A TEDx Adventure at Sourcebooks. Presented by Dominique Raccah on November 7, 2014.

1. The Book in
Transformation:
A Publisher Vision for the Future
TEDx Adventure 2014
Dominique Raccah
Sourcebooks, Inc.

2. A Publisher Vision for the Future
1. The ebook transformation
 who is the ebook customer?
 are print books dead or dying?
2. How book retailing is changing
3. Different authors’ career paths
4. Creating new revenue streams

3. [ 1. The ebook transformation ]

4. Data is from
BOOKSTATS

5. Benefits of e-reading devices
BISG — US 2010 data

6. Why consumers purchase ebooks
instead of print books
© 2010, the Book Industry Study Group, Inc.

7. who is this customer?

8. who is this customer:
reader who reads a lot
In US, converted our most voracious
readers first

9. [who is the power buyer]

10. Who is Today’s Core Trade
E-Book Buyer (in the U.S.)?
 Woman (66%)
 ~44 years old
 HH Income ~$77K Yr
 Predominantly Fiction
(58% of all ‘e’ sold)

11. Device Use – Overall
0% 20% 40% 60%
Kindle e-reader
iPad
Kindle Fire
iPhone
Android tablet
NOOK Color
NOOK e-reader
Power
Buyers
Other
respondents

12. [ 2. How book retailing is changing ]

13. The Continuous Momentum
Towards Online Shopping

14. DISTRIBUTION: How purchased?
e-commerce skill set
FORMAT purchased?
Device centric skill set
eBooks PRINT
Brick and Mortar Retail Online Retail

15. The billion-dollar shift in trade retail
-194
52
1,111
Online Retail
Other Channels
Retail Stores (Total)

16. The billion-dollar shift in Trade
$3,000
$2,500
$2,000
$1,500
$1,000
$500
$0
Chains Unclassified Indie stores Specialty
stores
Mass
merchants
College
stores
2010 2011 2012

17. Where are we today?
Combination of online convenience, plus long
tail plus digital transformation has put real
pressure on our brick and mortar/physical
book retailers
 In U.S., physical book retailers need to learn
to be great online merchants (of physical as
well as digital books)
 The bar is Amazon. That’s the expectation
customers have of an online retailer.

18. Where are we today?
Consolidation and monopoly in the U.S retail
space
 Amazon majority of online book retailing
 Barnes and Noble majority of brick and
mortar retailing
But Amazon and Barnes and Noble are
very different…

19. [what does this mean for authors?]

20. Today, it’s become much easier
to publish a book in the US

21. When you lower the barriers to entry, more enters

22. Every day in America
3,500 books are
published* and only a
handful will be considered
successful by any criteria
*Bowker 2013

23. “In a tsunami of content like this
one, you’ve got to write your best
book. Let me say that again:
Nothing but your best writing has
a chance.”
— Jon Fine, Amazon
Speaking at a writers’ conference

24. Decline in price of traditionally published
ebooks
$25.00
$20.00
$15.00
$10.00
$5.00
$0.00
E-Books
Softcover
Hardcover
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

25. In the era of the Kindle, a book
costs the same price as a sandwich.
Dennis Johnson, an independent
publisher, says that “Amazon has
successfully fostered the idea that a
book is a thing of minimal value—
it’s a widget.”
—The New Yorker, Feb. 2014

26. I actually disagree with
Dennis…
Amazon uses books in a
different way than other book
retailers do. For Amazon media
(books, audiobooks, movies,
etc.) is the method via which
they attract and hook customers
into their ecosystem. So the
value is the customer
relationship.

27. Where are we today?
1. Converted our heaviest users to digital books first
2. Creating far more options for authors
3. Enormous number of ebooks being published
 Steep declines in ebook pricing
 The use of ebooks as ecosystem builders. loss leaders
or giveaways fosters a continuing devaluation of
ebooks
 Kindle Unlimited continues this trend
 More content being published is affecting total unit
sales for everyone overall
 The overall market for books (in units or $) is not growing as
quickly as the amount of content is growing.

28. [are print books dead or dying?]

