New media offers plenty of opportunities for booksellers and will help them differentiate themselves from the competition,
panelists at the Winter Institute's New Media Lunch agreed. In fact,
some of the panelists suggested that booksellers are better-positioned than most believe to
make digital headway.
C.J. Rayhill, chief information officer for O'Reilly Media, said that
three key areas in media are "print, online and in-person." Bookstores
have an advantage because they have two of the three components--print
and in-person. Bookseller events are particularly important and
attractive to publishers like O'Reilly Media. She recommended that
booksellers develop a "two-way street" with publishers. "Help them take
advantage of your 'in-person' strengths." Many companies want to "know
the consumer and know what he or she wants. They want to build a sense
of community," Rayhill said. "You guys invented that."
The key is "to translate these strengths online and do so economically."
Amanda Edmonds, strategic partner manager for Google Book Search,
agreed, noting that Web 2.0 is "all about community and social
networking. You guys already have that. The question is how to leverage
it."
Rayhill emphasized, too, the importance of "bridging the gap" between
"the physical and the digital." Booksellers should see other forms of
the book as opportunities and seek out ways to "share transactions with
a publisher to deliver other goodies with a book"--such as offering the
purchaser of a book the same title in audiobook form or its digital
equivalent or "a lifetime online version."
She stressed that "if publishers had a way of validating that someone
had bought a physical book, we would be open to giving the digital
version of the book to the same customer." Booksellers, she continued,
can offer such a validation.
Her
most striking message was that different formats of books should not be
seen as mutually exclusive. She said that 75% of O'Reilly's customers
want both physical and digital versions of the books O'Reilly offers in
both forms. On the digital side, "there will be a part you
don't play a role in," she said, "but I absolutely believe that you can
play a role in the larger part."
Online Opportunities
Panelists emphasized that booksellers must be online if only to support
and expand what they do in "the real world." As Rayhill put it, nowadays
"to tap into the offline world," booksellers must have "a component in
the online world." Madeline McIntosh, senior v-p and publisher of the
Random House Audio Group, seconded this observation, noting that
"consumer behavior has changed. People who have questions about
anything go straight to Google." Buzz about books and events
offline either begins or is furthered online; a store without such a
connection will lose out.
Moderator Scott Rosenberg, co-founder and v-p of new projects at Salon,
suggested booksellers write or at least host blogs. "Blogs are where
people go and where Google often points," he said. He called blogs
"cost effective," and said that in his case, blog writing was "an
exciting way of taking my name and leveraging my presence."
Rayhill added that blogs are becoming "easier to do every day." She
also suggested "pulling data from other places and exhibiting it" as
well as "syndicating," in other words, making sure that other sites
post store information, particularly about events.
Madeline McIntosh pointed to several Borders projects as examples of
what independent booksellers can do online. For one, Borders recently
partnered with Gather.com, a social networking site (Shelf Awareness,
January 9, 2007). Also, after J.K. Rowling announced the title and pub
date of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, it sent e-mails to some
15 million customers asking "Is Professor Severus Snape a Friend or Foe
to Harry Potter?" This is the beginning of a series of events to be
held online and at Borders and Walden stores called the Great Snape
Debate. McIntosh called such approaches "not complicated and what the
customer wants, and it's taking what you already do and expanding it." She
suggested that booksellers brainstorm with staff and customers "over pizza" about
"what you do best and how to translate it online."
Amanda Edmonds recommended creative merchandising. "Match tools online
and what you do in your stores." Echoing something Daniel Pink had
recommended, she also suggested that stores make videos like one she
encountered online while looking for a Broadway play to see. The videos
were of theater-goers talking about the play immediately after seeing
it. Booksellers could put similar videos on their sites and on
YouTube.com. "There's no cost, and it's a great way to increase the
exposure of the store," she said.
For her part, McIntosh said that samples help persuade people to buy
audiobooks. She also advised "a YouTube approach" and told booksellers
to go to Random House's Web site, where some audiobook titles
can be sampled. Booksellers should embed such samples on their sites,
she said.
Rayhill said she foresees a "fascinating next decade" in all parts of
publishing, from the "creation of content" to its distribution. Print
on demand may offer some "unique business models" that could take hold.
In bricks-and-mortar retailing she said it may happen that large box
stores will dominate "the sweet spot" of book bestsellers but that in
the Long Tail tradition, independents may find many opportunities
"outside the sweet spot."
"At the end of the day," Rayhill said, "satisfying consumers" is most
important. "Will they leave the store with what they want?" Independents who offer
books in a variety of formats will be more likely to be able to give customers what they want.
Tipping Points
Panelists agreed that the trade book will not vanish, but that some
book and related categories have gone over to the digital side for
good, mainly reference, science, technology, math, engineering,
encyclopedias and scientific journals.
In audiobooks, the tipping point will come when digital delivery
supersedes CDs, McIntosh said. For now, the problem with digital
downloads is that iPods have 80% of the market but Apple's system is
closed and accessible only through iTunes and Audible.com. If
publishers become less concerned about potential copyright
infringement, then selling digital downloads online will become "much more flexible." She
noted that Random House Audio's CD sales grew 10% last year across the
list and warned booksellers against believing that customers don't want
audiobook CDs, which are still very popular.
McIntosh said that the potential of e-books remains untapped because
e-books readers--including the latest, the Sony Reader--are "so
limited."--John Mutter
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