beyond bruised shins and stubbed toes clearing the path to global ebook sales
TRANSCRIPT
Online Weekly Sales & Marketing Meeting October 19th, 2010
Beyond bruised shins and stubbed toesClearing the path to global ebook sales 12MM users worldwide.Ebooks in 68 languages.Selling to over 100 countries in any given day.Acquired by Japanese ecommerce juggernaut Rakuten in 2012.Ebook partner to booksellers around the world.2
3And we also happen to have some very popular, award-winning devices, available throughout the world.34
These are some of the places where we started selling our devices in 2012.45
And these are some of the places where we already had a foothold over a year ago.
And while we have several satellite offices around the world, we are headquartered just west of downtown Toronto. 56
Nathan MaharajDirector, Merchandising Ashleigh GardnerDirector, Content Management 991. Agency everywhere! Pop quiz!Youre a US publisher.Youre agency in Canada.In what currency do you communicate your agency prices for Canada?ZARGBPCADUSD
11Pop quiz!Youre a US publisher.Youre agency in Canada.In what currency do you communicate your agency prices for Canada?ZARGBPCAD USD
12If we have rights, but no price, the book is not listed for sale in that agency territory. 1213
As we all know, in the agency model, Power of setting the price lies with the publisher. And in doing so, so does the responsibility. I would hope the first example was an easy one for most of you (but as a Canadian, I know there are still publishers that dont seem to know this)But it does get more complicated when we look at some English language territories like Ireland (where they sell in Euro), or New Zealand, where many agency publishers try to send us Australian dollar pricing for. 1314
# of agency publishers who always supply us with symmetrical rights and currency types?If agency is is setting the price the consumer pays, then that price needs to be in the currency the consumer is paying in.
Foreign exchange is discretionary to the retailer. Which banks rate to they observe? How often is it updated? If youre asking the retailer to do exchange, youre asking them to take part in setting the price\And I think we agree that a 9.99 price is more effective than $10.14.
140 None of them. Every single agency publisher we trade with has had unexercised rights due to their contracts being out of step with their operations.And we're not talking about fringe markets, like no Brazilian real. I mean English language territories like Canada and Australia Some make this mistake when dropping a new title in the season Some haven't finished going into their backlist Some we need to call weekly, because their new releases in canada have no Canadian price
152. Complex rights composites
17
01AD AE AF AG AI AL AM AN AO AQ AR AT AU AW AX AZ BA BB BD BE BF BG BH BI BJ BM BN BO BR BS BT BV BW BY BZ CA CC CD CF CG CH CI CK CL CM CN CO CR CU CV CX CY CZ DE DJ DK DM DO DZ EC EE EG EH ER ES ET FI FJ FK FM FO FR GA GB GD GE GF GH GI GL GM GN GP GQ GR GS GT GW GY HK HM HN HR HT HU ID IE IL IN IO IQ IR IS IT JM JO JP KE KG KH KI KM KN KP KR KW KY KZ LA LB LC LI LK LR LS LT LU LV LY MA MC MD MG MK ML MM MN MO MQ MR MS MT MU MV MW MX MY MZ NA NC NE NF NG NI NL NO NP NR NU NZ OM PA PE PF PG PK PL PM PN PS PT PW PY QA RE RO RU RW SA SB SC SD SE SG SH SI SJ SK SL SM SN SO SR ST SV SY SZ TC TD TF TG TH TJ TK TL TM TN TO TR TT TV TW TZ UA UG UY UZ VA VC VE VG VN VU WF WS YE YT ZA ZM ZW
How many steps of translation do you have from contract to data expression? Who is responsible for each step and How confident are you in all of them.Often the communication of rights in metadata is a duty that falls to very junior staff members. You would never let a book jacket go to print without review, but we receive metadata every day from interns. 1718
And you cant think its okay because youre outsourcing it. You need to know what your distributor is sending. Just because youve hired a Digital Asset management service, doesnt mean that theyre accurately delivering what you send to them.
Bug that allowed only certain # of countriesBug that sent the wrong rights type, reversing all rights.183. Publicity here; no ebook there
20
The Downton Abbey problem. Released around the world in 4 month increments. People were both reading about and actively trying not to read about this series.
Customers dont see where the deal for buying rights is. They dont even know thats a thing. There are lots of good reasons why things get released this way; but none of them serve the customer. Lets think about how we can make this work better.2021
Last year when Oprah picked Cheryl Strayeds Wild for her book club, it was already in market in the US and Canada.2122
But it was scheduled for a 2013 release in the UK.2223
Atlantic Books jumped on the opportunity and released the ebook early.234. Someone else claiming rights 25
In markets traditionally treated as secondary, like Canada and Australia, we see a lot of duplicated rights where the seller forgets they sold rights.2526
Rights are dynamic. Being bought and sold all the time. It comes back to how well youve connected operations to editorial and sales.26Every publishers metadata is gospel to us. 28
The untold story of Fifty Shades of Grey is that when Random House bought the rights, they were careful not to kill the momentum of the books. It was treated like changing a jet engine in flight. As editors look more to self-pub for acquisition, its going to be critical to have good operations and processes to manage rights transitions. This applies equally to international sales.28Thank you! @[email protected]