Almost Live, From the Cutting Edge of Publishing

The reports I'm getting indicate that the Publishing Business Conference today in New York was bubbling with new ideas, new ventures, and even a few new words.

"Content is king-er than ever," several tweeters quoted one speaker as saying. Others tweeted "re-assetizing" and "transclusion" as additions to publishing's language. Or should I say "languages," since the conference is a mashup of book, magazine and web publishers?

Here are some of the most insightful tweets I've plucked from conference goers who used the hashtag #PBC13:

• Hearst email database has 10 million addresses. Do any traditional book publishers have even 1 million?
• Near full screen mobile ads interspersed every few pages get 10-12x click thrus than web
• Today, everyone is a publisher. And, everyone is a marketer. It's how well you do each that differentiates you from the pack.
• You can't collaborate effectively with Word files and email
• Brook's Law: Adding people to a late project makes it later
• We're making a transition to mobile. Sometimes we're dragging advertisers with us.
• Both HuffPost and Livingly reporters are writing, video, coding, If you had to wait for engineer, too late. 
• "We're in the midst of a renaissance for content" publishers. "This gloom & doom stuff is BS."
• the "network" book - the book is dynamically, incrementally updated as people add notes to it
• Authentic, personal, and live event video cuts through the noise. Nothing longer than 2 min.
• “If you're looking to make money, your point of purchase shouldn't be covered in barbed wire."
• Ebooks a stalking horse for print. How much sell b4 go to print? $1,000
• The more you narrow yr focus, the more people you reach. No one book is for 'everyone'
•  "Don't do what everyone else in your industry's doing." 
•  no such thing as a solo entrepreneur or innovator hire/partner to complement your weaknesses - true true true!! 
• Successful innovation is solving a problem in a new way. 
• What My Mom Wants To Know About #eBooks: Why are there errors in the eBook that aren't in the printed copy of the same book? 
• When will publishers realize they don't make books anymore? They make content destined for containers" (books, #eBooks, web, apps). 
•  "The future is knowing about your customers and giving them what they want." Data helps, but it's not the future, always been true. 
• Most of us judge reliability of info by how good it looks. We're moving back to traditional sources. 
• While Google is one of the biggest polluters with all those servers, digital has the appearance of being green 
• "Irony: most successful magazine ever was focused on what's on television." (That's a reference to TV Guide, I assume.)
•  "A newspaper reader who dies isn't replaced by a new reader. 
•  "Reading no longer linear nor static" good mantra for the future

Settling the Great 'What Is A Magazine?' Debate

The definition of “magazine” and whether a magazine must be a printed product have been favorite topics of discussion, and debate, among publishing folks in recent years.

Publishing pundits BoSacks and Mr. Magazine have been sparring over the issue for years at various events and via social media (as described in Print vs. Digital: The Great Mr. Magazine vs. BoSacks Tweet-Off). I’m sure when they appear together at the Publishing Business Conference next week that they’ll put on the gloves once again – and that it will be quite a show.

But, for me, a circulation colleague recently put an end to the debate with a straightforward answer: “I don't care where you read it – print, tablet, laptop, or a big tattoo on your momma’s backside – if it counts toward ratebase, it’s a magazine.” (A more polite version of that quotation appears in my new article for Publishing Executive, 6 Things Magazine Publishers Should Stop Doing Now. Oh well, it’s not the first time I’ve been censored by PubExec’s editors.)

I’m still a print guy and mostly read magazines and newspapers in their dead-tree versions. And I’ve heard friends in the industry grumble about how the hype about tablet magazines isn’t paying off and that Apple Newsstand is even more dysfunctional than the real newsstand system.

But none of that matters. The point is that only one thing counts – whether we satisfy and even delight our customers, be they readers or advertisers. If we have readers who want our “paginated content” in digital form and advertisers who are willing to pay for those eyeballs, who are we to argue about whether that digital product is a real magazine?

For further reading:

• Is Ratebase the Magazine Industry's Crack Cocaine? explains what ratebase is -- and why so many in the publishing industry detest it. I feel their pain but haven't heard of a viable alternative. 
• Bezos Needs To Learn the First Rule of Newspaper Ownership scored a dubious hat trick: Three cyber-friends -- BoSacks, Denis Wilson of Publishing Executive, and Jim Sturdivant of Media Shepherd -- castigated me for focusing too much on pleasing advertisers rather than readers. But at least noted publishing consultant Alex Brown left a comment defending me, stating "the sweet, rosy, unicorn-filled future of publishing as something that readers/viewers will sustain has more cracks in it than we have mortar to patch."  
• A Troubling Sign for Tablet Magazines? Maybe their time will come, but so far tablet versions of magazines have been a disappointment for most publishers. Even tablet owners prefer to read magazines in print.

