How do you protect your books in the digital age? Tom Evans suggests an alternative approach to thinking about rights.

In case you hadn’t realised before the announcement of the Apple iPad in January, this is the decade of the eReader. The publishing industry is going through a similar transition to that of the music industry in the last decade.

In these days when you can publish direct for ereaders like the Kindle, Cool-er and soon the iPad – or just blog a story – what’s to stop anyone stealing and copying your work illegally?

Or if you submit your novel to a author community site like Authonomy, what’s to stop someone stealing your idea and writing their own book inspired by your theme?

So how do you go about protecting your books in the digital age?

Well if you think about it … you can’t really and it’s not much different from how it has been since Caxton invented the printing press. If you produce a printed book, there is nothing to stop anyone photocopying it. How many times have you borrowed a book and read it and not paid the author or the publisher a penny? How many times did you not give it back to the original owner?

For digital products, you can add password protection but there is nothing to stop someone telling someone else the password. Even if the digital rights management is tied down to a particular computer, as it is for  iTunes, there is nothing to stop people other than the purchaser enjoying the work on that device.

I am sure when you write your book, you didn’t do it in isolation of any influences from other authors, friends, colleagues or teachers.

By far the best way by far to protect your work is to look at your behaviour and modify it so it’s karmically balanced. Now I am not trying to preach here or be holier than thou – this is just good common sense and politeness and I too have fallen foul of not playing by the karmic rule book.

My seven top tips for karmic rights protection

1. Don’t run the fear your work will be copied

2. If you use a quote or concept from another writer, give them some credit in a Thanks section of your work or, at least, list their book in references

3. Be open to your payback coming back in another form other than the sale of your books

4. Don’t steal another writer’s work

5. If you like a book you borrowed, buy a copy or buy another book from the same writer

6. Give loads of stuff away for free

7. Be thankful for everything you receive

_________________________________________________

Related blog – How to Void Karma

Related articles by Zemanta

• Digital Rights Management – A Wrinkle or An Opportunity (booksquare.com)
• Apple and e-book DRM: Will they? Should they? (macworld.com)
• eBooks on the iPad may not be so outlandishly expensive (crunchgear.com)
• Will E-Readers Help Spread Knowledge, Or Wall It Off? Here’s A Scorecard That We Can Use via paidContent (definitiveink.typepad.com)

Contrary to popular belief, small publishers are better placed to survive a recession than their larger competitors, says Jon Reed.

The worst financial crisis in a century, an international banking collapse and global recession: it is enough to make a publisher cry all the way to the bank. But there is a flip side to the doom and gloom:  It is possible to thrive — not just survive — in an economic downturn, especially if you are small, flexible and smart.

In a recession there is an assumption that only the strong survive and to be strong means to be big. But thanks to the Internet, you no longer need to be a big business to be a big hitter. Small publishers can avoid a recession. The reason? Small publishers do well in niche markets. Using low-to-no cost online tools such as blogs, podcasts, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and Second Life, they can tap into existing communities of interest and share their passions affordably, effectively, and authentically.

Great leveller
Independents are enthusiastic about social media marketing, with good reason. Paul Davighi,  marketing manager for I.B.Tauris, says: “Social media levels the playing field between media  giants and independents, since the scope and quality of the relationship between publisher and consumer can be the same for both.”

It is possible to shun traditional marketing completely. Chris Hamilton-Emery, director of Salt Publishing, says: “since focusing on the web our sales increased 72% in 2007 and in 2008 trade sales rose 66%. We do no other forms of marketing now, so that increase can only be down to our web presence. Getting the web right is — in our view — a key business competency now.” Salt’s website gets 1.6 million hits a month — and in the notoriously difficult business of poetry publishing. It works because poetry has a niche audience.

In the so-called “attention economy”, people spend more time online. And, if we buy books online shouldn’t they be marketed there too? Furthermore, using the new online tools can raise your profile while keeping costs under control.

More is more
In a recession, the first instinct of a large corporation is to slash marketing. Yet less marketing never leads to more sales. A recession is no time to cut back on marketing activities, but you may be able to cut your marketing budget at the same time as reaching out to new customers.

For a small press, online tools provide cheap and egalitarian access to markets. Andrea See,  marketing executive for Canongate, says: “Because we spend less money on big budget ad campaigns and are directly in touch with our readers at a grassroots level, any future budget cuts will have less of an impact on our marketing activity than they might do at a corporate publisher.”

Blogging works well because it’s “free, genuine and real”, according to Will Atkinson, chair of the Independent Publishers Guild, a UK trade body with over 480 members. A book launch in Second Life is cheaper than in real life. It costs nothing but a few minutes to set up a Facebook group, page or event.

