BIC’s ‘New Trends in Publishing’
We were fortunate enough to attend a really interesting BIC on New Trends in Publishing at Stationer’s Hall – great talks from Nielsen, DAISY, Ingrams, Ingenta, and Harbottle and Lewis on aspects covering consumer rights (with Brexit looming) to augmented reality, to the critical importance of accuracy when supplying metadata.
We all know consumer behaviour is changing – with current trends highlighted as follows:
- “Marketing Me” – real rise in self-publicising
- “Now or Never” – speed to market
- “The real deal” – authenticity is key
- “Make it Mine” – personalising the experience
Publishers naturally have to adapt to accommodate new – and continually changing – expectations. Whilst something like Pokemon Go may be a fad in itself, the underlying technology is very much around for the long term – and there are definite opportunities for publishers to gamify content, creating more personalised solutions, curate content – and actively promote consumer content curation – through social media etc.
In publishing, the supply chain focus has always been on the book. That focus is starting to shift, to concentrate more on the business model itself. Hachette’s recent move into the gaming industry with the purchase of Neon Play comes as no surprise, as publishers look for opportunities to sell stories in different ways – creating more dynamic, engaging material.
ONIX Compliance
Nielsen’s statistics showing a publisher’s content discoverability based on quality and timeliness of metadata provision also provided interesting viewing: actual hard data hammering home the impact of each on visibility of a publisher’s list.
One slide showed quantities of copies sold by metadata mix, clearly highlighting the stark difference between a complete and incomplete BIC provision – as well as illustrating the critical importance of providing cover images along with the bibliographic data. Indeed, provision of a cover image triples the chances of a book selling – clearly a fundamental consideration when providing the ONIX.
All in all, a thoroughly informative morning for an audience of around 100 packed into the venue in the shadow of St Paul’s – thanks to all concerned.
Related Posts
Firsty goes Academic… →
IPG Publishing Awards: close, but no cigar… →
New features for Firsty’s D2C package →
