Will Maghound Have Much Bite Behind Its Bark?

Posted on September 19th, 2008

Kudos to Time Inc. for innovating and launching Maghound. But is it going to work?

What is Maghound exactly? It’s a unique way to subscribe to magazines. Instead of the traditional fill out a subscription form, send in a check, and get your magazine every month, Maghound offers something new.

You select the magazine, or magazines, you want to read, and you pay for them month by month. And, if you realize you’re not reading your Entertainment Weekly each week, and you’d rather keep you finger on the pulse of pop culture and loony vice-presidential candidates by subscribing to People magazine, then you go onto the Maghound website and change your Maghound subscription from EW to People.

What’s the benefit here? You don’t have to endure 6 months of a magazine subscription that you realize you don’t really read anymore. You can either end the subscription the following week or month, or switch to another magazine.

At first, I thought Maghound was a supremely odd, and doomed effort. But, as I’ve written this explanation, I’ve realized it makes a lot of sense. But, here’s my initial reservation, and one that remains – who has the time and energy to manage their magazine subscriptions so closely? If you decide you don’t want a magazine, you toss it in recycling each week, and you don’t resubscribe.

To me, Maghound seems to be an answer to a problem that most people just don’t think about dealing with – except for not resubscribing.

It will be interesting to watch how Maghound fares.


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Friday afternoon country music lyrics – Sept. 19, 2008

Posted on September 19th, 2008

If you’re curious why I’m posting these, check out my explanation.

Up today, a wonderful Johnny Paycheck tune – The Real Mr. Heartache.

“The Real Mr. Heartache”

Written by Johnny Paycheck

There we were all three of us sitting side by side
Three guys who have loved her, but to someone she lied
Now everybody’s wondering, just who’s the lonely guy?
So will the real Mr. Heartache please stand up and cry?

Chorus

The real Mr. Heartache is every guy she’s known
Loved by her, left by her with a heartache all his own
Everytime I hear that question the number multiplies
Will the real Mr. Heartache please stand up and cry?

Verse 2
There we were all three of us standing side by side
While six little teardrops tickled from our eyes
And I even see a stranger that seems to qualify
So will the real Mr. Heartache please stand up and cry?


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Sony Reader graces shelves at Target

Posted on September 18th, 2008

I’m a couple of days behind on this, but as Joe Wikert noted Sony Readers are now available at both Target’s online store and brick-and-mortar stores.

I was emailing a friend in publishing yesterday about this, and we both agreed that this is a great move on Sony’s part. However, I can’t help but wonder, does the deal with Target include exclusivity?

If not, I wonder if Sony execs are on a plane to Bentonville? If Sony really wanted to floor the gas pedal on the Sony Reader, they should seriously consider it.

Not to stereotype Wal-Mart shoppers, but every retail exec knows their demographics. What would happen if Sony went out and cut deals with Harlequin, Zondervan, and publishers of various best-selling self-help books?

Some may argue that Wal-Mart shoppers aren’t huge readers and certainly not readers looking for a Sony Reader device. However, romance readers have shown a huge interest and passion for ebooks. Romance readers tend to read a ton of books, and they’re constantly looking for new titles and new authors.

If Sony wants to win the race vs. Amazon’s Kindle – or at least compete aggressively – they should give it some serious thought.


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Friday – Country Music lyrics – Sept. 12, 2008

Posted on September 12th, 2008

I’m a huge country music fan. In college, I started a hardcore country music show Dirt Roads & Honkytonks at WUOG, the college radio station at the University of Georgia. Go Dawgs!

I thought I’d post some country music lyrics once a week for everyone’s pleasure.

First up, Two Dollar Toy by Stoney Edwards.

One brief aside re: digital media. Why doesn’t Amazon have Stoney Edwards available in their MP3 downloads? Repeat after me all you media execs, backlist, backlist, backlist.

TWO DOLLAR TOY by Stoney Edwards

Last night a two dollar toy made a million dollar daddy out of me

Last night I woke up like I done many times before
But this time I had evil on my mind
I quietly packed my clothes and headed for the door
But in the hallway stumbled and fell over a toy

My little girl says daddy cover me
And daddy please don’t go
That’s when the love in my heart
Overruled the thought I had in my mind
Last night a two dollar toy made a million dollar daddy out of me

[ steel ]
I’d felt a two feet tall as I walked by down the hall
Put my clothes back on the rack where they belong
I lit a smoke and I thought what a fool I almost was
And how a two dollar toy made a million dollar daddy out of me
Last night a two dollar toy made a million dollar daddy out of me


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Plastic Logic – Mr. Bezos on Line 1

Posted on September 12th, 2008

This week at Demo, Plastic Logic demoed the second generation Amazon Kindle.