It's Time To Put the Content-Marketing Snake Oil Back Into the Bottle

A magazine-publishing colleague sent me this rant that I thought was worth sharing:

I know you’re impressed by the content being put out by some non-publishers, but it’s time to put a halt to the snake oil and Kool-Aid being handed out in the name of “content marketing.” Some marketers are losing all sense and perspective.

I got word that a big ad agency wanted to talk to my publishing company about content marketing for its financial services client, so I set up a call with a team at the agency. Their specific task is to promote the client’s “529” college savings plans.

“We love your content about how parents can save and invest money,” the team leader said. No surprise there, since some of our advertisers like to promote their 529 plans adjacent to articles geared to parents.

”OK, are you interested in using the articles on a web site or in other media?” I asked.

“Oh, we don’t want to publish the articles, we just want to link to them from the client’s Facebook page, and the legal department wants us to get your permission.”

A quick look at the Facebook page showed there was already a link to one of our articles that fell squarely into the “fair use” category. Only a paranoid corporate lawyer, or outside counsel trying to keep the meter running, would ask for written permission to publish such links.

Seeing that there was no money to be made from licensing our articles to the agency’s client, I took a different tack: “Since we have so many articles that are relevant to your client’s target audience, have you considered running ads adjacent to such articles?”

“Oh, the client has no budget for media buys,” came the response.

OK, I get it. The client is spending probably north of $100,000 for a high-priced agency to create a Facebook page that has fewer than 2,000 “likes,” even though the only real people who “like” a bank’s FB page are bank employees and retards. [Editor’s note: I apologize for my friend’s slur against the mentally handicapped. I know several mentally retarded people, and none of them are stupid enough to waste time on Facebook.]

And the purpose of the page is not to drive traffic to the client’s web site but instead to web pages that advertise competing 529 plans. Meanwhile, the client is spending not a penny to promote its own products. Brilliant!

A simple explanation: Stupidity
There’s a simple explanation for what my colleague experienced: The client has been reading the work of too many content-marketing experts (who a year ago were social-media experts and two years ago were SEO experts). It asked the agency for three things: 1) Social media: Check. 2) Content marketing: Check. 3) No paid media (AKA advertising): Check. Never mind that the agent isn't supplying any content or doing anything that passes as marketing.

Yes, I'm impressed by some of the web sites and publications that non-publishers have created (See The Content Marketing Craze: 7 Ways Publishers Can Fight Back), but most of what passes for content marketing these days is crap.

Fortunately, some brands are jumping off the bandwagon and realizing that good content isn’t free. You either have to pay professionals (and I don’t mean that intern in the PR department) to create it, or you have to pay someone else for content that was created by their professionals (such as magazine writers and editors).

These brands are also realizing that just because they build it -- and post it, and tweet it, and like it --  doesn't mean people will come. Their wonderful content will not “go viral” unless they spend money inviting relevant consumers to see that content. In other words, unless they advertise.

Related articles about content marketing from Dead Tree Edition and other sources, with pithy quotes from each:

• Publishing Without Profits: What's Behind the Content Marketing Craze?: "There's no bigger sucker than a gullible marketer convinced he's missing a trend." 
• How Google Is Becoming the Magazine Industry's New Best Friend: "Content marketing could become a real threat to traditional publishers, except right now most of it sucks."
• Brands Should Stop Trying To Be Publishers:"Don't buy the hype that every brand must be a publisher. Remember that your brand is a brand. . . . You don't measure success based on engagement the way publishers do; you measure success based on sales.” 
• The Content Con:“The vast majority of content ‘providers’ will produce nothing but drivel that no one will pay a moment's attention to.” 
• Brands Are Shelling out to Amplify Positive Press: “Marketers see third-party content as more valuable [than their “owned” content]. Publishers have an authoritative voice. It’s about validation.”

Publishing Wisdom From Across the Pond

British blogger David Hepworth published a pithy comment yesterday that rings true here in the Colonies: "There are lies, damned lies and circulation figures but if you want to know how healthy a magazine is, look at how cheaply you can buy a sub."

He added the comment to his article, The gob-smacking "sales" figures of Rolling Stone, which includes this insightful statement:

"All circulation figures involve a certain amount of smoke and mirrors but American figures are more opaque than ours. The overwhelming majority of copies are on subscription and most of those are sold at a risibly low price in order to secure the number of readers the publishers need to deliver to the advertisers."

Some translations are in order for my fellow Americans: "Gob-smacking" means astonishing -- so surprising that the person is speechless. "Risibly" means "laughably." And "circulation" is actually a way to make money on your content instead of just delivering eyeballs for your advertisers.