Sunday, March 13, 2005
Rebirth of PW Daily
Publisher's Weekly is relaunching their PW Daily email newsletters next week. The short story is they're merging PW Newsline into PW Daily, emphasizing bookseller news, posting all the content open on their website, and making it free to subscribe to PW Daily.
(I'd also send out a strong plea to add store website links whenever they mention an independent bookstore (or publisher, or author, etc.). They'd help everyone if they made it easier to learn more about the subjects.)
I like the new changes, especially making it a free subscription and archiving the content on their site. PW has always operated on a very closed model with a high subscription rate ($225 annually for publishers, half that for booksellers). You can't read any of their articles online without getting a username and password. You can't get that unless you have a print subscription. I''d much rather they allow all of their articles onto a public website after a few months. They could track which articles are the most popular and sell advertising on those pages.
The best way to attract readers is to post your content in a free, permanent archive and make it easy for websites (and bloggers like me) to link to your articles. The ABA learned this with Bookselling This Week. Now it's very easy to copy the article link and send it in an email or post it in a blog.
Anytime a web site requires usernames or passwords to access content, they're intentionally closing out all of the general public and unintentionally, they're making it more difficult for the desired users to participate.
I think too often we confuse what is valuable or sensitive proprietary information that needs protection with what is publicity, or information that only gains value when it spreads far and wide. I have a similar issue with the ABA's Idea Exchange (IE). The IE is a message board for ABA bookseller members to post questions for other booksellers to answer. Usually the questions are business related: looking for info on a book, a question about how other stores deal with a problem, or letting other booksellers know about an issue.
I understand and agree with why the IE is password-protected. It was designed to be a closed forum for booksellers to talk with each other about sensitive issues that they wouldn't feel comfortable asking in a public setting. That's a great value to the ABA members. It'd be great if all ABA members regularly read the board.
But we need another place for booksellers to post ideas, comments, or questions that are meant for the public to see. We need to open a forum for booksellers to talk about publishing and get feedback and questions from the general public, and definitely from other members of the publishing world. It's starting to happen more with the book blogs popping up (see links at sidebar to the left).
I won't go into a long pro-blogging rant, but blogs are gaining a momentum in the culture. We're only a few months to a year away from seeing some amazing new developments happen in social interaction between people online.
More people are realizing they can create their own communication online through blogs and message boards. This communication can have real, positive benefits for the bookstores. The key is opening up these tools and allowing users to hold their own conversations.
Cheers and thanks to PW for the changes they're making. I'll definitely link to more of their articles. I'd encourage everyone to sign up for the free PW Daily email. (I'll post a link as soon as I find a permanent link on how to subscribe.)
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(I'd also send out a strong plea to add store website links whenever they mention an independent bookstore (or publisher, or author, etc.). They'd help everyone if they made it easier to learn more about the subjects.)
I like the new changes, especially making it a free subscription and archiving the content on their site. PW has always operated on a very closed model with a high subscription rate ($225 annually for publishers, half that for booksellers). You can't read any of their articles online without getting a username and password. You can't get that unless you have a print subscription. I''d much rather they allow all of their articles onto a public website after a few months. They could track which articles are the most popular and sell advertising on those pages.
The best way to attract readers is to post your content in a free, permanent archive and make it easy for websites (and bloggers like me) to link to your articles. The ABA learned this with Bookselling This Week. Now it's very easy to copy the article link and send it in an email or post it in a blog.
Anytime a web site requires usernames or passwords to access content, they're intentionally closing out all of the general public and unintentionally, they're making it more difficult for the desired users to participate.
I think too often we confuse what is valuable or sensitive proprietary information that needs protection with what is publicity, or information that only gains value when it spreads far and wide. I have a similar issue with the ABA's Idea Exchange (IE). The IE is a message board for ABA bookseller members to post questions for other booksellers to answer. Usually the questions are business related: looking for info on a book, a question about how other stores deal with a problem, or letting other booksellers know about an issue.
I understand and agree with why the IE is password-protected. It was designed to be a closed forum for booksellers to talk with each other about sensitive issues that they wouldn't feel comfortable asking in a public setting. That's a great value to the ABA members. It'd be great if all ABA members regularly read the board.
But we need another place for booksellers to post ideas, comments, or questions that are meant for the public to see. We need to open a forum for booksellers to talk about publishing and get feedback and questions from the general public, and definitely from other members of the publishing world. It's starting to happen more with the book blogs popping up (see links at sidebar to the left).
I won't go into a long pro-blogging rant, but blogs are gaining a momentum in the culture. We're only a few months to a year away from seeing some amazing new developments happen in social interaction between people online.
More people are realizing they can create their own communication online through blogs and message boards. This communication can have real, positive benefits for the bookstores. The key is opening up these tools and allowing users to hold their own conversations.
Cheers and thanks to PW for the changes they're making. I'll definitely link to more of their articles. I'd encourage everyone to sign up for the free PW Daily email. (I'll post a link as soon as I find a permanent link on how to subscribe.)