The time commitment to some tools may be greater than corporates can endure, but many small presses are motivated enough to put in the hours. Jan Fortune-Wood, founder of Cinnamon Press, says: “Cinnamon Press is ours, not something we ‘work for’, so giving it the extra hours demanded by these tools is integral to what we love doing rather than an add-on to an already busy job.”

It is important to involve authors, and many are more than happy to be asked. Again, when it comes to blogging, independents tend to do better than their corporate rivals because social media is a personal medium. “A small independent has a more authentic and individual voice and a large conglomerate,” Canongate’s Andrea See says.

But authors handle social media better than anybody. While many big publishers don’t even know if their authors have blogs, independents do and are keen to exploit them. In 2008 to the Independent Alliance of publishers, led by Faber & Faber and including Quercus, offered blogging workshops to their authors.

Iain Millar,  Marketing manager at Quercus, says: “Where authors have distinctive voices or are involved in niche subjects,  blogs tend to work very well. Jonathan Black, the author of our esoteric non-fiction book The Secret History of the World built up quite a following on his 2008 blog and it really made an impact on sales.”

Community building
Social media is a commitment rather than a marketing tactic, and those publishers who make the time and have the enthusiasm make it work. It’s about building relationships — something independents have always handled well. “Independents find and create genuine communities”, Faber’s Atkinson says. “They talk to them.”

See agrees:  “The fact that we have already developed relationships at this level as a primary strategy gives us an advantage over larger publishers who might use it as a fallback when budgets are cut.” Canongate can be found on most social networking sites, but is currently focusing efforts on its online community site, Meet at the Gate.

One online community with a surprising number of independents is a virtual world Second Life, whose residents include Canongate, Snowbooks, Cinnamon Press, Flying Pen Press and eHarlequin.  Niches such as poetry, romance and erotica do particularly well in this global, online community, as author and fiction editor at Bluechrome Adele Ward explains: “Second Life can be very low cost or free to use, yet any small publisher with a presence becomes known across the SL writing and reading community very quickly.”

Ward, known as Jilly Kidd in Second Life, is something of a virtual community organiser, facilitating much of the writing and publishing activities in-world (SL jargon for the things that happen in its virtual world), including hosting ‘Meet an Author‘, a chat show on the SL television station SLCN.  She tells The Deal: “I want to help publishers out during the recession and the independents will certainly be among the ones I’ll be very keen to give free space. That is an advantage to being small – we help each other out.” It’s hard to imagine such touchy-feely attitudes among the big publishers.

WHAT MAKES YOU SPECIAL?
A recession can be brutal. It compresses business evolution into a mercilessly short space of time. It is no time to be average. Think carefully about your USP, your core strengths, your niche and your communities of interest. Adjust your positioning if necessary. A small business can adapt, change, reposition more effectively than a big one. If you’ve got what people want, you can do well. And if you haven’t, you may struggle. Follow the money, and focus your sales and marketing efforts on those products people want. The market is always right.

EIGHT WAYS TO MONETISE YOUR WEBSITE
Your website is usually a marketing tool to promote your books, build relationships with readers and reach new ones. But how can you make it work harder for you?

1. Advertising. Google AdSense of matches ads to your site’s content and you earn whenever visitors click them. Easy to set up, harder to make real cash without a dizzying amount of traffic.
2. Sponsorship. Sell airspace on your podcast for relevant audio ads.
3. Affiliate accounts. The obvious one is Amazon Associates, but other schemes, including Commission Junction, might be suitable for products related to your books.
4. Premium content. Always keep some of your content free, but offer an additional tier of content — articles, audio or video — that is available only by subscription or membership.
5. Paid posts.  Charge people to post on your blog. The format lends itself to adverts for jobs or events, and you can charge via PayPal using a WordPress plug-in.
6. Monetise your feed. Use Feedburner to include ads in your RSS feed.
7. Merchandise. Depending on your business, you may be able to develop merchandise and sell it on line.
8. Donations. Not for everyone, but a ‘tips jar’ is a favourite of many bloggers. It is quick and easy to set up a simple donation button at PayPal.

The London book trade tweeted up again last night, at #twinter – a successor to #tweetmas, both organized by @benjohncock and @samatlounge of @thebookseller. Social media socialites from across the publishing industry were drawn to Belsize Park’s XO for gossip, drinks and networking. Once again, @missdaisyfrost was in attendance, but as undercover as ever. More and more of the assembled authors, publishers, agents, publicists, journalists, bloggers and other industry folk struck the pose and claimed to be Daisy Frost as the night wore on, culminating in this Spartacus moment. See more of Toby Rhind-Tutt’s (@the_rts) excellent photos of the event on TwitPic or his website.

