Straight Talk on the Price of Free Content
Much has been written about the power of free content. The publishing industry is struggling with the balance between free content (or entire books for free) for advertising and promotion and lost sales. Experiments have had mixed results, and sometimes you are left with that nagging thought, “what if we had not given it away for free?”
The new “economy of free” continues to push content creators of all types to providing free goods and services, and web 2.0 companies are challenged in trying to figue out how to not just live on VC money and actually turn a profit.
Matt Maroon thinks that the free economy will eat itself, and has posted a very insightful post entitled Bubble 2.0 that deserves a read. Specifically, Matt is talking about software and related web 2.0 companies, but regardless of what you are selling (or giving away for free) I think Matt’s alternative view deserves consideration as well.
I think that at the end of the day, much of our new free culture is going to turn out to be just plain unsustainable. I’m predicting that we’re going to see a large number of high-flying startups crash, just like we did before. They aren’t currently flying as high or as conspicuously as last time, so the crashes will be much more graceful, but crash they will. This time they won’t depress the public markets, at least not directly, just hedge funds and private equity.
I have my own opinion, and think free definitely has a place in the business model, but I want to know what you think. Can companies turn a profit on “free?”
Similar Posts
- The Indirect Value of Free Content
- Future Roles of Book Publishers
- Long Tail’s Chris Anderson on “Free” at O’Reilly TOC
- And For Our Next Trick - Introducing Wrox’s ASP3Wiki
- The Radiohead Model for Book Publishers
How Book Authors Can Promote Their Work with Social Media
As I have written before, publishers are increasingly leveraging their authors’ own personal platform to market their books. With more than 400,000 books published each year, it is harder to make an impact without a platform strategy.
Authors can learn a lot from the personal branding and social media marketing advice of Chris Brogan who recently offered 100 Personal Branding Tactics Using Social Media. Of course, Chris is not speaking about books in particular, but that’s the beauty of his advice - it can be applied to many different situations where your personal brand and growing online network can make a difference.
I’ve written quite a bit on the subject here as well, but with a focus on book publishing. Check out the following and the Related Posts links for some of my thoughts on how book authors can promote their work with social media.
- Why Word of Mouth Matters
- Book Marketing for Authors: The Author Questionnaire
- Crowdhacking: 10 Simple Ways Authors Can Help to Increase Sales at Amazon.com
- Amazon.com as a Social Network
- Looks Like We Are About to Get Bum Rushed by the Age of Conversation
- The Making of A Bestseller: A Case Study in The Meme
Similar Posts
- Why Word of Mouth Matters
- Amazon.com as a Social Network
- 5 Ways To Get Me to Quickly Reject Your Book Proposal
- DIY Marketing For Authors
- Ants and Grasshoppers: Honest Advice for Authors
A few of the items I read on 06/10/08
Similar Posts
- Looks like this post is entirely unique.
Low Prices, But at the Cost of Customer Service
Low prices indeed.
With the slumping economy many are shopping for the best bargains, including my family. Recently we visited a local retailer that offers “low prices, everyday” and picked up a few items at prices that were certainly lower than I had seen elsewhere.
But when I had to return one of the items the next day, I realized where I was really going to pay the price - customer service. Before I could enter the store with the item, I had to “check in” with the employee at the door. There were 4 people in a line ahead of me who also needed to check in returned merchandise. Each item had to be scanned, and then verified by the store employee. However, the employee had no idea how to run the scanner and spent most of the time staring blankly at the handheld screen. I waited in this line for 20 minutes.
Next was the line at the “Customer Service” desk with my newly verified merchandise (despite the fact that I had a receipt.) One employee, six customers in line, and not a smile to be found. I waited in this line for an additional 20 minutes.
Now to purchase the replacement item, and back into the line for checkout. Of course the employee in my line closed her register with 2 people still in front of me because it was time for her break.
So what does this have to do with publishing?
It seems that with all the discussion about the future of publishing, one item that seems to recur is the fact that books are too expensive. Simply switching to e-books eliminates that problem, or so many would have you believe.
Consider for a moment customer service. Not only does the publisher need to provide customer service to it’s customers - book stores, distributors, retailers - but we also need to support the ultimate consumer: readers.
Inside the front cover of Wiley trade publications you will find an 800 number. On the other end of that number you will find a dedicated customer service staff ready to answer a variety of questions and provide solutions to reader problems. You can also access customer service via support.wiley.com
Often these questions are solve on the spot, but sometimes they are routed to editorial staff, and we sometimes send them on up to the authors.
For our Wrox programming titles we also provide a support forum at p2p.wrox.com where readers can interact with a variety of technical experts and authors.
It’s not just paper and ink
Customer service is but one area where book publishers have an opportunity to differentiate themselves from other content providers. It is certainly not enough - we still need to be innovating (faster) - but it is certainly part of the cost equation.
Similar Posts
- Crowdhacking: 10 Simple Ways Authors Can Help to Increase Sales at Amazon.com
- Saving the Canadian Book Market
- DailyLit Begins Syndicating Books Pre-Release
- How Unique is Your Product? Your Service? Your Company?
- Top 1000 Library Books
Print is Dead’s Jeff Gomez on Bloget’s Saving Book Publishing Post
I’ve held off on commenting on Henry Blodget’s recent post entitled How to Save the Book Publishing Industry, as much has already been written. But I do want to point out Print is Dead’s Jeff Gomez’s take on the article, which I think sums things up nicely.
…this all just goes to show what publishers are up against. I mean, do people really think — in the face of enormously changing consumer habits and online trends — that it’s that simple? The fact is, many people do indeed think it’s as easy as just slashing prices.
Click through for Jeff’s entire post which likens Blodget’s argument to a past Seinfeld episode.
Similar Posts
- Low Prices, But at the Cost of Customer Service
- Consuming Content: Are you a Grazer or a Super-User?
- What Should an e-Book Be?
- Cory Doctorow on e-Books
- Be Like the Internet
