Signing off

Who knew that when I signed up for an Online Marketing class and Magazine Editing I would spend all my time writing. It has been my most challenging term in graduate school and a kick in the pants.

The Online Marketing class is a great addition to the publishing program. Who can doubt that the market is going online in droves, and online is where we must talk to our audience. Learning about all the new and emerging technologies is mind boggling, but once you get your toes wet, it seems slightly less intimidating.

I now believe that the online strategy must be central in any marketing effort. Marty's class has introduced new ways to think about selling books to the public, and we, as students, need to figure out how to apply those ideas to Ooligan Press.

Despite the bad news about GACP and our shaky distribution, I feel optimistic about Ooligan's future. We have two books coming out that could gain a good deal of attention for the press—Oregon at Work and A Heart For Any Fate. The New York Times has requested a review copy of OAW, and Booklist has asked for HAF—both huge accomplishments.

Also, Ooligan Press recently won a grant to produce a guide to sustainable printing from Portland State University. With a new direction towards sustainability in publishing, the press could become a leader in finding greener solutions in printing and distribution. I believe that smaller, less centralized publishers and sustainable production are key to the future of the industry, and Ooligan is moving in the right direction.

I have a lot of faith in the enthusiasm and determination of the students in the program, and I appreciate the wisdom and leadership of the faculty. Whatever twists and turns await the industry and Ooligan Press, the new talent coming out of the publishing program will be able to handle it.

Can you trust online reviews?

Paying attention to online consumer reviews pays. According to a survey by Neilson Online, eighty-one percent of online shoppers read reviews while shopping during the holiday season this year.

Even for consumers who did their shopping at local retailers, web sites play an important role in their purchase decision. Fifty-five percent of survey respondents said they researched products online before going to a store to buy.

The top factors in evaluating customer reviews were:

The product has multiple ratings or reviews—63%

The rating or review comes from an established source—14%

But can online reviews be trusted? I found plenty of stories about pay for play practices.

An interesting story surfaced this month about paying for ratings and reviews on Amazon. An employee of Belkin used Amazon's Mechanical Turk site to offer $.65 as payment per favorable review of its router that had received poor ratings from consumers. The ploy was discovered and reported, and the company issued an apology within forty-eight hours.

I think the story about Belkin's bogus customer reviews is instructive. It points out how important online reviews are to a product's success—that a high-level employee would resort to such an unethical practice to counter the negative reviews being posted by real customers.

The story also points out the level playing field that is possible on the web. Belkin's pay for play scheme was discovered by a blogger, and the story spread through the wires quickly. Not only were the reviews pulled by Amazon and an apology issued by Belkin, but the story's popularity serves to punish the company's behavior far beyond a bad review.

I am hopeful that companies will heed this cautionary tale. There are other ways to deal with customer reviews than trying to rig the system. Foremost, they need to set up areas on their own sites to get public feedback—a space to respond to customers. If online marketers can turn around a dissatisfied customer, they will save more than a single purchase. They will earn the respect of every person that customer tells—online or otherwise.

Thinking small

In today's technological society, no company can go without a website. Publishers have no choice as to whether or not they post a site, but how they build and target their online identity is a reasonable debate.

It only makes sense that a company in the business of book publishing would want to use its website to make sales. The site is there for consumers to find and explore, and I can't think of a single reason not to include a shopping cart for purchasing.

A publisher's website is also a great place to highlight and push certain titles. Most of the sites I explored had added content about the authors—video interviews, tour dates. Why rely solely on bookstores and Amazon to present your product?

This said, I think a targeted approach is wise. Why try to reach every potential customer with a single, watered down, chaotic website when all large publishers use their imprints to target a smaller subset of their audience?

I think the best approach is for huge publishers to keep the corporate identity low-key and try to steer customers to the right imprint where they are more likely to find the books they'll want to read.

Imprints should reflect a united and cohesive collection. It is a basic tenet of marketing to know your customer and give them what they want. So why not create an online presence to reflect the target of your imprint? Make a club. Let your readers feel part of something—no different than being part of an online social network.

McSweeney's and Tin House both do a great job of this. They embrace their brand. Larger publishers should do the same and put more effort into branding their imprints and creating networks around them.

I have no idea if consumers will seek out publisher's websites to purchase books. If given the incentive—lower pricing, peer reviews and recommendations, convenience, and availability—they should. Publishers make a product and should be able to control the avenues of sales to some extent. But at the moment, it looks like Amazon will continue to keep a tight grip on the business of selling books.

Harder than stuffing a genie back in the bottle

Friend or foe, good or bad, dangerous or beneficial? I feel pretty ambivalent about Amazon's market dominance, so I wrote out a list of pros and cons. I was surprised to find the pros outnumbered the cons by a significant number.

Readers certainly benefit, right? I can't think of anything wrong with cheaper, widely available books. The site helps people network through reviews and recommendations to find more books they might be interested in—I always find myself following recommendation threads to books I probably never would have found in a bookstore.

I would think authors benefit from Amazon as well. Books are available for sale for much longer online than on bookstore shelves, extending the life of most titles. It'd be nice to see an end to the incredibly short sales cycle of traditional publishing.

I can't think of a single drawback to the rise in prominence of print-on-demand. I love the idea that anyone who wants to publish a book can do it at a reasonable cost and make all their friends and relatives buy a copy. I don't really see how anyone gets hurt (other than said friends and relatives). On the other hand, it pains me to think of all the publishing mistakes—any number of miscalculations that can befall a new title—gathering dust in warehouses an destined for the recycling heap. I am very hopeful that print-on-demand will curtail the huge amount of waste in the printing business. Some books are meant to find their audience one digital print at a time.

Amazon must benefit publishers at least a little. Their titles gain the largest possible distribution. They make some money from online sales even after Amazon takes its cut. As mentioned before, books live longer in cyberspace, allowing for a longer sales cycle and providing an opportunity for a belated rise in popularity due to some random twist of fate.

My con list was short, but it included a problem that might outweigh all the pros—bookstores are dying. I read an article in yesterday's Oregonian about a successful attempt to shore up the cash-strapped Broadway Books by promising a burrito to anyone who bought $50 worth of books over the holidays. Really?! In this case, the owner's son and his Twitter savvy saved the day, but for how long? I have no idea what bookstores can do to change their odds for survival. Record stores and video rental outlets haven't gone extinct yet despite predictions of certain doom, but it doesn't look like a viable business model for any of these media outlets.

We are lucky here in Portland—we have Powells. We probably take for granted that we can walk to the greatest new and used bookstore in the states, while the rest of the nation has Borders and B&N as their best option for book buying. If given that choice, I'd shop online, too.