29. $14,000,000,000
$12,000,000,000
$10,000,000,000
$8,000,000,000
$6,000,000,000
$4,000,000,000
$2,000,000,000
$0
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
eBooks Combined Print
© 2013, the Book Industry Study Group, Inc.
Print lives

30. But e-books continue to grow…
$6,000,000,000
$5,000,000,000
$4,000,000,000
$3,000,000,000
$2,000,000,000
$1,000,000,000
$0
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
eBooks Hardcover Mass-market Softcover
© 2013, the Book Industry Study Group, Inc.

31. [are print books dead or dying?]
digital doesn’t affect every content
category in the same way

32. 2013 YTD Sales by Units
3500000
3000000
2500000
2000000
1500000
1000000
500000
0
Adult Fic Adult NF Kids (ALL) Kids (not YA) YA
eBooks
Print
63%
35%
14% 10%
38%

33. Are print books dying? NO.
Print lives. Absolutely.
 Book market is BIG, varied market
 Lots of types of books (textbooks, professional, art,
children’s books, etc)
 In U.S., ebooks are replacing/displacing our
cheapest formats (particularly mass market)
 So BIG impact on fiction sales
 Ebooks are about storytelling
 Less impact on other categories of books
 Appears to also be some stabilizing of ebooks
growth

34. Today’s US Market:
 Explosion in the amount of books available
 Increasing pressure on brick and mortar
bookstores
 Value of discovery in the brick and mortar retail space
 Corresponding challenge of discovery in the online
retail space
 Marketing is becoming more fragmented and
more expensive
 Continued pressure on pricing

35. [ 3. What can authors be doing? ]
Different authors’ career paths

36. Author A (Romance)
 Started out at an independent publishing house in 1990
 Began publishing new titles with Sourcebooks in 2012
(had already published nearly 50 books in 30 years)
 Now writes 1 new book per year
86%
2%
6%
6%
Author A
Mass
Trade
Libraries
Ebooks

37. Author B (Women’s Fiction)
 This author today sells well in every channel
7%
14%
1%
78%
Author B
Mass
Trade
Libraries
Ebooks

38. Authors can have very different
career paths and as a result,
different career needs

39. Even when authors are just
starting, their debut titles and
audiences can create different
career directions

40. 3 debut authors at launch (both P+e)
Author A
W-M &
Target
B&N
library
ebook
Amazon
Author C
Author B W-M &
W-M &
Target
B&N
library
ebook
Amazon
Target
B&N
library
ebook
Amazon
All launched
within 60
days of each
other

41. All authors must figure out what they
need and what really works for them
by talking to their agents or publishers
or writing groups about their goals,
their strategies and building their
careers brick by brick…

42. Some examples of personal goals
 “I want to be a New
York Times
bestselling author”
 “I want to sell a million
books”
 “I want to make as
much $ as possible”
 “I want to quit my day
job and write full-time”
 “I want to reach as
many readers as
possible”
 “I want to focus on my
writing and have
strong support with
marketing and sales”
 “#1 on the New York
Times bestsellers list
in next couple of
years”
 “I want to win a RITA”

43. Susanna said, “I want to win a RITA!”
 Susanna publishes
paranormal timeslip women’s
fiction/romance
 To achieve her goal,
Susanna used her
readership as a resource
 She asked fans which
category to submit in:
 Historical
 Paranormal
 Contemporary
 They told her paranormal …

44. Susanna said, “I want to win a RITA!”

45. One of the dangers: the
compulsion to compare oneself to
others
I have a
publishing deal,
but they have
marketing.
I have completed a
manuscript, but
they have an
agent.
I write, but
they write
better.
I have an agent,
but they have a
publishing deal.
I have marketing,
but they have a
publicist.
Dryden, Emma D. Our Stories, Ourselves. http://emmaddryden.blogspot.com/2014/10/i-want-what-
shes-got-disastrous.html

46. [ 4. Creating new revenue
streams together ]

47. What is the value you’re adding…
Authors
and
Agents
Retailers
Publishers
Provide More
Value

48. experiment relentlessly

49. our goal has to be to
increase the probability
that an author, a book, a
series, or a program will be
successful and to increase
the revenue that we provide
our content partners

50. enhanced ebooks
How can we serve
readers better?
online platforms
(mobile)
apps
online
communities
ebooks
user-generated
content

51. enhanced ebooks
How can we serve
readers better?
online platforms
(mobile)
apps
online
communities
ebooks
user-generated
content

52. Experimentation and Scale
Thousands of ideas
Hundreds of experiments
Test relentlessly
around what your
customers actually
want. Agile. Lean
Startup.
Handful of trials
Dozens of
experiments will
prove successful
enough to go into
rigorous trials. Can
we build a viable
program or business
here?