We can now also reveal that the date of the London Book Fair tweetup, organised by Publishing Talk, has now been confirmed for Tuesday 20th April 2010. It will start in one of the bars inside the Earls Court venue, from 5.30-6.30. We’ll then move on to a local pub. Hashtag and Twtvite to follow. Watch this space for more details, and hope you can join us – either in real life, or vicariously via the hashtag on Twitter.

Meanwhile, if you have an event with a publishing focus you want to publicise (not necessarily in London or the UK!), let us know and we’ll add it to our new Events page.

In a year when the iPod moment for books looks increasingly likely to happen, failure to pass the Digital Economy Bill isn’t a lost opportunity, it’s a tragedy.

Opposition is growing to the UK government’s Digital Economy Bill, which includes a “three strikes and you’re out” clause to deal with Internet piracy. The Guardian reports “strong criticism” within the House of Lords to the plan to cut the Internet access of persistent file-sharers.

These latest objections centre around concern by businesses and institutions, including public libraries, that they could be caught out if the penalties are introduced. An open letter signed by, among others, the British Library, states: “Because public institutions often provide internet access to hundreds or thousands of individual users, the complexity of our position in relation to copyright infringements must be taken into consideration.

“If this is not done, a public institution such as a library, school or university’s internet connection as a whole could be jeopardised, resulting in loss of internet access to large sections of the public, particularly the 15 million citizens without an internet connection at home.”

The news should concern anyone involved in book publishing and distribution, because anything that threatens to slow progress of the bill through parliament means this landmark legislation is unlikely to be passed before the General Election. If that happens the chance of it being introduced by an incoming government are very slim indeed.

Last year John Whittingdale, Conservative MP and chair of the culture, media and sports committee, told me: “If this issue is not tackled before the election, an incoming Conservative government will be confronted with a huge agenda and a stack of manifesto commitments and one would have to say, being realistic, this is unlikely to be a priority.”

With the Tories ahead in the polls, Whittingdale’s prediction looks likely to come true.

In a year when the iPod moment for books looks increasingly likely to happen, failure to pass the Digital Economy Bill isn’t a lost opportunity, it’s a tragedy. Aside from the understandable concerns of access providers, objection to “draconian” punishment centre on the social implications of cutting off net access in a society increasingly dependent on the web.

Well, hello! If it didn’t hurt, it wouldn’t be a punishment.

Let’s get some perspective here. The bill is needed because peer2peer file-sharing poses a very real threat to the global creative economy, including the nascent ebook industry. Piracy has already decimated the music industry – it is responsible for a 30% decline in revenues over the past six years, according to the latest figures from the IFPI, which represents the international recorded music industry.

Those who claim file-sharing is a blow against big business that does not harm small, independent players, should think again. The IFPI’s figures provide a salutary lesson: bore down to local market data and you find that between 2004 and 2009 Spain, which has one of the highest rates of illegal file-sharing in Europe, witnessed sales by local artists in the top 50 drop by an estimated 65%. In France, which recently introduced legislation against pirates similar to that proposed in the UK, local artist album releases fell by 60% over the same period. According to the IFPI, a quarter of France’s internet population downloads illegally

Ah but books are different, you might think. Well, no. A study released last month by Attributor, whose FairShare Guardian service monitors the internet for pirated content, provided startling data on the impact of file-sharing on books. It estimated that publishers were losing as much as $3bn to online book piracy. You didn’t misread that: it said three BILLION dollars, more than the total value of the UK book market. As more readers move to digital formats, that figure will only get worse.

You see, despite the way it is reported, the campaign against online piracy is not just about money. It is about culture, and the ability of smaller players – be they publisher or author – to sustain their work.

If the music industry is anything to go by, it is not the J K Rowlings, Stephanie Meyers or Dan Browns who will suffer if peer2peer file sharing becomes rampant in books. It is the already beleaguered midlist authors, whose work already struggle to find a place in a market dominated by multi-million pound global hitters and celebrities.

Piracy is a huge and growing problem that needs to be tackled now. Objections to the use of harsh penalties for the worst offenders fly in the face of evidence that shows that file-sharing has dropped sharply in countries where account suspension is used as a penalty of last resort.

A government crackdown in Sweden introduced early last year had an immediate impact. Sixty percent of users of file-sharing sites stopped completely or significantly reduced their downloading. The Swedish law demands internet service providers provide copyright holders with details of service users who share files, which opens the way for prosecution.

Britain is only the latest country to follow the Swedish lead. In France tough penalties, including account suspension, have already come into place. Legislation is before the House of Representatives in the US, and the European Parliament is also working on draft legislation to deal with the problem although it is expected to drop plans for account suspension.

