Q&A: Philip Parker, Developer of Automated Authoring Platform

Mac Slocum
April 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Philip Parker, founder of ICON Group International and a management science professor at Insead, has developed a patented approach to publishing that combines databases and programming with editorial management -- sometimes via humans, sometimes via computers. ICON Group produces books in 17 genres, including health care, business, reference and crosswords.

In this Q&A, Parker discusses ICON Group's computer-driven process.

How do you identify book topics?

Based on personal and research interests, I select a genre. Once a genre is selected, I do all titles in that genre (e.g. all trade categories that are officially recognized).

Are writers, editors, or designers involved at any point?

Depends on the genre, but yes, all are relied on heavily at many stages. Health guides are written by medical professionals and hand edited. The business reports have highly edited sections, but 90 percent is computer based.

What types of sources/databases do you pull information from? Are there data sources you don't currently have access to that you think hold promise for this type of publishing?

Depends on the genre. I use the sources that are used by regular authors. For example, an economist uses well established sources to do econometrics, I use the same sources. Many companies and governments have under-utilized data sources and databases that may yield interesting genres; I have worked on the ones that I found of interest to me. I have a huge store of proprietary data. If I use a government source, this is cited, and will vary by genre (e.g. CDC for infectious disease information).

You were part of a print-on-demand (POD) panel at TOC '08. Are all Icon Group books POD? What POD service(s) do you use?

No, not all are print-on-demand. We use LSI [Lighting Source] and Booksurge for POD. We do some POD ourselves for specialized orders.

Could your company -- or a similar company -- function without POD?

Yes, in fact, most of our titles are not POD, but electronic via subscription for large libraries -- corporate and non-corporate.

Are all books also made available as ebooks? What ebook formats do you use?

Yes. PDF, DOC, Mobipocket (coming soon), Pocket PC.

Do researchers or clients ask you to prepare specific books?

Yes. We are able to do financial and labor studies on demand.

Mike Maznick says there's some fairly negative feedback on some of the titles. Is that a consequence of the automated nature of the content creation? Do you feel confident people buying these books know they're generated? Or does that not matter?

All publishers have negative and positive comments (e.g. O'Reilly). I would find it strange if our titles did not. Of the titles we have on Amazon, some 50/210,000 have real comments. Many are satirical. Of the ones from actual buyers, all publishers will receive negative and positive feedback (both can be not real, as Amazon comments are almost wiki based; posted by various people, including affiliates who are trying to sell titles).

I do not track the feedback on Amazon, but I imagine of the 17 genres (crosswords, classics, trade, outlooks, etc.), the negative ones are probably only on the health care guides, which are sold mostly to libraries and patient associations. Of all the genres, this one [health care] is not "generated by computer" -- all the text is written by professionals. The computer is used for formatting and doing the index, and compiling the glossaries.

I have a feeling that the low ratings are because the person does not like the content, thinks that better content or similar content is available elsewhere (e.g. the Internet) or was hoping for more. The health guides are clearly marked as Internet guides, and they cite Internet sources. All of the guides are vetted (by librarians, etc.). If people are dissatisfied because they think the computer wrote the text in the books, then they are dissatisfied for the wrong reason, which is unfortunate.

Many patient associations have not only reviewed the books, but also recommended them to patients and families. On balance, I think it better to make these available to patients with rare diseases who wish to better know how to navigate the Internet, beyond a Google search. For the other genres, I have never received negative feedback, only positive feedback or questions about methodology.

What is your most popular title? How many copies were sold?

Our trade reports, which are purchased by consulting firms, investment banks, and companies involved in international trade. This series is very popular. We gauge sales by series, not by individual titles. Traditional publishers think in terms of individual titles.

On average, how many copies of a single title do you sell?

There are thousands held by libraries (this is public data at World Cat). Some firms subscribe to all titles. Again, we often sell series. Some [titles] sell hundreds, some sell just a few, as a part of a series sale. The prices seen on Amazon are one-off -- we sell few or none of these.

For a typical title, what percentage of the total retail sale is profit?

