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John Tantillo's Brand Winner... And Loser: Stephen Covey & E-Books... and Traditional Books & E-Books
Posted by The Marketing Doctor at 12/21/2009 6:31 PM 
Categories: Marketing
Tags: marketing Tantillo book publicity Jeff Bezos Sony Reader royalties Franklin Covey Gutenberg self-publishing Amazon e-books branding publishing traditional books Kindle Stephen Covey
Categories: Marketing
Tags: marketing Tantillo book publicity Jeff Bezos Sony Reader royalties Franklin Covey Gutenberg self-publishing Amazon e-books branding publishing traditional books Kindle Stephen Covey
Brand Winner… | And Loser |
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John Tantillo’s Winner and Loser of The Week:
Winner: Stephen Covey and E-Books
Loser: Traditional Publishing and E-Books
Folks, rarely does the Marketing Doctor find such a stark contrast between smart marketing and stupid marketing in the same industry in the same week.
The Winner
Stephen Covey, the best-selling author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, is the marketing winner of the week after making a ground-breaking, exclusive deal to sell e-books of his best-selling backlist titles through Amazon. (Here’s the story from the NY Times.)
This is a man who usually knows which direction the wind is blowing, and his decision to take the electronic rights away from his long-time, traditional publisher, Simon & Schuster, says a lot about what the future will look like for books and their authors.
Bottom line: Covey’s deal, which makes his titles available through e-book publisher RosettaBooks, will give him 50% royalties as opposed to 25% (the standard from traditional publishers). Traditional publishers can’t seem to match this.
Even more important are the implications for marketing. Authors have long complained that publishers just don’t get marketing, with everything from publication dates to distribution to promotions being fumbled. Covey’s decision makes him, as the author, the head of marketing for his books, and that’s the way it should be.
For now, Stephen Covey and his book-writing father, Franklin (of Franklin Covey), are saying that they will stick with Simon & Schuster for future books. But between the lines you can read a different story. In August, Stephen published a book through Franklin Covey that was exclusively available electronically and through Amazon. Franklin is self-publishing his next book electronically and also selling it exclusively through Amazon.
Folks, the writing is on the wall for traditional publishers. Best-selling authors with track records and heavily-trafficked websites are simply going to start taking the marketing ground back, and as e-books develop, so will the small- to mid-selling authors —especially if the traditional publishers don’t offer real marketing advantages to their authors. With distribution instant, almost free, and effectively in the hands of authors, it means that unless publishers can show genuine marketing smarts, they just won’t be able to add value.
Isn’t it funny that it’s the creative individual who understands marketing and not the corporate entity that’s supposed to be built around marketing? Hats off to the Covey family for having a marketing vision and backing it with their own money.
The Loser
Traditional book publishing’s position on e-books —namely, keeping new books from going electronic.
Wow, what a bad idea. No, it’s downright dumb. When you have a tech writer in The New York Times (here) laying out the fundamental problem with your industry’s marketing, you know you’re doing something really wrong.
Here’s the scenario. A Kindle user reads a book review online. The review makes him want to buy the book. He looks it up only to find that it won’t be available for four months.
Does he go to the bookstore to buy it? No way. Instead, he scrolls back and buys another book —one of the close to 360,000 titles— that is available for immediate download. Four months later, does he buy the book he was interested in? Probably not. Customer lost.
Gutenberg, whose invention was about delivering information faster and more affordably, would be turning in his grave.
I’ll quote from the Times: “The publishers seem to be picking a fight with the wrong team: their customer. They are punishing the people who buy their content instead of making it simple for those customers to hand over their money, instantly, from any location in the world.”
Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, has said that for every 100 hard copies of a book, his company sells almost 50 e-copies. As I said above, the writing is definitely on the wall.
Publishers must recognize that they are in the business of serving their customers’ needs, wherever they find them, and they must accept that they no longer have the kind of control over price and distribution they once did. The publishers who succeed will be the publishers who get books to their customers on-demand and at a reasonable price. End of story.
This is a lesson all of us can learn from. The world changes —sometimes in revolutionary ways— and we must adapt our businesses accordingly. Marketing is always about putting your customer first. It is our customers who will make us profitable, and it is their needs that we must always identify and keep pace with so that we can consistently meet them.
And, remember, business is always easier when you keep marketing and branding in mind.
TODAY'S TANTILLO TAKEAWAY -
Never forget that your product is there to serve your customers’ needs.
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