If the Digital Economy Bill falls at the last hurdle, Britain will be left behind. And for those of us producing work that other people wish to steal, that will cost us dear.

[Image ©iStockphoto.com/Trebaffetti]

Related articles by Zemanta

• Opposition to Digital Economy bill grows (guardian.co.uk)
• TalkTalk ‘would fight Digital Economy Bill in court’ (telegraph.co.uk)
• IFPI calls for tough online piracy laws (v3.co.uk)
• IFPI: Piracy Bad!!! Government Must Fix Because We Don’t Want To Adapt! (techdirt.com)

Should you find a publisher or publish yourself? Why not be a rock star and do both, asks Anna Lewis.

A frequent question that crops up from writers on my website is: “Should I self-publish or should I send my work to agents and publishers?” The writers are aware of how competitive the traditional route is, but still want to give it a shot. Yet, at the same time they feel like it could be time to take things into their hands. How should they choose which path to take?

My answer is – why not do both? In fact…you should do both, and there are lots of reasons why.

If you were trying to make it in a rock band, you wouldn’t face the dilemma of ‘should I play gigs or try and get signed by record labels?’ You’d be thinking, “I’ll play lots of gigs, record my music myself and send it off to the record labels”. You’d have a MySpace page and do as much as you could to build up your fan base and reputation as a way of drawing attention to the quality of your work and proving that there is a market for it.

So, why not apply the same philosophy to writing?

Have publishers changed their tune when it comes to previously self-published work?
There was certainly ‘sniffiness’ in the past regarding writers who had self-published to try and kick start their careers (despite the fact that the likes of William Blake did this too!) but the game has changed. Publishers such as HarperCollins have started their own initiatives that encourage self-publishing to try and help identify new talent. There are a number of great examples of success stories that show that you can venture out on your own, and then go on to get a publishing deal. Christopher Paolini, Lisa Genova and William P. Young are some examples of authors who have done this.

It can work out better to get your own gigs
It’s also becoming increasingly apparent that publishing deals aren’t necessarily the best option now in any case. Even if you turn out a bestseller, a look at the figures can reveal that it is not always as profitable as you may think. Also, if you have a niche market that you are targeting with your book, you aren’t necessarily going to be more successful, especially in financial terms, by going with a publisher, as web developer-turned-author Peter Cooper discovered.

The publishing industry has changed a lot in the past 10 years – there have been some monumental best-sellers such as ‘Twilight’ and ‘Harry Potter’ and these have had an effect on the way other writers are dealt with. A recent New York Times article, ‘James Patterson Inc‘,  gives a great commentary on just how blockbuster-focused the industry can be. Midlist authors often don’t get a look in. So, if you can use the tools available to you to grow your own network then you could be onto something really special.

Why put it all on pause?
If you are sending in submissions to literary agents and the publishers who accept unsolicited manuscripts, then you could be in for a long wait. It’s not unusual to be waiting many months for a reply – and you won’t always even get one of those!

Instead of worrying and incessantly checking emails, you could be doing something much more exciting…taking destiny into your own hands! Use the time to build up contacts, get feedback and refine your work, learn new skills and find out more about the publishing business. Self-publishing is a great way to do these things.

No financial barrier
It was a bit different when self-publishing a book meant forking out a small fortune to get an expert to prepare the files and have thousands of books printed. However, now the barriers have been broken down and you can start self-publishing with no set-up cost, and no need to spend a long time acquiring specialist technical skills.

Having said that, it is definitely worth putting in some time to learn more about things like blogging, using social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and other reading/writing communities. These tools are very accessible and having experience of using them puts you in good stead for the future. There’s no better music to a marketing manager’s ears than finding an author who already has a network of online contacts and is willing and able to help promote their book.

There’s definitely something to be said for trying both options. At best you’ll end up being in a much more favourable bargaining position, with great marketing potential if you get picked up by a publisher. At worst you’ll know that you have given your best shot at getting a foot in the door the traditional way but have also learned lots of skills and built up a network that you can tap into for your next book release!

So have your cake, eat it – and rock on like those MySpace kids!

[Image ©iStockphoto.com/pascalgenest]

If so, judging by this evening’s Twitter comments, it seems a popular move. But it’s not just the Gok-shaped gap on the sofa that improved things this week. It was having fewer presenters discussing the chosen book more enthusiastically – and being allowed the time to do so.

The first two shows were pre-recorded back-to-back, so this is the first chance they’ve had to respond to feedback. And they have. Nathaniel was great, and Laila was allowed to get a word in. This week’s celebrity guest, Emilia Fox, was there to join in the discussion (which she did – well) rather than plug her memoir. The discussion was more informed and focused on the chosen book.