We do not have a typical title. ICON Group as a whole makes no "profit" -- all resources are plowed into R&D for new genres. The margins of the books at retail -- as opposed to profit -- are very low for the POD titles, and higher for the business titles. The margins for the low-priced products follow the industry, though we have lower margins as POD can be expensive compared to short-run printing.

A recent New York Times article says that each book costs you "about 12 cents in electricity." What other costs are involved in the process?

It can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, or more, to set up a genre (programming, licensing, editing, research/analysis, etc.). Many [genres] take about 1 year to create, some take 3 to 5 years. I have been doing this for about 8 years now.

How is pricing determined?

Same as in the publishing industry. In some genres we try to equate marginal revenues to marginal costs. On lower-priced POD we make sure we cover the basic costs. On higher end, we try to be substantially below related titles (e.g. trade and outlook, and other business reports). The latter [higher end] are really not sold via Amazon much, but rather through MarketResearch.com, EBSCO (content inclusion), NetLibrary and traditional channels for those markets (direct sales).

How many titles do you plan to develop this year?

Depends on the genre. For Mobipocket (mobile books), we plan on about 68,000 titles. For others, maybe around 50,000. We are working heavily on my dictionary and animations.

Related:

• Video: "Patent on 'Long Tail' for automated content authorship"
• Automated Authoring Frequently Asked Questions
• Measuring Success on Self-Published Titles

Ergonomics and Ebook Success

Mac Slocum
April 22, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Lee Gomes of the Wall Street Journal discusses the pleasant surprise of reading ebooks on his BlackBerry:

Your thumb doesn't fall off turning teeny-tiny digital pages thousands of times to get through even the most fleeting novella. In fact, the ergonomics almost beats that of books.

Some will argue that mobile screen sizes don't encourage extended ebook experiences, but there's something to be said for the convenience of flicking through pages with your fingers or zooming along on a track ball (or if you're old school, a click wheel). In fact, e-reader manufacturers might want to look at popular handheld devices for design inspiration -- and by "handheld" I mean anything that can be held in your hand, not just mobile gadgets.

Take the TiVo remote. In 2004, the New York Times did a feature story on this device:

Because of the nature of the TiVo video recorder, the remote is held for long periods as users continually choose shows to record, skip commercials, fast-forward and rewind recorded shows, rate programs by pressing the thumbs-up or thumbs-down buttons, and even pause live TV. Designing a remote that consumers would find comfortable was a high priority.

An e-reader doesn't have much in common with a TV remote, but that's not really the point. It's all about core use. The TiVo remote works because the oversized pause button -- embodying the essence of a DVR -- is impossible to miss. The iPhone works because the touchscreen gives you maneuverability in a small space, thereby narrowing the gap between a mobile device and a PC. And the BlackBerry works because the track ball lets you fly through menus and information. Moreover, each of these design elements is now second nature to users, so manufacturers can safely incorporate similar (not stolen; similar) functionality while avoiding user-interface re-education.

It could be that touchscreens and intuitively placed buttons/wheels/balls don't enhance the ebook experience (although I think they might), but the current insistence on meshing traditional books with ebooks isn't a design nirvana, either. As Gomes notes, the book-ebook connection isn't really necessary:

Until a few weeks ago, my assumption had been that a useable electronic book would need to resemble a Gutenberg book as much as possible, with, for example, pages of screen text about the same size as pages of print ... The Sony Reader, however, turned out to be a gateway device. Once you've experienced its great rush of convenience, choice and portability, you just have to have more. It's then that you cross the line and start downloading British novels onto a BlackBerry. [Emphasis added.]

If "convenience, choice, portability" and other core ebook attributes define e-reader hardware design, then the resulting ergonomics could be the key attribute that reinvents the established market.

(Via Teleread.)

Related Stories:

• Toward a More Touchable E-Book
• Multi-touch Raises the Bar
• BlackBerry Reading
• Why Amazon's Kindle Doesn't Light My Fire

[LBF] This Way to the Egress, er, Ebooks

Andrew Savikas
April 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Along with my registration materials for the London Book Fair (sent to me by mail -- a sign of how traditional most of the publishing industry remains) was a ticket to something called the "London eBook Show at the London Book Fair."

