Saturday, July 28, 2012

Publishers Launch - Andrea Fleck-Nisbet - Workman Publishing

These are my continuing notes from the Publishers Launch conference held on 7/26.

Changed the title management system. It was previously in FileMaker which had its issues (slow and buggy) which were partly because it was used in seven different offices across the country.

Strongly considered switching to FireBrand but settled on Thomas Allen & Sons which had a web based system. Because of Thomas' small size they were very attentive and willing to customize.

The implementation took one year for the Book Connect & Book One systems.

There was complexity because they have 7 to 8 ISBNs for every title (they need these to support the various eBook formats).

Workman supports a custom ONIX files for each retailer with pertinent ISBNs. The reps love this.

Started the implementation with a best practices manual for editorial to handle title management (data management) better.

Web based offered:
* mobile access
* no cost per user
* ease of training new people
* easy management of remote access for freelancers

Workman also uses Collection Point and DropBox for flexibility.

Publishers Launch - Alfredo Santana - Wiley

These are my continuing notes from the Publishers Launch conference held on 7/26.

Permissions are the original micro-transaction.

Challenges with old permission systems:


  • mystery of ownership
  • time consuming process
  • small per-transaction profit
  • lots of freebies offered 


  • The last two above make you question if it is worth it.

    Repurposing of content has driven permissions demands from ad-hoc to systematic, from low accountability to high accountability, from low profit to high profit. 

    There was a dedicated and trained staff with an internal system connected to subsidiary rights, but they were detached from the customer. 

    Goals for RightsLink:


  • improve customer service
  • be trusted (which the CCC (Copyright Clearance Center) offers automatically)
  • integrate seamlessly with existing DB and eCommerce site
  • tailored to Wiley's business rules and licensing terms
  • customizable messages, redirect, STM rules
  • retains publisher/publication branding throughout 

  • They set priority for journals as first product because of the volume of the requests; next was online books, and finally print books. Different product lines had different sets of rules. 

    The entire process was 10 months, largely because of the number of products, rules and guidelines. 

    Worked closely with editorial and marketing to choose which titles were included. IT provided metadata feeds and cover images. Legal group drafter terms and conditions documents for the site. Coordinated world wide.

    Offered customer self service. RightsLink had the following benefits:
    • immediate clearance (within a few minutes)
    • directly from point of content or title
    • quick and intuitive made it very easy to use
    • available 24/7
    • secure online payment (no worries for Wiley about someone having bad credit -- that is handled by RightsLink)
    • user can purchase across multiple publishers in one transaction (more appealing for a customer to have wide selection rather than just Wiley)
    • the site is transparent to the user -- looks just like it is part of the Wiley site
    • a transaction used to take 4 to 6 weeks, now it is instant

    CCC handles:
    • technical issues
    • invoicing
    • payment
    • debt chasing
    • visually impaired access (coming soon)

    There is robust reporting for the business

    200-400% revenue increase in the first year and year-to-year increase of 65%

    Not only has it improved the process, but the number of requests for permissions has increased -- it grew the market.

    The permissions department now has real revenue which has given in clout within the business.

    Smaller amount of staff doing more.

    Publishers Launch - Book Publishing in the Cloud (various speakers)

    Here are my notes from the conference held on 7/26. For some of the speakers I took lengthier notes and have broken those out into other entries.

    A couple themes I noticed at the conference:
    • price scrapping and analysis
    • social listening
    • moving from FileMaker to a SaaS tool


    Michael Cader (Publishers Lunch)

    Workflow: RSS content -> bit.ly -> publn.ch
    Tracks click this way and builds brands

    Uses: widget box (widgets that can run on multiple sites), WordPress, SocialCast (internal communication), Peer1Hosting, Virtual Merchant, MobileStorm


    Ken Michaels (Hachette Book Group)

    Hachette has 18 months in the cloud

    Uses SaaS for email, piracy monitoring, eProcessing, RoyaltyShare, SalesForce.com

    BookRadar offers price & on sale date compliance checking, correct errors & omissions in supply chain, scorecard for vendor performance, manually track titles on vendors sites. Price monitoring offers a view of discrepancies. On sale monitoring finds titles not on sale at the right time. Merchandise placement monitoring shows if the title is on the homepage, a banner, etc and the on/off date along with a screen shot of the actual site with the title.

