Digital Publishing: the book no longer the center of the universe

For those of you interested in developments regarding digital distribution of book content, I thought you might find this article interesting. The Rights Community will address this article and related issues at PubU.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6606350.html?nid=2286=title=1438369936

I welcome any comments or thoughts.

Brian Flagler
brian@flaglerlawgroup.com

Thinking Differently About Marketing

The line-up for this year's Marketing/Sales track will bring three people to the table who I don't think have EVER spoken to or attended an ECPA event. All three will share well-researched and valuable insights from their own particular field of endeavor and my hope is that their perspectives will spark some ideas you can take back your publishing house.

Here are some little known facts about the speakers:

• David Crace - who will share insights into building brands around a person based on his experience as the top marketing guy at EMI Christian Music Group, comes from the family that invented Liquid Smoke.

• Ira Mayer - who will help connect dots between entertainment marketing and Christian book publishing, was at the club in Greenwich Village when and where Kris Kristofferson met Rita Collidge.

• Eric Holmen - who will provide some very practical insights into the growing world of mobile marketing, once quit a job in the Christian products industry to "go sell shovels."

I'm looking forward to facilitating all this and helping you think differently about your marketing and sales efforts.

Deadlines are Looming

The PUBu blog has been mostly silent for a while now, but that is not a sign of a lack of activity. No, in fact our Community Leaders are soon running up against a deadline to have all of their presenters lined up for this year's event. That means that we have been having some interesting discussion centered around content. Take these ideas for a session on the finances behind publishing from Brian Flagler, who is leading the Rights community for the third consecutive year:

"The presentation could be focused on 4-6 aspects of the economics of publishing that are not often understood by publishing executives. Meaning, we could take 4-6 financial/economic “problems” and work through how to understand the issues and how to apply to a fact pattern. For example, how to read/create a book pro forma to compute the royalty rate to offer to an author. How to compare $1 of sub rights revenue against $1 of net sales revenue. Handling returns in acquisitions. Evaluating consignment versus traditional sales on terms. These are just a few ideas."

I also had a great discussion with David Webb of B&H Pubishing Group today. He is leading the content development for the Editorial community along with one of their acquisitions editors Karen Ball (also a popular novelist). He tells me that they have some great ideas up their sleeve. Things are shaping up!

What's With Those Stock Photos?

Okay, so I think I am pretty hip with my jazzy new presentations and cool blog with the nice photos. But, improvement is always welcome right? So, Scott Schwertley, over at Ethos3 Communications (and a PUBu presenter from 2007), just published this great prez on choosing the right stock imagery -

| View | Upload your own

Content Update

The community leaders have been hard at it already. Here is a quick look at what we are working on for 2008.

For the Sales & Marketing group we are looking at a session dealing with mobile phone content delivery and new forms of tech-based marketing. We will also be addressing the growing trend of book-based Christian movies in Hollywood as well as how to compete for discretionary consumer dollars in an expanding media market. Also, there could be a presentation on the author-as-a-brand.

In the Rights area there will be content focused on digital rights from Brent Dennison of Zondervan. Also, there will be a session on new media and rights issues surrounding them.

For Technology, we have a whole host of ideas. I think one of those ideas is taking shape around digital content distribution as well as digital content conversion and the tools that are in the market place.

That is it for now. Will let you know as more develops.