look into it. Through Zinio, you can read a copy on your computer (it’s not an app). The $5.99 price was determined through current market research as well as a lot of discussion internally as well as with our partners in Japan… As an added note, color pages are included in all versions, but only the print edition will include bonus content.

Rice U. to Close Its Digital Press Next Month

• Douglas A. Armato, director of the University of Minnesota Press, noted via email that such experiments are useful but “what scholarly publishing is facing is a set of economic, technological and institutional realities, only part of the solution to which is digital publication.” Armato added, “Though an on-line only press makes sense in theory—and with generous funding—the reality is that it creates a false dichotomy in which print is opposed to the digital. What we’re seeing in the market instead is that digital will grow up alongside print and do so, at least initially, by being paid for by print revenues. The established university presses are moving steadily in the direction of becoming digital publishers, but we’re seeing the process as a managed transition, not the kind of sharp break that Rice tried to make work.”

Ecstatic Publishing: Thurston Moore, Eva Prinz Discuss Their New Venture

• One thing I know for sure is that the imagery is powerful. People need to see it, they will want to read the text. It might exist digitally as well. At its worst it’s a PDF. At its best it’s an online video game. It might have music with it. It might have something interactive. Because technology is so sophisticated now, because video games are now more like sophisticated satire or French surrealism in terms of how many levels you can go and question existence and time–books can be that interactive in the future. As far as I’m concerned, if people aren’t going to the bookstore to buy books and everyone is downloading it for free, then we don’t have a business, we have an organization—the closest the thing I can compare it to is Abbie Hoffman’s Free Store.

Penguin gains top app position for Spot

• Penguin conducted research into how young children and families are using the iPad. Rafferty said: “We did a lot of testing as we had heard anecdotally about mums handing over devices to young children to play with but we weren’t sure that was actually happening or that children would know what to do with the devices. “When we found that young children do know that they can press and swipe the screen and listen, all the things that interactive formats allow in the same way as books do, it became an obvious way to extend our book content.”

What’s ‘Mobile’ Mean? How Apple And The iPad Are Forcing The Debate

• The problem is strictly about permissions, and not about the technical challenges of developing an iPad app. Developers acknowledge that regardless of Apple’s policy, they would have to negotiate licenses separately for the iPad, but Apple’s ultimatum is forcing developers to dramatically speed up that process. With dozens of tablets coming to market by year’s end, the issue is also not exclusive to the iPad. The root of the problem is that licensing issues are hard to resolve without answering a lot of tough questions. What is a tablet? What makes a device mobile? Is it based on the screen size? The ability to make phone calls? Or, maybe 3G? Is the Kindle mobile?

Can Hollywood keep hanging on to its aging business model?

• If Hertz sounds a cautionary note about the future, it’s that every great business model is someday bound to collapse. And when change comes, it is not only abrupt, but it usually is best exploited by people outside the business being changed. “In the music business, everyone went to the right conferences and listened to all the warnings, but no one actually prepared themselves for the changes,” Hertz says. “If you look at who’s done well with new technology, it’s been Steve Jobs and Apple, along with EBay, Amazon and Netflix. All the wealth was created outside the business that experienced the change… The only thing you can logically plan for is that people won’t necessarily pay for your content. They’ll be paying for quality, convenience and experience. That’s the only thing that won’t ever go away.”

Tweet of the Week

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By Emily Williams, co-chair, BISG Rights Subcommittee

Not many people in publishing would start a business based on a hunch and a sci-fi novel, but then Richard Curtis is not your average agent.

“In the late 1980s and early 1990s,” he remembers, ”I saw my first CD-ROM and I immediately envisioned a day when you would be able to put a disc or something into a light box to read a book.  That was the primitive way I imagined that digital technology would work.  There had been a novel published by a science fiction author by the name Ben Bova called CYBERBOOKS in which he had imagined exactly such a world.  Because my agency handles a lot of science fiction I just knew that this was going to happen in time.”