    Publicity tool: PIP (publicity intelligence platform) - offers easy export of tour feeds for use by third parties (such as the author). The site is divided into Contact Management, List Management, and Campaign Management.

    ChapterShare offers Facebook integration is offered for easy sharing. It gathers data on readers when they read an excerpt or purchase a title.


    Russ Stanton & John Wicker (TATA Consultancy Services TCS)

    The most likely issues a company will have with the cloud:
      1. fear of security
      2. skepticism of ROI

    By 2015 there will be 1 billion tablet users and 3 billion smart phone users. This is half the world population. Are you equipped to handle 4 billion customers?

    You need your content to be product and presentation agnostic, you need to aggregate, and you need big data (velocity, etc.).


    Ted Hill (THA Consulting)

    It's not just SaaS (software as a service), it's also: PaaS - platform as a service IaaS - Infrastructure as a service

    When should IT be involved?
    * more than a few users
    * noticeable amount of money
    * need to push or pull data from another system
    * when IT is helpful

    Don't inhibit things like DropBox, but do use the rules above.

    Check list for using cloud services
    * are IT and management aligned in the build vs. buy decision?
    * ready to contribute to best practices and evolve with your peers?
    * willing to continually train and learn?
    * do you know your content & data?
    * are you thinking strategically rather than tactically?
    * are you willing to simplify?
    * how will the cloud interface with the enterprise?
    * do you have content standards and repositories for both content and metadata?
    * do you know what SLA you need?


    Rick Joyce (Perseus Books Group)

    Perseus has an HTML first workflow and a large North Plains DAM running on Constellation with title status and sales reports on a web portal. They use Crimson Hexagon for social listening.

    Questions to ask when considering cloud:
    * What do we want to be good at?
    * What do we need to own?
    * How stable is the supplier?
    * What is the suppliers development track record and engineering plan for the future?
    * What training, support, trouble shooting does the supplier offer?
    * Does the supplier show ongoing excellence?
    * What data integrity is offered (backups, track record)?
    * What privacy and security is offered?
    * What data integration/interoperability (in/out of data) is offered?
    * What third party needs are there?

    Could is:
    * easy to pilot
    * easy to scale
    * initially a low cost


    Michael Covington (David C Cook)

    Legacy systems bread pockets of "tribal knowledge"

    A service oriented architecture -- where cost and productivity live in harmony

    Created www.christianmanuscriptsubmissions.com
    * a virtual slush pile
    * $99 submission fee
    * offers editorial seal of approval
    * can be mined for "digital first editions"
    * Bowker took it and created their own separate process


    Benefits of SaaS

    • lower upfront
    • scaleable
    • less need for IT
    • better support
    • less "tribal knowledge"

    Problems with SaaS
    • can be rigid (not customizable)
    • can lack security
    • doesn't always play well with others
    • may have bad customer service
    • might not have an SLA

    David C Cook uses
       ERP   JD Edwards
       DAD   FireBrand CS
                   Eloquence
                   NetGalley
                   Ingram
      Sales    SalesForce.com
                   bombBomb
                   MailChimp
                   Cushy CMS
      Production
                   FireBrand
      


    PANEL

    Potential issues with cloud
    * legacy or in house systems can't communicate with cloud system
    * certain customizations can't be done
    * IT frustration with lack of business to IT communication
    * No oversight of who is doing what with SaaS


    Yuvi Kochar (The Washington Post Company)

    Does not offer SLA (a contract of uptime, etc), but instead a guarantee that your data will be transitioned to the next system if the partnership ends. Allowing the customer to move to another supplier so easily is something everyone easily understands and keeps the level of quality better since the supplier knows how easily the customer could leave. A provider is then a commodity not a customer and you treat it as such.