It also seemed more – well – relaxed. Is that because they’re finding their feet? Or because, following last week’s reported anti-Richard & Judy Effect when book choice sales actually dipped – the weight of sales expectation has been lifted? If so, it’s no bad thing if that allows them to focus on making a good show. A repeat of R&J-volume sales of yesteryear is unlikely in today’s fragmented media world, even with a great show. But if they keep listening to the readers and viewers, this show now has at least the potential to increase book sales and promote reading. Let’s wait and see. But let’s not work ourselves up into the Amanda-Ross-or-bust frenzy we did a few years ago – m’kay?

Meanwhile, a number of Twitter folk have suggested that there are still too many cooks spoiling the books on this show. If you’re one of them, get those nominations in for the next celebrity evictee. Who goes? You decide.

Did you see the TV Book Club? Let us know what you thought.

Since Twitter is such an important part of the Publishing Talk community, we’re including not just our own tweets, but mentions of @publishingtalk on Twitter in a new ‘Chatter’ column on the site. According to the Twitter directory WeFollow, we are now the most influential of 1,600 Twitter accounts about publishing. Our latest job ads will appear more prominently on the home page, and this section will be revamped too.

We will also start charging for job ads from February – but your first ad will remain free (or your next ad if you’re an existing advertiser). Job ads will remain on the site for 30 days, and tweeted. With over 21,000 followers, we have the largest Twitter reach for publishing jobs on the Internet. You can manage them yourself by logging in, or simply email them to us at jobs@publishingtalk.eu. There will also be banner advertising opportunities on the new site.

Finally, you will also be able to announce your publishing events, conferences, workshops and tweetups on the site in our new events section – and this will be free to start with. Just email them to us at events@publishingtalk.eu.

I hope you find the new site a useful resource. Let us know your thoughts, and see you on the other side!

The debate is not about which device is better than the others. It’s about authors and publishers embracing a whole new world of opportunity.

Much has been written over the last 48 hours or so about Apple’s new iPad. Some think it’s the best thing to hit the planet this decade and that it will change the face of publishing. Others are moaning about its bezel and that it doesn’t have a camera. Some are obsessed with the connotations of the word “pad”. Some people should also get a life.

I thought I’d let the dust settle and look at the introduction of the iPad from the perspective of authors and publishers.

As a serial gadgeteer and technophile, even I resisted the temptation to buy an eReader. By the way, when I refer to the Kindle, I am using it generically like Hoover. This applies to the Sony eReader, the Cool-er et al.

As an author, I don’t want an eReader; I want an e-writer too.

The iPad wins hands down on this front. The fact I can surf the Web for research too and Mind Map are other bonuses.

What about battery life and reading it in bright sunlight on a beach? Well I don’t want sand in any of my gadgets and to protect what little street-cred I may have; I’m more comfortable holding a paperback when I get to relax on holiday.

Apple brings more to the party than just screen technology. You get access to the riches borne by an operating system that is 30 years old. Email, word and image processing, calendaring to boot.

The iPad is a boon for a writer.

If all you want to do is read, however, as I predicted in this blog earlier in the year, then ereaders will go sub $100 on eBay this year and this is hard to resist.

With the fabulous e-ink technology, two weeks of battery life is just marvellous. So, if you are a reader and want to dabble in technology, get an ereader.

The biggest opportunity though lies in the user base.

For publishers and authors, the users of the various devices represent a new and growing sales channel.

There are something like 10 million iPhones already with predictions of a further 20 million more this year.

This compares to 2.5 million Kindles and a little less for Sony.

You can even get a Kindle reader for the iPhone which makes things even more complicated for us to get our head around. Will Kindle ever support iBooks though? I think not.

So the smart money is to get as many existing titles in as many formats as possible and to let the user decide how they want to consume the book.

For new titles however, there is a whole new world opening up. From books that can either read to you or be read, or books that contain multimedia elements, Internet content, geo-coded information and merge elements of gaming. Travel books for example will be completely different and contain videos, reviews, local information, the ability to make bookings and the like – all from the app or iBook as they will be known.

So the debate is not about which device is better than the others. It’s about authors and publishers embracing a whole new world of opportunity.

Useful Links:

iPhone stats for 2010

Kindle vs Sony eReader stats

Related articles by Zemanta

• EPUB, iPad and Content Interoperability (blogs.adobe.com)
• Video: Apple unveils iPad (benzinga.com)
• iPad vs. Kindle: It’s go time! (seattlepi.com)
• Why iPad is not automatically a Kindle killer (betatales.com)
• Exhaustive A-Z Coverage of Apple’s iPad Announcement (holykaw.alltop.com)

At its height, the Richard and Judy Book Club (Channel 4, 2004-2008) was responsible for one in four of all books sold in the UK. Producer Amanda Ross was the most powerful person in publishing. A book chosen by her could be catapulted from obscurity to number one in the bestseller list – and stay there. Anointed books would sell 250,000 copies. Millionaire authors were created. Careers were made. Publishers went feral trying to get their books onto Ross’s desk.