Okay. I’m joking, of course. Plastic Logic is a separate company in no way associated with Amazon – yet. But, they did display a new eReader device with a form factor that Bezos’ design team should be studying intently for the second generation Kindle. Lots of people are writing about Plastic Logic’s demo – here, here and here.

Currently, you can read the New York Times, and many other newspapers and magazines on the Amazon Kindle. But, would you rather read the morning’s New York Times on an airplane or your morning train ride on the cramped Kindle screen or Plastic Logic’s large screen? Plastic Logic’s eReader more closely resembles the typical size of a magazine page vs. the Kindle’s paperback book size.

As much as I love Plastic Logic’s large form factor, I seriously doubt they’ll achieve long-term success, unless Jeff Bezos is on line 1 to discuss a partnership or acquisition. Why so negative?

What’s their content strategy? – Joe Wikert beat me to this argument. But, I want to echo what he said.

I spent some time this morning perusing Plastic Logic’s website and management profiles. Plastic Logic has a huge amount of talent – technology talent. I didn’t see any manager with high profile, deep experience cutting deals with book publishers and other content companies – magazines, etc.

From the Plastic Logic demo, it appears that the company is aiming their reader squarely at the enterprise market. Why limit the device to corporate documents, newspapers, and other business content? Once again, consumers and business people will be forced into a device with a narrow focus.

Unless Plastic Logic execs are hard at work in New York City cutting deals with numerous book publishers to get thousands of front list and backlist novels and non-fiction book, ereader fans are going to face a frustrating choice. They’re going to have to shove their Kindle and their Plastic Logic devices into their briefcase for a flight. After they read their latest sales documents on their Plastic Logic (on a beautiful, large screen), they’ll have to dig out their Kindle to read a science fiction or mystery novel published four or five years ago.

I love the Plastic Logic’s form factor, but I’m seriously concerned about their content strategy. Launching with a few thousand bestselling novels and non-fiction books is just not going to be compelling, especially with 140,000+ books available on the Kindle.

I’m looking forward to seeing what Amazon has up their sleeve for the second generation Kindle, and I think I hear a phone ringing at Plastic Logic’s corporate offices.


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I Don’t Have A Clue

Posted on September 11th, 2008

Bob Minzesheimer (someone whose book publishing articles I’ve been reading for years and enjoying) wrote in today’s paper about Scholastic’s launch of 39 Clues. (As a complete aside, Scholastic you need to call an SEO swat team today. I just Googled “39 Clues,” and the site is the third organic search result. That’s not good! Do Scholastic’s target audience look at anything but the top one or two search results?)

I’ve been watching The 39 Clues idea for the last several months. In addition to other coverage, Hillel Italie at the Associated Press wrote about it too.

So what is The 39 Clues? In marketing speak, it’s a cross-platform interactive reading experience combining action-adventure lite novels – with elements of the Da Vinci Code for the pre-teen set – with online scavenger hunts and trading cards that come with the books and are sold separately for $6.99 per pack. Wow, that’s a mouthful.

Will it work? I have my doubts, but I certainly laud Scholastic for putting money behind the experiment. I certainly think it will appeal to a subset of preteen and teen boys and girls. When I was a kid, I was fascinated with codes, invisible ink, etc. I think kids who are into those kinds of things will eat this up and ask for more.

But, I don’t think that that audience is a mainstream audience. Call me cynical, and god I hate sounding old when I write this, but I fear that many of the Harry Potter fans are sucking up those books as part of a mile wide, inch deep pop culture that bombards them every day. How many Harry Potter fans finish the last page and grab a Lloyd Alexander, Andre Norton, Susan Cooper, or whatever is the next book in their to-be-read pile? Not many, I think. Instead, I think they close the last page of Harry Potter and turn on Hannah Montana or watch High School Musical 2.5.

I’d love to see The 39 Clues succeed. Anything that captures kids’ interest in reading is a-ok with me. But, The 39 Clues has a “manufactured” feel to me, and I don’t think it’s going to have legs to survive and thrive beyond the planned 10 books.

I hope that I’m wrong. I think what Scholastic is trying to do is something that marketers face every single day – trying to replicate the lightning-in-a-bottle of a grassroots phenomenon such as Harry Potter. At the end of the day, even though I work in PR, I often wonder if that’s a chicken-and-the-egg dilemma.

Can you manufacture and propel grassroots enthusiasm? I honestly don’t know.

The last two paragraphs in Minzesheimer’s story sum up my misgivings:

“But will magic strike as it did for other series with heroic orphans — J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events? Young readers gradually made them publishing phenomena before grown-up marketing set in.