That initial hunch gave way to close observation of the embryonic ebook market.  ”During the 1990s I began tracking digital technology, waiting for something to happen that would enable me to take action based on my belief that we were headed for a revolution.  During that time I knew that out-of-print books would become a very valuable component of a digital future, so my agency - which handled a lot of genre books like romance, thrillers, science fiction – we very aggressively began recovering the rights to out of print books.  When the revolution first hit, which was in 1998, my agency had already recovered the rights to hundreds of out-of-print books which were now owned once again by the authors.”

Having positioned his agency clients for the move to digital, Curtis waited for the right moment to try his hand at the new-fangled medium.  ”In 1998 two very important things happened.  One was the introduction of the first ebook device, the Rocketbook, which confirmed everything I had believed was going to happen.  The second thing was the introduction of print-on-demand; the first successful demonstration was given at the Book Expo in Chicago.  Those two things galvanized me into taking action and I established a digital publishing company, a separate corporation from my agency, that would be dedicated to putting first my clients’ books back into print, and then books by anybody else who wanted to put their books back into print.”

It was important for Curtis that the new publisher adhere to the same standards he pushed for as an agent.  ”We started E-Reads in 1999 and it was founded on principles that I had thought about for many years: to split everything 50/50.  I’ve always felt it’s the right number.”

With the terms set, he approached his agency clients about publishing electronic editions of their out of print books.  Not an obvious move at the time, but the value proposition was simple: ”You’ve got all those books, they’re not doing anything, they’re sitting on a shelf, let me put them into this program and see if they work.”

The Rising Tide

Adding publisher to his job description raised concerns about conflict of interest, which Curtis says he has resolved to his and his clients’ satisfaction.  ”Any agent who does it is going to have to look his authors in the eye and tell them, five minutes ago I represented you as a seller and now I’m buying something from you as a buyer, and how do I square that away?”

Curtis sees the greatest potential conflict with books that don’t sell on submission and are then published by the agent himself, raising doubts about whether that was the outcome he preferred all along.  Curtis has published a few such projects, but says, “It’s easiest for the E-Reads business model simply to publish out of print books.”  It’s also easier since E-Reads authors expanded beyond the Richard Curtis Agency’s client base.

“We have built not only on the books by my agency but books by other agencies and books by other publishers like Kensington.  We acquire directly from authors who are not represented.  We have about 1,200 books in the program now and we’ve got hundreds in the pipeline.  More and more agents now are beginning to come to us because we’ve proven that we’re able to put revenue in their hands.  They’re getting a better deal from us than they get from a traditional publisher, and we’re beginning to pay advances.”

E-Reads’ prosperity still has the sheen of novelty for Curtis.  ”Everyone is telling me I’m a genius. It’s very nice to hear, because when I started this company ten or eleven years ago they didn’t know what I was talking about, they called it Curtis’s folly and a lot of other things.  We had many struggles over the seven or eight years we were in start-up; that’s how long I consider us to have been in start-up.  All sorts of business models changed, technology changed, companies disappeared.  We were just one of those boats lying in shallow water waiting for that tide to come in.  When Kindle came along that’s just what happened, and now we’re riding on top of the tide like everybody else is and our revenues have quadrupled in two years.  We’re beginning to make a profit and pay substantial royalties.”

Digital vs. Paper

True to its dual inspiration, E-Reads offers its titles in POD paperback as well as the reigning digital formats.  ”We have always put all of our books not only into downloadable format but into print-on-demand.  Until very recently print-on-demand contributed about 50% of our revenues because there wasn’t a device that anybody really loved, so the device they turned to was the traditional book.”

When it comes to submissions on the agency side, however, for Curtis paper is a thing of the past.  ”It hasn’t been that long since the [publishers and editors] got it,” he says, remembering a lunch three years ago with an editor who told him her house had distributed Sony readers to the whole department and strongly encouraged employees to stop printing out manuscripts.  ”From that point on I realized that the camel was inside of the tent, as they say.  That whole generation of young people were very comfortable with this new technology, and even the older generation had lost its terror.  Everybody in publishing now speaks a common language.  A lot of them understand XML, the editorial processes are now done digitally.  It’s not a mystery anymore, it’s just become very natural to integrate the two worlds, and I think that’s really an important step from the old days when you distinguished between your world and my world.”