Good news for publishers – if your book was picked. Good news for authors – if you made the cut. Less good if your book was overlooked. Especially if it was released during their Summer Reads season.

Although the Richard & Judy Book Club was criticised for having a disproportionate influence on the book market – notably by Mark Lawson – it really amplified and accelerated an existing trade trend of more promotion behind fewer titles. When it ended, some feared it spelled ruin for UK publishing. The industry, somehow, struggled on. And got very excited when rumours began of the whole hoopla starting up again with a re-launched Ross book show.

So it was with heaving expectation that Amanda Ross launched The TV Book Club on us a little over a week ago with five (count them) celebrity presenters. Would it be a worthy successor to Richard & Judy? Would it skew sales? Would it save publishing? Would it introduce us to some great new books? Would it be any good?

You can catch the first episode on YouTube and judge for yourself. John Walsh sums it up perfectly in his article for The Independent:

After five minutes of vacuous philistinism, Jo Brand asked “Are we agreed that it’s a good read?” and everyone dutifully nodded. You didn’t have to be VS Naipaul to feel that good books deserved better coverage.

Now, we’re only two episodes in, and it is perhaps unfair to judge until the new show gets into its stride. But, along with many book trade folk on Twitter, I’m already rolling my sponsored-by-Specsavers eyes.

Whatever you thought of Richard & Judy, there seemed to be real passion for the books, and everything selected for the list was endorsed by them as A Good Read. The TV Book Club seems to be an incipient sales phenomenon in search of a format: unsure whether it wants to be the new R&J with a stamp of approval for each book, or a dumbed-down Review Show with panel debate and disagreement. The former seems more appropriate, given the vested commercial interest in actually selling the books. Yet Jo Brand went a bit Germaine Greer on us this week and clearly hated Blacklands. This seems an insoluble conundrum. We won’t believe five people universally loving the same book, and it makes for dull television. Yet if there is dissent, will it put off potential purchasers?

What is more damaging is the lack of engagement – positive or negative – the panel seem to have with the books. This may be because the panel are out of their comfort zone. It might be due to the eight minutes allocated to the opinions of five panellists plus one guest on the chosen book – hardly time to articulate anything of value. What is to be done? Based on these first episodes, I suggest the following Five Rules of Book Club:

1. Drop the Gok. A pentagram of presenters is overkill. By the time they’ve autocue-introduced each other to us at the start of the show, I’ve lost interest. Each gets about 30 seconds to offer their literary insights which, in the case of Gok Wan, a man more at home hosing women down in swimming pools, seems to amount to “I thought it was quite good, what did you think?” and using the Alesha Dixon “you was” verb form. Call me a stickler. Why is this man telling me what to read? Are there no articulate, bookish presenters out there? Or is that too elitist of me?
2. Hacks not Heat. Discussing books with informed passion seems more of a critical success factor for this sort of show than having it hosted by a glittering array of B-list celebrities. Much as I like Jo Brand and Dave Spikey, the focus on celebrity presenters, guests and memoirs seems to have been seized upon just as this trend is on the wane. OK, Richard and Judy might be considered celebrities too. But when it comes to reviewing books, the advantage they had over these actors and comedians is that they are, first and foremost, journalists. It shows.
3. Put the literary horse before the cash cow. I’m sure no one imagined the influence Richard & Judy would have on the industry when their book club started in 2004. We’re wiser now. Which makes it tempting to build a show around the anticipated commercial after-effects rather than create a compelling book show based on good content. Yet if Ross assumes her choices will automatically become bestsellers, there’s a risk that it will annoy people in the same way Simon Cowell annoys us by assuming his latest karaoke protege will become Christmas number one.
4. Tell us something we don’t know. I’m sure The Little Stranger – the choice for episode 1 – is a great book. But it was shortlisted for the Booker prize last year, and has already had a lot of TV publicity. It seems a lazy choice. If we are to start skewing the market again with 10 books per year taking all limelight, how about spreading the love around, sharing the wealth, and surprising us with something new? There are a lot of books out there.
5. Don’t underestimate the audience. Some people who watch daytime TV are quite literary and intelligent. Really. They’ll probably want more than a cheeky wink from a TV fashionista to convince them to buy a book that’s “quite good but not enough lesbians”. Audiences are more sophisticated than that. Just phoning it in won’t do.

