PNBA Fall Tradeshow 2011: Thursday’s educational sessions

The PNBA staff keeps things going in Portland

Thursday represented the first full day of activity for the 2011 PNBA Tradeshow, with a host of educational sessions, workshops, and speaker panels taking place all day at Portland’s Airport Holiday Inn.

Things piped up bright and early at 8am. Throughout the day, sessions were divided amongst three primary target audiences: author/publishers, booksellers, and librarians.

For author/publishers, sessions included panels for first-time authors and sessions with titles such as From Write to Read, Every Book is a Startup, Wholesaler vs Distributor?, Fund Your Writing with Grants, Northwest Novels for Northwest Readers, Indie Publishing & Kickstarter.com, and Behind the Stacks: Secrets of Library Marketing Revealed.

Bookseller sessions touched on introductions to the business for first-timers, the subject of co-ops, and boasted various titles such as Introducing the ABC Group @ ABA, What Can SBA Do for Your Bookstore?, Pick of the List for New Children’s Books, Bookstore Self-audit, Effective Author Consignment Plans, The Nuts & Bolts of Selling Google E-books, and Walking Fact into Fiction.

In addition to intro workshops for new librarians, sessions for this target audience included titles such as The Great Readalike, Smart Book Buying for Librarians and Bookstores, Kindles & Kobos & Nooks, Oh My!, and The Best NW Authors for Kids.

Throughout the day, numerous author book signings were also taking place. For a fee, trade show patrons had the opportunity throughout the 3-day event to stock up on author-signed books. The PNBA Fall Tradeshow also provides the opportunity for member meetings and other various groups within the org to conduct business.

I’ll speak in more detail to two interesting sessions I attended, Indie Publishing & Kickstarter.com, and The Nuts & Bolts of Selling Google E-books.

The Kickstarter session consisted of a panel of six warm bodies; publishers and authors who had used this funding platform to help launch their books. Kickstarter.com is a website that not only accommodates book projects, but basically any interesting idea that the site feels is compelling enough to generate public interest.

After the project (in this case, we’ll say it’s a book) passes muster with Kickstarter staff, the details of the project are packaged and marketed online (through compelling video and what I’d describe as a mini white paper of sorts) through an online campaign to find interested “donors,” who decide that the project is interesting enough to fund in advance of it being issued. I almost think of these donors as stockholders, investing in the project through its merits, or perhaps because they know the individual behind the project and want to invest in them.

In this example, the author/publisher would need to complete their project within a designated time frame, with the idea that once the project was launched they would receive the revenues that had resulted from the campaign. A panel member indicated that with some savvy marketing, enormous revenues were awaiting Kickstarter.com participants and project managers on the back end — thus, the incentive to finish the project to collect the revenues. I was under the impression that the funds available from the campaign were generally unable to be accessed by the project managers, but when I asked a panel speaker indicated some cases where funds could be accessed to serve as capital to fund the production of the project.

I was also curious to know if this program was aimed at first-time authors or project types, and learned that’s not necessarily the case. It seems like the perfect kind of incentive and revenue platform for the types of projects (or, more accurately, the types of project managers) who may have a tendency to procrastinate and not finish something that would otherwise be a marvelous product or creative endeavor. I’ve said it before, and I’ll take it to my grave….it’s the writers and artists who are the visionaries in society and help to advance humanity. They see what the rest of us can’t, and bring it to us. I’m ALL for a tool that helps to advance that cause. Go to Kickstarter.com to find out more about it!

The next session I attended involved the selling of Google e-books from the bookseller’s perspective. It served mainly as a Q&A session that jumped around the topic and addressed everything from new e-reader users to self-management of websites and viewpoints on selling platforms in the evolving world of e-books.

One bookseller described situations with longtime customers who are new e-reader users, and their learning curve. The panelist mentioned that when someone is interested in an e-book, it’s good to “brace them” for the learning curve on the front end of device use.

