Reinventing the print business model

While enticing people to come to their conference, Publishing Business' interview with Brian Kelly, editor, U.S. News & World Report is an interesting read. Here are a few excerpts that booksellers might find reminiscent of our own industry:

By far, my favorite quote in the short piece (and what might get me to attend the conference to see this guy) was the following:

Kelly: In moments of weakness, I still wish the good old days would come back, but then I slap myself back to reality. The most unsettling thing was to come to the conclusion—about five years ago—that the old ways were gone for good, that the industry changes were fundamental and nothing would be the same again. Once I accepted that, my job became creating something new, and that made my stomach feel a lot better.

One on how even top companies can be quickly eclipsed by technology-based change:

News weeklies are one category that has been hit particularly hard by shifts in the marketplace, including the way consumers get their news (and what—or if—they’ll pay for it). So, while it may have been a sad day for news weeklies, it wasn’t necessarily shocking when U.S. News & World Report first announced in 2008 that it would shift from its weekly frequency to bimonthly in 2009, and then later announced that it would shutter its monthly print publication entirely, after 60-some years as one of the top news magazines worldwide.

One on changes in business models:

Kelly: We were fortunate that we had developed a strong website and had other print products, so we knew that we had a good business and a large audience beyond print subscriptions. The subscriber business model just didn’t work for us. I thought about having a proper wake, but in this climate you can’t afford nostalgia.

So if I were to take some lessons away from this for the college store environment (and associated/related industries), they might include concepts such as: it is time to stop thinking about how things used to be and begin to embrace new ideas and the future. The importance of having a strong website/ecommerce presence and developing a diversified mix of products. Our future role is to not to shepherd the past to the grave, but to create something new that will will revitalize our businesses and our channel.

CAMEX and digital course materials

Publisher's Weekly had an article this week on CAMEX and the emphasis on a future of online business, including digital course materials. The article briefly captures some of the current initiatives underway within NACS Media Solutions and its partners.

CAMEX questions answered: market share versus margin

As promised, over the next few weeks, I will answer questions CAMEX attendees wrote on index cards during my session. I have a few dozen cards, and some of the questions are redundant.

Looking across the questions submitted, they appear to fall into a few categories: rental, DRM, NACS/NMS initiatives, market share versus margin, facilitating change on campus and/or integrating with campus better, inventory questions, and then a few others. There are a number of good questions, and more than a couple without simple answers.

I will aim to answer 1-3 of the questions here each Friday until I have completed them all, so check back weekly to see if I have answered your question(s). This week I will answer one of the "market share versus margin" questions. If you have additional questions you would like to pose, please post a comment or drop me an email.

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Q1. Can you elaborate on the importance of focusing on market share rather than margin?
Yes. This is one of my favorite questions -- and lucky for you, I already have an answer prepared. Please see the August issue of InCITE which provides a detailed discussion, with examples and rationale as to why market share is important. This issue of InCITE went out to all NACS store members, and received a fair amount of positive feedback. Normally, the InCITE discussion is about 1-2 pages in length, but this one is a bit longer, giving detailed elaboration on this important topic. I believe it will help answer your question, and give you a resource you can share with your administration or other store employees to help them understand why certain actions or changes in business practice are necessary.

E-textbooks in California K-12: Video

This is the video to accompany the prior post.

E-textbooks in California K-12

Here is a recent article in EdWeek on eTextbooks in Riverside, California K-12. One of the interesting aspects of the article is the focus on pilots and experiments, and the lessons learned. The article describes some of the challenges K-12 has in building digital course material initiatives, including: money for infrastructure to deliver digital textbooks and the tools students need to access them, political support to change polices around textbook adoption, and perceived quality differences of digital versus print as learning media. Approaches that are device agnostic are seen as critical.

On the flip side, the use of digital is believed to increase 1-on-1 learning time and student engagement. As one teacher notes: “It’s not about digitizing a textbook as it exists now,” he says, but using technology to improve the learning experience."

The article is accompanied by a good short video on e-textbooks in K-12. The embedded code was not working properly, so I have autogenerated a separate post with the video.

E-Book Revolution More of an Evolution on Campus

Sales figures of Kindles and iPads, along with exploding numbers of e-book titles over the last year, suggest the long-predicted e-book revolution is finally here. But this Campus Technology article says the digital textbook market may be more of an evolution, with students, teachers, and publishers working on solutions to combine value, convenience, and low cost.

Matt MacInnis, co-founder and CEO of e-book publisher Inkling, says digital course materials lag behind because the current model replicates a print book rather than integrating all of the available technology, such as audio, video, and animation. Others view high-tech gadgetry as a bonus, while firms such as CourseSmart and Flat World Knowledge—also featured in the article—provide solutions that can work now.

Studies by NACS and others have shown that while digital book sales are on the rise, a large majority of college students continue to prefer the printed textbook so the tipping point isn’t here yet. In the meantime, publishers have to decipher the best way to deliver course content at a price point acceptable to students.

Tablet wars: IPad vs Xoom

David Pogue, NYTimes Technology blogger frequently has interesting posts. Last week he had an interesting post reviewing the new Motorola Xoom tablet -- a potential competitor to the iPad. The article covers the features of the Xoom as they compare to the iPad - -from price and cameras, to connectivity, speed and display quality.

The Xoom is also one of the first (the first??) tablet to use Google's new 'Honeycomb' software. David's review is interesting -- pointing out both the plusses and minuses of the first iteration of the Android-based tablet operating system. Always interesting -- the specific apps discussed in comparison include e-book reading.

If you are interested in the tablet market, Pogue's piece is a good one to read for product comparison.