But there’s another problem that won’t be solved with format tinkering. The potential audience size for The TV Book Club makes repeating the sales volume of R&J Book Club seem unlikely. The Sunday night More4 audience and Monday lunchtime Channel 4 audience is tiny compared with Richard & Judy’s daily daytime slot cultivated over many years. And their book club was a weekly segment of a broader magazine show. People watched the show and were drawn into the book club. Whether they would have tuned in for a stand-alone book club is doubtful.

So calm down, book publicists. The TV Book Club won’t be the new Richard & Judy Effect. The new Richard & Judy Effect might just yet be… Richard and Judy. They haven’t gone away. They’ve just been lying dormant, biding their time, making the occasional appearance on BBC Question Time – and tweeting. Their book club is coming back, reinvented for the Internet age. And it could be their smartest move yet.

We’re living in a different media landscape to the one that dominated when Richard and Judy left Channel 4. No one watched Watch, the cable channel they moved to. But we’ve all since piled into Twitter and Facebook. Twitter book clubs are not new – and have even been flirted with by Amanda Ross’s brother-in-law Jonathan. Wossy Book Club didn’t really take off (was this because of lack of time/interest – or an awkward family meeting?) but the potential to use the medium is there.

An Internet book club, if pitched right, with the established brand strength of Richard & Judy, and promoted well with social media could reach a very wide audience. In an age of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogging, we are the media. We’re online, opinionated, and discerning. Yet we still want to discover and consume the ‘old media’ forms of music, film, TV – and books.  We still like opinion formers and influencers who have something of value to say. But we like to be engaged. We don’t like being told what to listen to, watch or read by media moguls or someone who sounds like they’ve read the blurb on the way to the studio.

Meanwhile, if you really want some daytime TV exposure for your author, try Paul O’Grady, Alan Titchmarsh or Loose Women instead.

Related articles

• The queen of TV book clubs (guardian.co.uk)
• Amanda Ross’s TV Book Club (The Independent, 21 Jan 10)
• Should Gok Wan dictate our reading habits? (The Telegraph, 18 Jan 10)
• TV Book Club Episode 2: Thoughts (It’s a Crime! 25 Jan 10)

This article first appeared in The Deal (the official magazine of the London Book Fair) in Spring 2008

Have you updated your status today? Has anyone written on your wall? Have you spent any Linden dollars? Do you have any idea what I’m talking about? You’re excused for not knowing about mobcasts, or microblogging, or avatars, but the rest? In the 21st Century podcasts, RSS feeds and blogs remain as opaque as String Theory to a frightening number of publishers. Many don’t even know if their authors have their own blogs. And social media? It’s a mystery to them.

While they are pimping their sales forecasts, their customers are pimping their MySpace and Facebook profiles. A savvy few trade publishers are investing in social media – Penguin, HarperCollins, Random House and Simon & Schuster – but many others remain on the fence. The same is not true of scientific, technical and medical (STM) publishers.

STM publishers have form when it comes to pioneering digital technology. Social media is a natural extension of their core activities, says Ian Russell, chief executive of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), sees social media as a natural extension of the core activity of STM publishers: ‘Scholarly communication is the exchange of ideas and discourse to advance knowledge – whether that’s in the pages of a journal, at conferences, or via social networking sites. Trade publishing tends not to be so discussion-based.’ Timo Hannay, Publishing Director for Nature.com, agrees: ‘The reason Nature exists is to facilitate scientific communication. Social media is just a new way for us to add value.’

Social media helps STM publishers to stay relevant and support research, even in the face of the Open Access movement. It’s also driven by the collaborative ethos that exists in academia. Academic, scientific and student communities are well established online, and want content that is current, not necessarily in hard covers.

According to a survey of US college professors by Thomson Learning last year, half thought social networking would change how students learn, a third that it would change the way they teach, and a third saw podcasting as a valuable way to reach students. A number of US universities, including Berkeley and Ohio, have put lectures on YouTube or have virtual campuses in Second Life.

Huge opportunity
The book world pioneers of social media are authors and academics, not publishers. Steve Weber, author of Plug Your Book (Weber, 2007), tells The Deal: ‘Academic/STM authors have a huge opportunity with social media because their work is so specific. Anything they do in the social networking arena is going to make them much more findable.’

STM publishers have joined the conversation. Leading the way is Nature Publishing, with its own social network, podcast, blogs and islands in Second Life (see box: Jargon Buster). In the past year, Blackwell, OUP, Palgrave, Pearson Education, SAGE and T&F have followed Nature’s lead with their own social media strategies.

Nature entered SL in 2006, then handed its virtual space to the scientific community as a place to meet and experiment. The community now runs itself – mostly holding speaker events. There may be only 40 people in the world who want to hear about a new species of beetle, but thanks to Second Life that niche audience can be reached in one go at minimal expense. In December (2007), Nature held a three-day event in SL to coincide with the UN-Bali Climate Change Conference. What better venue to discuss climate change without leaving a carbon footprint?

