News:Rewired -- valuable digital lessons for the book trade

Since its launch in January this year, I have been a 'serial' delegate at the News Rewired events (hashtag #newsrw  on Twitter) aimed at online journalists and anyone working in the digital field. Last December I went to event no.3, which was about building a brand and digital products to support and share content.

A link-by-link coverage can be found here, including reactions from delegates, and video footage of all sessions taken by the BBC College of Journalism are now available on YouTube.

To avoid repeating what dozens of other delegates have already blogged about in the journalism context, I will focus this post on what I learned at News:Rewired form the point of view of a publishing professional.

Doherty and C Words
Anthony Thornton , group digital editor at IPC Meda, talked about building a community, although 'building' sounds like a misnomer, since he says communities do not need to be built – they are out there already on the Internet, or they are people who just need to be connected and gathered into a community.

And how?

According to Thornton, there are four Cs to be followed:

• Connection - go out and link out to people
• Conversation - engage in a conversation, don't just host a forum
• Consultation - ask what people are thinking about something
• Collaboration - get people to help you with what you have built

He illustrated with his own success story of how his 2006 book on Pete Doherty's band, The Libertines Bound Together (Little Brown), ended up in eigth place in the coveted Sunday Times' Top 10 bestsellers' list, despite his publisher's naught marketing spend.

Thornton set up a page to promote the book on MySpace [today it would probably have been on Facebook] (Connection), ran tailored competitions for the band's fans, formed and interacted with a community of 1700 followers (Conversation).

He then persuaded his editor to allow readers to decide the book's cover design (Consultation); even the book's appendix was fact-checked by a number of key fans and 'influencers', who having been involved themselves, recommended it to others (Collaboration).

Going native
Thornton's success could have been partly down to the fact that The Libertines' fans already had a strong active online presence; even so I was delighted to hear how a little creativity on a non-existent budget went such a a long way in boosting the sales of a book.

As a digital enthusiast, I am surprised we do not hear more stories like this on a daily basis. After all...

(Image borrowed from James Lowery's presentation at News:Rewired on search optimisation for B2B and specialist media.)

Whether they have even heard of e-books or not, there is no denying consumers are spending more and more time online and not only through computers. In the age of Internet and information overload, attention spans are known to be shorter, reading habits hugely fragmented. But even those who don't have time to read books or newspapers, do find time to surf the Net on the go on their smartphones and iPads.

In order to get the attention of those time-poor but digitally savvy readers, and retain their custom, publishers should be learning to speak a language they can relate to, foreign as it may seem.

Forget discussions on iPad apps versus e-readers, debates about Google, Amazon and the agency model. They make great topics for forums and conferences for publishing types, but the average reader is hardly likely to be interested in what pricing issues are making book people hot under the collar. What readers seek, what all consumers seek, is added value for money – not only BOGOFs.

Social media sells brands
A valuable message I keep hearing at News:Rewired was that whatever the product, online exposure do help sell, and with minimum to naught PR cost involved.

A recent article in The Economist about public relations explained that, as mainstream media start to play less of a central role as the traditional gatekeepers of news, the value of their advertising slots also decrease for the PR man.

It is interesting that Nike, which, like Apple, is known as a brand so strong that it came to represent a certain type of lifestyle, uses both paid ads in mainstream media as well as Facebook, where, when I last looked, 3.5 million people had "liked" its page.

Anne Gregory, professor of public relations at Leeds Metropolitan University, however, explains that few PR firms run social-media-only campaigns. She told the Economist:

"All that is happening is that social-media elements are being added to traditional marketing plans."

So, a bit of the old, a bit of the new.

Nothing prevents publishers from taking a leaf out of Nike's book and maximising returns through free PR on social media outlets, building and managing an online community of 'likers' and 'followers'. There is of course the good old blogosphere, micro-blogging sites such as Twitter, plus a myriad of other social networking sites, but every publisher also has a website that serves as a portal to its products.

The questions that remain are: is that portal open wide enough and how many visitors are actually coming back?

Retention vs. acquisition

There are far worse things than paywalls to stop people from wanting to access what you have to show them, and that is a site which is closed to the outside world, a site that does not engage, invite participation or acknowledge users as a member of the community.