New e-book customers need to get over this initial hump and understand the arc of the learning curve itself in order to embrace the new technology….and that once it’s set up and they work with it a bit, that they’ll be up and running. He mentioned that folks were initially very intimidated by the device, and would come to them to buy an e-book, but they didn’t know what to buy because there was a technology gap….so the idea of “e-support groups” and “e-therapy sessions” formed, in which bookstore patrons would get together from all backgrounds and skill sets to figure out how to use their e-devices. The results being that in the end, people are happier and more comfortable with the technology, so they end up purchasing more e-books.

Focus on managing bookstore websites for the sale of e-books was also a focus. The panel seemed to indicated that the interface in Google was easy to work with, so book sellers could curate things to their own liking; creating book lists, quick price modification, and advertising specials. The platform gives you the ability to build e-book links, and post special deals, etc. One panelist indicated that while the price changing ability is a nice feature when competing with other sites, it involves quite a bit of work and monitoring.

The panel indicated that low priced e-books sell and serve as a siphon for sales of e-books that are not on sale. On the websites customers can sort e-books by price to see what suits their budget. While the website tools are helpful, they’re only as effective as the imagination and creativity behind them….so some savvy marketing needs to take place on the part of bookstores, such as calling out promotions with e-newsletters in which they continuously advertise the existence of the Google site.

The Google site is also a good vehicle for bringing in new customers with reminders on specials, etc. A panelist indicated that he issued a separate opt-in e-newsletter for folks who have already purchased from the bookstore, with the use of Constant Contact. Followup marketing with thank yous and questions, and ensure that you’ll get repeat customers.

A panelist indicated that mysteries and science fiction seem to be the e-books that are selling the best. Not all e-books are $9.99 — prices can definitely vary. There was mention of a marketing concept called a “petting zoo” (not really sure what that is in the e-book world) which sometimes worked, and sometimes didn’t. Cross-pollinating with Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites. A 25 cent promotion went viral for one bookseller, with orders coming in from around the country.

90% of people who get kindles get them from relatives, according to a panel speaker. He claims that then “You don’t own the Kindle, Amazon owns you.” Another panelist suggested checking out a site called bluefire.com, which helps with hookups and “arcing” to read “gallies.”

Someone in the audience asked about how a bookseller would get paid through the Google platform. Apparently every two weeks sales revenues are sent to you, with a spreadsheet from AVA, to an e-commerce site where they can be retrieved. Booksellers make about 23% of the listed price — so $0.23 on a $0.99 e-book, for example.

There was some discussion regarding sales of books on an “agency plan.” Apparently stores are not allowed to incentivize (if that’s actually a word, I like it!) purchases on agency plan books….the entity controlling the price (who was referred to as an “overlord” by someone in the audience) want the price to be straight across the board. One panel member sees it as a legal way to “fix” book prices in the industry, but later seemed to repudiate his statement. Is there price fixing going on?

There were differing opinions (albeit rather strong) on whether or not that was actually the case. Constellation Digital was thrown out as a solution to what some book sellers see as the platform in question “besieging” booksellers. It was widely agreed, however, that AVA (the OS behind Google’s Android) seems to be the “only game in town,” as it has all the supporting documentation and is more of a plug & play sort of platform.

As a customer, the “agency plan” thing essentially it boils down to this: if you see the same book varying in price between sites, it most likely is a non-agency plan book. If the price is the same, it’s most likely the other case.

That last session was quite a bit of information to take in from someone like myself who is a vendor to the publishing process, but it was absolutely fascinating to sit in and listen to what book sellers have to say about these evolving e-book platforms. Much of what I wrote about the Google platform was taken from notes as I scrambled to capture comments and information being thrown around the room at a jackrabbit’s pace….so if there seem to be any factual discrepancies about any of the technology I just wrote about, please let me know. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that I may have garbled some details here or there.

In the next post, we’ll review what authors have to say at PNBA Portland, along with the goings on with the exhibitor floor.

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