dollars In a Publishing Perspectives op-ed, Chris Rechtsteiner, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Page Foundry, Inc., a company that produces a “digital content enablement platform,” has some prognostications about creating “sustainable value” in e-publishing. He has some interesting things to say, bearing in mind that his recommendations are in line with the services his company provides.

First of all, Rechtsteiner says that publishers need to focus on creating “sustainable value”—the impression that their digital content has value in the long term, and is not simply ephemeral and disposable. Instead, it “must become an integral part of the reader’s pool of reference and referral resources.”

That’s easy for him to say. One of the big problems holding e-books back now is that we never can be quite sure that the DRM’d e-books we buy will be around for the long term.

Look at what’s happening with Fictionwise and eReader right now. Their customers were sure that, based on their ten-plus-year history, Fictionwise and its eReader subsidiary would always be around and its books would always be readable on the current platform of choice—but since it was bought by Barnes and Noble, Fictionwise has not produced an iPad version of its Fictionwise-branded eReader app, nor does it appear it will be allowed to.

And of course there was the e-book publisher Embiid, which went out of business a few years ago leaving customers unable to access their DRM-locked books on new hardware.

But publishers still show no signs of readiness to abandon DRM, even though it continues to be ineffective at “protecting” their books from people who really want to decrypt them.

Rechtsteiner’s next point is for magazine publishers, and suggests that advertisers should provide not just ads, which are easily-ignored and irrelevant, but content too.

Advertisers and publishers need to work together to provide quality content that delivers sustainable value to the reader, not a quick-hit brand impression. For example, an auto manufacturer may offer a mileage or fuel efficiency management application as “content” vs. yet another “ad” presenting a picture of the car. Think about the residual brand value (loyalty, if you will) that something of this nature can create. It’s exponentially more valuable and more social than any currently offered alternative.

I don’t have any objections to this, but it’s certainly different to how magazine publishing has worked for decades. I have to wonder just how many advertisers are going to be willing or able to switch over from providing ads to providing “content”.

Device manufacturers, Rechsteiner says, need to make devices that are “always on,” always connected for “frictionless” downloading of content, without the owner having to worry about wireless or 3G service plans. Hmm, sounds like a Kindle or Nook to me.

The big problem getting in the way, Rechsteiner says, is “The lack of a collaborative digital and publishing ecosystem.” The current ecosystem is way too complex—publishing electronically requires an astoundingly large number of organizations to be able to work together.

Stop and think about this for just a few seconds. Products and services from global organizations including publishers, device manufacturers (those making smartphones, tablets, etc.), content management companies, content aggregators, metadata providers, payment processors, retailers, e-retailers and wireless network operators (to name a few) must be fully in sync to provide the complete and tightly integrated solutions readers expect (today) and will soon demand (later today or, at best, tomorrow).

Rechsteiner doesn’t touch upon it directly, but the “tower of e-babel” caused by competing formats and DRMs is one of the elements that makes this ecosystem complicated—publishers have to publish a book not just through one e-book vendor, but through multiple vendors in multiple formats. Using EPUB as a universal format that can be converted to whatever the individual vendor needs helps, but it’s still added confusion for the consumer.

The solution Rechsteiner puts forward is focusing on “sustainable value”—luring hesitant customers to buy digital goods by making it clear that they will be worth buying in the long run. He calls upon the entire digital content ecosystem to work together to achieve this goal.

It is certainly a laudable goal, but I have a hard time seeing it working, at least in the way Rechsteiner wants. The ideas of “sustainable value” and dependence on a device or format that might eventually become obsolete are just too far at odds.

2 COMMENTS

  1. The paragraph about magazine advertising seems like a bit unrelated to the rest story to me — but none the less, it caught my eye. I’ve been saying forever that if advertising (not just magazine) jumped a little higher, maybe it would be effective. Why do they save all the great ads for the Superbowl? They only have to be fabulous once a year?

    At HarperStudio we really didn’t do much advertising, but the little we did was advertorial-like (sponsored issues, etc.). I found it very effective.

  2. I wonder whether it really is the case that the finite lifespan of specific e-reader devices really is as drastic an issue as some make it out to be.

    For one thing, the knowledge that home video devices are subject to generational change hasn’t seemed to deter consumers. Blu-Ray is out but people are still buying DVDs. Or how about video game consoles? Kids are well aware of the fact that gaming consoles only have a lifespan of about 5 or 6 years. That doesn’t stop them buying games. And they’re not overly concerned about the lack of backward compatibility either. The Playstation 2 could play first generation Playstation games, but they often didn’t run as optimally. So you know what the kids would do? If they wanted to play an old Playstation game, they would pull out their old Playstation. And if their Playstation was broken, they’d be more than happy to purchase versions of their favourite games for the newer system. What’s stopping ebook lovers from doing the same with their various forms of hardware?

    Which brings us to the concept of ‘sustainable value’: I think trying to artificially infuse the entire medium with ‘sustainable value’ is an unfortunate attempt to separate ebooks conceptually from other forms of electronic media. Never mind the fact that such separation is wholly unnecessary. If a reader loves a certain book enough, they’ll continue to purchase versions of it for whatever device they’re currently using – just as I own the original Star Wars trilogy on VHS, DVD, and eventually, Blu-Ray.

    It continually baffles me that whenever there is exploration of the issues facing ebooks, said issues are discussed as if they are completely unprecedented, as if similar problems – and solutions – that have confronted all other forms of electronic media, somehow don’t apply, because we’re talking about *books*. The younger generations – the ones that have grown up surrounded by all manner of personal entertainment technologies – are not going to understand why some insist on a conceptual separation between books and other forms of media. In their eyes, ebooks are just one aspect of the greater digital continuum – no better or worse than videos or music or games, only different.

    The biggest problem publishers – print and digital alike – need to deal with is that artificial divide. Once we get over it, and ourselves, I feel that the transition will be much smoother.

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