Joanna Geary, keynote speaker at News:Rewired, was inspirational in confirming the old sales motto that "the customer is king". Geary is communities editor at The Times, which is currently under a paid-for subscription model. From her days as a business journalist at The Birmingham Post, she was uncomfortable with the fact that an article's only measure of success was whether your editor was pleased with it. There was something missing: the reader.

Her new business strategy at The Times was based on engaging and building 'relationships' with the reader, something journalists are not accustomed to. Amassing numbers of what she calls 'eyeballs', or unique visitors to the site, for the sake of the advertisers, is less important than identifying and retaining those repeat customers/readers with a tribal sense of loyalty, she says.

The Times Online may have gone behind a paywall but Geary says there is now stronger loyalty among their regular readers, who keep traffic to the site stable. They feel they own and belong to the site they have to paid to get into, so they keep coming back. The site has become a place where community members meet to have grown-up conversations with each other. That makes sense.

You can see the video footage of Jo Geary' talk below, courtesy of the BBC College of Journalism.

Enhanced interacti..on
If building and servicing your community can keep readers loyal to a newspaper, why should it not be equally effective in the publishing industry? Imagine a book club type of space, where fans of an author could feed back impressions, write their own reviews, exchange recommendations on what to read next.

What if every book you bought came with a unique code that allowed you entry into such literary chat rooms? Similar fan sites may already exist for certain authors or product lines, but what about transforming entire pages within publishers' websites into community pages, where a staff member(s) in a sales/marketing+creative/editorial combination role could regularly talk with, not 'at', its public? Would it not make commissioning jobs easier, sell more books, create more buzz, keep readers feeling they are part of the tribe, and ultimately, loyal to the publisher's brand?

The really good news for cash-strapped publishing houses is that none of these possibilities require more than a good web developer and a personable community manager.

Conclusions

• Passive content creation and static, one-way PR are a thing of the past. Publishers of content, be it facts or fiction, ought to take heed and start re-evaluating their roles. Why shouldn't curated information be part of the creative process? 
• While UK publishers are obsessing about the future of digital books en masse, not enough are actively seeking to understand the 'lingo' the future consumers of digital products speak. What better way of doing that than reaching out for your own niche community in the online world?
• It is not what you sell but 'how' you sell it that will give you an edge in the future.

The News Rewired event may have been about digital tools and processes, but, as Neil Perkin, founder of digital and media consultancy Only Dead Fish, wisely said, we should not forget that ultimately...

 "It's not about the technology; it's about the people." 

A good place to start.

International Women's Day: some random thoughts

Today is International Women’s Day, a day for remembering and celebrating the achievements of women past, present and future.

The fact that there isn’t an International Man’s Day seems like an indication that women have always had it much harder than men to get to the same places.

Men certainly seem to dominate the upper echelons of print and broadcast journalism and although some of my favourite journalists are in fact female, their careers seem to be generally blighted by sexism and ageism, which get better or worse, depending on what the part of the world they work in.

Age concerns
It wasn't that long ago that BBC boss Mark Thompson came under fire for replacing a mature female judge in a popular dance show with a pop star 36 years her junior.

The fact that in television, older, grey-haired male presenters carry on commanding respect well into their retirement age, whereas their female counterparts get sidelined as their age starts to show, could be a reflection of a society's warped views about women, and not exclusive to the industry.

Women's value and employability should not be conditional to age or appearance, but women in highly "visible"jobs such as television or film, do not always have a choice.

Anna Ford (photo right), a journalist worshipped by her male peers as something nearing a sex goddess in her heydays, decided to retire in April 2006, at 62, saying:

"I might have been shovelled off into News 24 to the sort of graveyard shift.”

But I am placing my bets we would be perfectly happy to accept a geriatric Paxman on a zimmerframe presenting Newsnight.

The BBC announcing the recruitment of “older female newsreaders” soon after the Strictly Come Dancing judge swap saga, strikes me as being laughable. I can visualise a screaming headline: “Older women join ethnic minorities and the disabled under positive discrimination scheme.” Or, more bluntly, as The Independent put it: Must be Female. Young Need Not Apply.