In response, Curtis overhauled his approach as an agent to submitting books. “The ebook part of my business and the agent part have cross-pollinated each other,” he explains. “Tricks we learned from the IT guys down the hall are helping me to create submission packages that are really quite amazing.  By clicking on a page of our website you can all but see the entire book that I’m offering.  It’s so much easier for you to envision what the author is like, who the author is, what he or she sounds like, looks like, how they act on television, what the content will be, what the interactive elements are going to be.”

Curtis is keen to create an experience for the editors considering a manuscript that will translate to the faster-moving, multimedia marketplace for books today.  ”The most important change is that in the old days the submission process was paper, you read on paper, you held a manuscript in your hand, that was how you read a book.  When I realized that the submission process had shifted to email, I said to myself, if an editor’s first exposure to a manuscript is going to be reading it on a screen, that’s a different experience from opening a box and taking out a paper manuscript, it’s a different medium.  So we began designing our submissions for this new medium.”

Going online has a few practical benefits as well for time-crunched editors at big publishers: ”You’ll see a fully realized package that you’ll instantly be able to forward to your colleagues down the hall and read it together and confer on it.  We don’t have to bring the author in, book a conference room and go through all that procedure, we can just make a decision.”

No 5-Year “Death of Print” Predictions

For an ebook publisher, Curtis shows surprising equanimity when it comes to the future of print, even predicting a reaction among some readers to return to paper when some of the detrimental effects of reading on a screen become more apparent.  Regardless of the medium, he sees a bright future for books and reading.

“More people are buying books than ever before, more people are reading them.  Whatever format people read in, they are going to be reading.  I think we will see more interactivity in the book experience – vooks, multimedia books, all these interesting hybrids.  But the fundamental reading of text on paper will remain with us for as long as I can foresee.”

As for the industry, Curtis believes we’re likely in for some big shifts, driven especially by the waste in a print distribution system hobbled by returns.  ”The prediction that I made last new year, I believe we will see an ebook retailer like Amazon buy a major publishing company and create a new retailing model that will make books non-returnable in the physical bookstore marketplace.”

Many possibilities, many changes…but perhaps not so quickly as some of the digerati are predicting.  ”It will be interesting to see it,” Curtis concludes, ”and I look forward to being around 200 years from now when it all plays out!”

Richard Curtis, president of Richard Curtis Associates, Inc., is a leading New York literary agent; founder of E-Reads, an electronic book publisher; and a well-known author advocate. He is also the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction including several books about the publishing industry and is a former president of the Association of Authors’ Representatives.

Emily Williams is co-chair of the BISG Rights Subcommittee and a former literary scout who currently works as an independent publishing consultant.

Topic: eBook Anecdotes, Predictions

This episode of The Roundtable was webcast live at 1pm EDT on Thursday, August 19, 2010.

• Register to participate LIVE.
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• DBW Members can access the on-demand archive of The Roundtable.

Featuring:

Laura Dawson, Publishing Industry Consultant
Kate Rados, Marketing Director, F+W Media
Bridget Warren, Former Co-Owner, Vertigo Books

Moderated by:

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Dir. of Programming & Business Development, Digital Book World

Links:

Arthur Klebanoff: eBook Veteran, First Mover

“eBooks are good news. There are many more paths to market. Ten years ago a general literary agent would take on a client if they thought they could maybe make a $10,000 deal for a book, and if they struck out they struck out, and you were dead. One the one hand, [today] there are many fewer places to pitch the book. On the other hand, if you’re an author with some energy there are all these different paths to market that simply didn’t exist. You may need lightning to strike, but the truth is you need lightning to strike anyway. To look at it negatively, what you’re getting is a lottery ticket. Positively, every week somebody wins the lottery.”