At first glance, I was excited to see that ebooks would be featured so prominently at the Fair, but a closer look showed it was actually just a (brilliant) tactic from the folks at DNAML, ebooks to get bodies to their booth. The "show" was a presentation from DNAML's US GM Peter Kent about DNL's take on the future of ebooks (a future that unsurprisingly prominently features their software ...). If anyone's looking for a case study on effective trade show booth promotion, talk to these guys. It was quite impressive to see folks lined queued (I am in London) up with tickets in hand for the "show." While the overall message was right on target, there were several points of the presentation that don't quite mesh with the future of publishing as we've been seeing it:

• DRM. Peter talked quite a bit about DRM, and at one point even mentioned that their research discovered O'Reilly titles on file sharing sites. But that implies that we believe that's a bad thing, when in fact, we feel quite the opposite -- that "piracy" can be a valuable promotional tool (and we're not the only ones)
• The future of devices. I certainly don't fault someone who's selling PC-based ebook software for downplaying the future of dedicated reading devices like the Kindle and Sony Reader. And Peter's right that laptops are becoming cheaper and smaller, and I wouldn't be surprised if a considerable amount of ebook reading happens on laptops. But connecting a few dots (half of Japan's top 10 books last year were written on mobile phones; the iPhone has proven a game-changer for user expectations on a mobile device; Kindle results for at least some publishers have been quite strong) suggests that reading away from a PC will be at least as big, if not bigger, than reading on one.
• Open formats. I'll admit that DNL's software does some pretty impressive stuff with content. But I disagree that keeping that format proprietary is the best choice. The history of proprietary data formats is not a rosy one, and it would be great to instead see work contributed to the emerging .epub standard to improve features there -- if their reader is that good, they haven't got much to fear from sharing.

Those points aside, it really was great to see so much interest in ebooks among the publishers at their "show." And I thought Peter was spot-on in making parallels between ebooks and software: software used to be sold in boxes in retail stores (and later from online retailers, but still in boxes); now most software is downloaded and often includes a trial period. It certainly makes sense that ebooks will eventually follow a similar model, which does mean some serious re-evaluation of existing sales and distribution channels. We've said before that the tools and techniques for developing content are becoming very much like those used to develop software, and it was useful to hear this other analogy raised.

Although there are still standards squabbles, pricing questions, and distribution methods to be worked out, the money to be made is too attractive not to motivate resolution, and 2008 is going to be a very big year for ebooks. Perhaps next year there really will be an "ebook show" at the Fair.

Related Stories:

• Long-tail evidence from Safari and Google Book Search
• Dealing with the other F-word
• Keep Your Eye on the ePub Ball (but do play nice)

Do Publishers Have the Stomach for Innovation?

Andrew Savikas
April 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Amid a post on what's wrong with venture investing, Umair Haque mentions publishing as a risk-averse industry unfriendly to innovation:

And so what's happening isn't surprising. The dynamics of old boy's clubs are almost deterministically predictable: they fight tooth and nail against risk, against the radical, against any kind of change to the status quo. They're great at "monetization" - cutting deals - but the last thing old boy's clubs are good at, unfortunately, is sticking up, come hell or high water, for innovation. From music, to publishing, to food, to autos, the outcome of locked-down boardrooms has been innovation stifled and suffocated. [Emphasis added]

I'll agree with Umair about music and about publishing applied to newspapers, but I believe that book publishing -- as-yet spared by a digitization tsunami -- still has time to embrace innovation. Which is not easy to do, because it tends to challenge a lot of fundamental assumptions on which careers have been built. For example, Techdirt notes a recent AP article on the perception gap between newspaper readers and editors:

Editors are against the idea of anonymous comments being allowed (only 30% thought it was okay). Yet 55% of readers felt that allowing anonymous comments was a good idea. 58% of editors didn't think that journalists should join in the online conversation and give out opinions, but only 36% of readers agreed. You can certainly see where the old school journalists are coming from -- having grown up in an era where journalist objectivity was everything, but it's becoming increasingly clear that people don't believe journalists are objective -- and they're much more upset by journalists pretending to be objective than those that are willing to be open with their views and willing to discuss them. Once again, newspapers need to start realizing that the very nature of journalism has changed.