53. At Sourcebooks: 4 trials are now in process of
scaling…they will become the growth engines of
our future.

54. STRATEGY:
Creating New Kinds of Value
Creative
Content
Partners
Publishers Retailers
Readers
Direct to Consumer business
Exclusive channels that provide
more marketing mojo and
increasing revenue in a
crowded ecosystem
+ Grow Core Book Business

55. Put Me In The Story example

56. There have always
been personalized
books

57. What We Do
We create a personal connection between
you and the books you love

58. We create the best personalized books…
 Making the world’s
best books available
in ways that surprise
and delight
 Taking personalized
books to a completely
new level
 Each book is
personalized in a way
that makes sense for
that book

59. What We Do
We create a personal connection between
you and the books you love

60. And What Really Matters
…we foster a greater
love of reading
(sometimes even a
first love of reading)
+
a deeper early
connection to books
We create a keepsake that families will
cherish forever

61. What customers tell us…
“These books make beautiful
gifts. My daughter loves her
book and I can barely get
through it without crying.
Love!”
– Amber Helwick
Thousands of
testimonials
"This was a great gift and
keepsake....there's even a spot to
put a photo of you and the loved one
on the front page. I'm sure he'll
treasure it for a long time."
– Tru Peffer

62. How It Works
Launched with iOS app with incredibly easy-to-use
interface
Allows you to have a special connection to the books that
children love the most.

63. How It Works
Incredibly easy-to-use interface…
Allows you to see every page of the book as you
personalize. Then we print and ship it to you with best in
class turnaround times and customer support.

64. Launched in 2013
with Elmo…

65. Why It Works
Great Books!

66. Our partners…
…are the world’s
greatest
characters and
favorite,
bestselling books.
The ones you love
the most!

67. Amazing new partners keep coming…
 Nickelodeon – 4 book
deal. First books Q4
 Sandra Magsamen
 Anne Geddes
 Peanuts

68. Today we have
extraordinary opportunities

69. How Put Me In The Story
Creates Value For Authors
 Creating a new channel
for picture books,
illustrated books, gift
books for all occasions
and non-book products
 Higher price point:
$24.99-$29.99
 Incremental sales dollar!
 Some indication that our
online marketing is lifting
retail sales (tens of
millions of impressions in
Q4 2013)

70. Some observations about
Put Me In The Story development
1. 5th attempt at Put Me in The Story
2. Data-driven development
3. Expensive
 Tech costs $$
 Operations: customer service, shipping, bundling, app &
database integration
4. New ideas come from doing the work
5. Of dozens of major experiments (+ 100’s of smaller
ones) we’ve tried only 4 have worked in a BIG way that
is scalable

71. What matters…

72. A Publisher Vision for the Future
1. Digital has changed the future for authors and books
2. Book retailing is changing
3. Crowded ecosystem will continue to get more crowded,
driving price down and making marketing more
competitive
4. Look at strategically where your career is now and what
next steps/growth might look like. Define specific BIG
goals
5. Create new revenue streams together

73. “We should try to be the
parents of our future rather
than the offspring of our past.”
— Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936)
Spanish essayist, novelist, poet,
playwright, and philosopher

74. It’s not just the
book that’s
transforming.
It’s the book
publisher.
Digital changes
everything.

75. Where will Sourcebooks be in 5 years?
 The most experimental publishing partner
 Creating successful new models for authors
 Continuing to create the future of the book
ecosystem
 Publishing authors,
not just books in exciting,
new, innovative ways

76. Let’s talk.
Email: dominique.raccah@sourcebooks.com
Twitter: @draccah