A growth area is podcasting. Within three months or launch in 2005, the Nature podcast had 10,000 listeners and a sponsorship deal. Blackwell started journal-related podcasts last year. In September, Cengage Learning (formerly Thomson Learning) launched their CourseCasts – weekly podcasts on technology trends. Elsewhere, Harvard University Press and OUP are blogging, while like SAGE, Blackwell and the Institute of Physics are experimenting with subject-specific social media web portals.

‘People like me’
Those using social media are clear about their reasons for doing so: to engage their readership, create community, build open, trustworthy relationships, and enhance their brand reputation. In an age when trust is in ‘people like me’ rather than in corporations, these things matter.

But what is the return on investment? You may as well ask, what is the ROI on business cards? Successful publishing is not a top-down affair in a participatory media culture. A conversation is taking place, not a lecture. It is important to be a part of it. A key objective is word of mouth: tapping into niche communities and making your content easy to find, recommend and share.

It is possible to make money with advertising and sponsorship. In SL, publishers make money from event sponsorship and hiring out virtual venues. Podcasts also attract sponsorship. When it comes to social media portals and publishers’ own social networks, the data captured from the community can be used for targeted advertising.

Content must come before cash. Get your content right, build a community around it, and the cash will follow. Joanna Scott, web publisher at Nature, says: ‘If you can create something useful to people, you can find a way to monetise it later.’ The trick is to create something genuinely useful. That may mean more market research than in the past, but by using social media, you are already ahead of the game, because the direct connection with your users automatically provides a greater understanding of their needs.

Déjà vu?
Some of us remember getting our fingers burned on digital technology in the 90s. The prophesised future failed to materialise and left many high and dry. But, as with comedy, the secret of investment is timing, and what failed to materialise then is here now. There is much to be learned from STM publishers, particularly as they enter a new phase of development and consider monetisation options.

But things move quickly, and corporates mired in the inertia of decision-making by committee risk missing the boat. Sometimes you just need to jump in. Steve Weber says: ‘It’s still early days in social networking, so the opportunities for first movers are immense.’

For once independent publishers have an advantage and social media enables them to punch above their weight. Social media should be central to publishers’ marketing. We’ve seen the surveys, analysed the trends, and watched the successes. It’s time to start talking.

Jargon Buster

• Avatars: graphical representations of people in Second Life.
• Blogs: diary style personal websites that allow readers’ feedback.
• Microblogging: sites such as Twitter that allow personal updates of up to 140 characters.
• Mobcasts: podcasts delivered to a mobile phone.
• Podcasts: audio or video files that can be downloaded using RSS. You don’t need an iPod. You can also listen or watch online.
• RSS: Really Simple Syndication. Alerts subscribers to new content on blogs and new podcasts, when they are updated or available.
• Second Life: a virtual world that looks like a video game, populated by real people represented by avatars (see above). Has all the components of the Real World – shops, businesses and universities – with an in-world currency, ‘Linden Dollars’, which can be exchanged for real money. For geeks now, but predicted to be very big in the future.
• Social networks: sites such as MySpace and Facebook that enable users to create online profiles and communities to keep in touch and reach a wider market for their creative work. Made stars of the Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen.
• YouTube: hugely successful video sharing website.

How to Build Your Social Media Strategy

1. Audit your existing social media. How many of your authors have their own blogs? Are you linking to them?
2. Define your goals. Start with marketing aims and objectives, and decide what you want to achieve. Increased sales? Brand differentiation? Market research?
3. Plan your media. What media do you want to support marketing campaigns – websites, blogs, audio, video, podcasts?
4. Be realistic. You don’t need an island in SL or your own social network. Not every book needs a blog. Send your author on a blog tour (guest postings on relevant blogs).
5. Be a facilitator. Provide value, and start the conversation. Set up blogging tools for your authors. Give them a recording device to do a podcast. Get them on Facebook or MySpace.
6. Be authentic. Be careful – social media isn’t a campaign or a tactic – it’s a commitment.
7. Find your community. Go where your market is. Do your customers hang out on social networking sites? What about blog-centred communities?
8. Engage your audience. Don’t spam (send unsolicited mail) a Facebook group. Create compelling content and share it with people who will value it.
9. Be visible. Make your online content easy for people to find and recommend with social bookmarking links like ‘Digg this’ and ‘Add to delicious’.
10. Measure your results. Track your listener numbers, video downloads, and group members; use calls to action and unique landing pages; track your click-throughs, blog mentions and comments; do surveys; drill down into your webstats to find out what’s working.