Despite all its off-the-page enhancements, The 39 Clues will rise or fall on the strength of its story, and that’s best told, so far, in the book. The next one, One False Note, by Gordon Korman, is due Dec. 2.”


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What Books Will You Be Reading This Fall?

Posted on September 9th, 2008

Hillel Italie’s Associated Press article about the lineup of fall books has gotten a lot of media coverage. So what fall books are you looking forward to?

At the top of my list are The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder and The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly.

I’ve had a long fascination with Buffett. I’m not awed by his wealth. I’m impressed that despite his unimaginable wealth, he’s managed to stay humble. He doesn’t buy into the trappings of wealth and still lives in the same house he’s lived in for many, many years – a house that is far from a McMansion.

And, I’ve read every book that Michael Connelly has written. The first 5 or 6 Harry Bosch novels are some of the best mystery novels ever written in my opinion. I enjoyed Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer, and in the Brass Verdict he brings together Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller the defense attorney introduced in The Lincoln Lawyer. I can’t wait!


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More Thoughts About The Sony Reader

Posted on September 5th, 2008

Joe Wikert’s post about Penn State’s Sony Reader experiment got me thinking about the Sony Reader again.

I’m a big fan of the Sony Reader, and I would love to see them succeed. But, I also feel that Sony has to gird for daily battle with Amazon. Jeff Bezos has proven over and over again that he’s willing to invest for the future regardless of Wall Street analysts trashing his decisions for long term success because of their impact on short term profit. (As an investor and someone passionately interested in business, that’s a Wall Street stance I’ve frankly never been able to understand. I guess I’m a value investor at heart. Give me long-term profit and invest for that profit any day over a short-term mindset – trash the company’s long term prospects to eek out good numbers for the quarter).

Back to the Sony Reader, I had an idea this morning about what could lead to a successful rival to Amazon’s Kindle. Drum roll please . . . Sony should seriously consider spinning off the Sony Reader (maintain the Sony brand and the Sony Reader’s stylish design) into a joint venture with Barnes & Noble.

Despite its many critics, I’ve often admired Barnes & Noble and the Riggios’ business acumen. Granted, as someone who loves bookstores of all kinds – locally owned independents, Barnes & Noble, Borders, the Strand, Powell’s, The Tattered Cover, etc. – it pains me to see any small independent bookstore go out of business. But, I also believe that Barnes and Noble has offered a wider selection of books ever available to many of the towns where they have stores. How can that be a bad thing for people passionate about books?

Again, back to the Sony-Barnes & Noble idea, I would guess that Len and Steve Riggio are watching the various Kindle sales estimates with heightened interest. Who knows? Maybe they’re writing off those Kindle owners as customers who would have purchased from Amazon anyway vs. buying a book at Barnes & Noble. So, they may reason that those Kindles really aren’t having much of an impact.

As a bibliophile, I would strongly disagree. I routinely buy buys via Amazon. But, I also love spending an hour or two browsing in Barnes & Noble at least once a week. If I don’t get my Barnes & Noble fix, my wife can tell. And, I routinely buy books at Barnes & Noble. Why? Because the physical bookstore browsing experience still hasn’t been replicated online, and I doubt it ever will.

Historically, Barnes & Noble has struggled with the rise of digital media and the online sales channel. Let’s be honest. If Amazon or any other sizable online bookstore didn’t exist, I’d wager many dollars that there would be no bn.com. Just look back at the launch of BN.com, the financial spin-off of the website, etc. It wasn’t pretty. And, every step of the way, the Riggios were dragged kicking and screaming.

But, at the end of the day, they’re business people who want to compete and succeed. Do they really want to wake up in 2015 and have herds of customers wondering around Barnes & Noble stores armed with their Kindles, discovering new physical books, then downloading them on the fly. I don’t think so!

So, why not take a very calculated risk, cut a deal with Sony now and hit the floor running. Does Sir Howard Stringer really want to be dabbling in the ebook business anyway?

Think about it. Barnes & Noble could create a unique sticker that they slap on every book when it comes out of the box? Buy this book today or download it to your Barnes & Noble-Sony Reader device right now. And, if you really want to think about the possibilities, that sticker could have a readable bar code – or a numerical code or something – that would allow a customer to access and start downloading the ebook with one shot.

And, if you think the barcode idea is farfetched? Seriously bar code technology is hugely popular in Japan and other countries. How hard would it be to release a next generation Sony Reader with a quick inclusion of a bar code reader.

Do you think this will happen? If not, what is Barnes & Noble’s planning to do to combat the rising sales of Amazon Kindles? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.


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