The future is not orange
The very idea that women are so vulnerable they need to be placed in a special category of their own is preposterous.

I worked for many years in publishing and have always been outraged by the existence of the Orange Prize for Fiction, a literary prize awarded solely to women. Some might say it provides women authors with an extra opportunity to have their work recognised. My view is that it implies women writers are so lacking in talent that competing for the Man Booker Prize alone doesn't suffice.

It is most unfortunate that the current sponsors of the unisex Man Booker Prize are an investment company called Man Group, giving the prize its present name. Had they not decided to retain the “Booker” from its original name, Booker-McConnell Prize, the country's most prestigious literary prize for fiction would simply be called Man Prize.

It is ironic when you think women read more fiction than men.

Too many women spoil the broth
Publishing may be a sub-sector under the media umbrella, and pay equally poorly at entry level, but unlike in print and broadcast journalism, women reign in the world of books .

In an industry known for the predominance of female workers it is not uncommon for women to climb their career ladders to become directors and publishers in their 30s and 40s. A female-dominated industry can make it easier for women to break the glass ceiling; it may even offer better working conditions, such as flexitime for working mothers and good maternity leave terms, but publishing also has its drawbacks.

For young, single female workers hoping to meet future partners at a book fair or book launch party, the prospects of finding an eligible bachelor among the married and gay men are dire. Let's put it this way: book fairs and book launch parties are not exactly a speed dating scene.

Had I known this in my early 20s, I might have chosen journalism sooner. The idea of being able to approach an intellectual-looking sub in a newsroom to consult about the correct use of commas is a major turn-on compared to the girls' club that publishing is.

Women in uniforms
Some women-dominated professions seem to deceptively put them in a position of power, when they are the ones most susceptible to malicious exploitation.

I am thinking of nurses and flight attendants. The uniform makes them look as if they were in a position of control, and yet they are less threatening to men than an executive woman in a power suit. This seems to enhance their sex appeal.

Perhaps you will remember Virgin Airlines' 25th anniversary "Still red hot" TV advert. A group of model-like gorgeous flight attendants march down the airport with the pilot, wearing the airline’s red suit – short skirts and red pin heels – while men ogle, drop phones and hamburger fillings in astonishment. The ad concludes with a passenger saying, “I need to change my job,” and the other “I need to change my tickets.” Despite complaints that it was sexist and insulting to women, the Advertising Standards Authority dismissed them, saying the ad was " unlikely to be seen as a realistic depiction of the profession", as reported in The Guardian.

We may be well aware real-life stewardesses don't actually dress or walk like the ones in the Virgin ad, but it does add fire to some people's fetishist fantasies.

Flight attendants working for Japan Air Lines (JAL), the bankrupt airline recently rescued by the Japanese government, are facing not only the risk of losing their jobs but the double humiliation of having security chips sewed on to their uniforms to prevent them from selling them to the black market when they've been laid off. The story was broken by Sky News and appeared in The Times, The Telegraph and the The Daily Mail.

Last week the carrier announced 400 cabin crew jobs would be axed, and the local sex industry was already going into a frenzy to lay their hands on their uniforms for customers keen on role-playing. A JAL suit on online auction sites are said to be selling for thousands of pounds. Go figure.

Bras on fire
Is there a solution to women being exploited, patronised or sidelined because they look too sexy, too vulnerable or too old? Should we be stomping off to Westminster to burn our bras in front of Parliament like the feminists of the 60s? What would we achieve? What do we want to achieve?

I guess no single answer can sum it all up, as each woman has her own battle to fight. For some, it may be as basic as learning how to write their name so they can access better opportunities (65% of the world's illiterate population are women). There is still so much work to be done.

Whatever it is that may be constricting women from achieving their right to achieve, be it a brasserie they can easily unhook, or a social stigma or discrimination that are harder to undo overnight, today is a day for reviewing milestones past before we set goals for the future.

The long path already travelled, makes us what we are today, collectively, for we women are more powerful than we imagine.

As Alice Walker said:

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."