Book sellers buck e-trend

As for the e-book market, it is growing, he said, but it’s still far behind the printed book market. Nine percent of U.S. adults bought e-books over the last 12 months, compared with 57 percent who bought printed books, he said. While Amazon’s e-books are outselling hardcovers, many of the books for its Kindle readercost less than a dollar, and some are 25 cents. “Well, duh,” Norris said. “A 25-cent e-book is easier to sell.”

Can Hollywood keep hanging on to its aging business model?

If Hertz sounds a cautionary note about the future, it’s that every great business model is someday bound to collapse. And when change comes, it is not only abrupt, but it usually is best exploited by people outside the business being changed. “In the music business, everyone went to the right conferences and listened to all the warnings, but no one actually prepared themselves for the changes,” Hertz says. “If you look at who’s done well with new technology, it’s been Steve Jobs and Apple, along with EBay, Amazon and Netflix. All the wealth was created outside the business that experienced the change.”

The Web Is Passing Most of You By… And You are Asleep

The order of operations for the next-gen web is a simple formula. The RIGHT data to the RIGHT person at the RIGHT time on the RIGHT device. Data first, Device LAST. But you don’t get it. You’re talking about iPhone apps. You think the iPhone, the iPad, and the Android will save us. You don’t realize that mobile constitutes more than those devices. You’re running companies that specialize only on a single device and app. Yea, I’m looking at you, Gowalla. You’ve missed the damn boat.

What’s Wrong With ‘X Is Dead’

In the details of the history, we see all the possibilities for other futures. We see the dead-ends and the false predictions, all the “inevitabilities” that never came to pass. We see the variety of systems that have existed in different places and similar ones that have existed at different times. This is the fundamental value of having a historical sense about technology. It leads you away from making grand sweeping statements about how things must go. In July’s Technology and Culture, Leo Marx traced the rise of the word ‘technology,’ as a way of understanding what technology has come to mean in modern society. He pinpoints exactly what makes the Andersonian worldview so compelling — and so fraught with peril.

Twitter (as RTd by @DigiBookWorld)

RT @MatthewDiener: #dbw Big Q might be whether Q1 post-eReader-Christmas spike is outlier, not Q2 whose growth compared to 2009 is in-line.

RT @pa4culture: Physical books still have personal meaning to our #DBW heroes. Haven’t eliminated despite enthusiasm for digital reading.

RT @kellymcclymer: 9% US bought ebook in last 12 mo. 57% bought print books.#dbw http://bit.ly/ai4xaO

RT @Knownhuman: With an eReader, you shouldn’t *need* a help desk. It should be either dead simple, or you can read online for help #DBW

RT @Millerchick: #dbw DATA FIRST, device last ~ care about the content not the container!

RT @Knownhuman: Publishers will learn to make their revenue by adding value to content, rather than on content. Or, die trying. #DBW

RT @babetteross: Carefully and relevantly done ads in books could work @katerados Ie. fabric store in craft book #dbw #adsinbooks

RT @emilyw00: #DBW Google was offering 67% of ad rev off Google Book Search http://is.gd/eoYP3 (PubMarketplace link). not such a pittance.

RT @MatthewDiener: #dbw Also, who is adding the ads? Pubs or platforms? A battle that will likely bloody all our noses once it starts.

RT @joswartz: the ‘ads’ in books cannot be traditional one-way ads. they could be made to be incentive to buy book. #dbw #adsinbooks

RT @JJmaddn: Ads could add value to non-fiction but objectivity of content could be colored or co-opted by “sponsors”. #dbw #adsinbooks

RT @tstcpublishing: #dbw yup… higher ed ebooks are ~5% of textbook sales… once that increases, ebook sales overall will jump way up.

RT @MatthewDiener: Prediction from @glecharles: Google Editions will be more Google Wave than G-Mail. Oh no you didn’t! #dbw