Taking some license here, I'd revise that last line as: Book publishers need to start realizing that the very nature of publishing is changing while there's still time to change with it. While many in publishing are experimenting, I've also encountered a lot of industry folks who just want the world to wait while they figure out how to deal with it. For example, at a recent trade show, I heard the same gentleman ask in three different sessions when there would be a "solution" to the "problem" of file sharing of books. The answer I would have given? None of your readers think it's a "problem," so there is no "solution" forthcoming. The solution is to adapt to the reality of file sharing, and use free to your advantage. Nearly all of O'Reilly's books can be found online somewhere (sometimes with full blessing from us and the author), yet subscription-based access to digital versions of our books continues to be a strong growth business for us (Safari Books Online is our third-largest reseller, behind only Amazon and B&N).

I'll be at the London Book Fair next week (drop me a line if you want to connect: andrew AT oreilly.com), and am eager to gauge the sentiment there on these issues, particularly amid the latest Amazon dustups.

Related posts on the value of free:

• Dealing with the other F-word
• Are You Ready for Free?
• How Do Publishers and Authors Get Paid in a "Free" World?
• Last.fm co-founder: "free music discovery can lead to dollars"
• Bad Math Among eBook Enthusiasts

Keep Your Eye on the epub Ball (But Do Play Nice)

Andrew Savikas
April 10, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (24) | Listen

On Peter Brantley's Reading 2.0 email list, former IDPF director Nick Bogaty offered a great argument for dialing down some of the pressure aimed at device makers for not yet fully supporting the .epub ebook standard. Nick has kindly given permission to have his comments reprinted here:

While companies like the one I work for have broadly implemented .epub support in its eBook products (in Adobe's case in InDesign CS3 for making .epub and Digital Editions for consuming it), I think it is too early to question vendor support for the .epub format. The final piece of the .epub specification (which is really composed of three specs) was only approved in September 2007 and it takes time for big companies to digest the implications of .epub on their businesses, integrate it into their products etc.

When we were making the .epub format when I was at the IDPF, we envisioned that eBook hardware and software would handle .epub in one of two ways. The first way is to simply render (in the case of eBooks that means "read") .epub files natively. Personally this is what I think makes most sense and it is what Adobe thinks makes most sense. You get an .epub file, open it in a piece of software or on an ebook reading device, and you're reading an .epub book. This scenario uses .epub as a consumer format.

The second way is for software or a device to take an .epub file and automatically convert it to a proprietary format. A publisher creates an .epub file, sends it to a vendor or through a channel that they want to sell, and that vendor or channel builds some sort of automatic conversion of the .epub to a proprietary format. There are many reasons for doing this, and all reasons generally have to do with companies thinking the .epub format doesn't meet the requirements of their hardware or software. This scenario uses .epub as a distribution format.

Either way, the advantage for publishers is very clear. Until now publishers had to convert to X numbers of formats if they wanted to take advantage of X numbers of channels. This significantly raised costs for publishers and forced publishers to make a strategic decision on what parts of their inventory they wanted to convert to an eBook in order to recoup their investment in conversion. And this had depressing consequences for consumers. Imagine going into a Barnes & Noble store with only 10,000 titles available.

What .epub really gives publishers is leverage. They can say to their vendors and channels, "ok, I'm now only giving you .epub and you better either provide software that reads .epub or provides an automatic conversion from .epub to Y format." This tremendously lowers costs and aggravation for publishers and, I strongly suspect, will increase inventory through the channels quite dramatically. The decision to create an eBook is just so much easier to make. And, if a hot eBook startup (or existing non-compliant eBook device/software) comes along to a publisher and says, "I've got this great device or software, give me your books in my format," a publisher can say, "you get .epub if you want my books." I strongly suspect that in the coming months, this above scenario of ".epub only" will start to happen more and more as publishers begin to produce .epub and understand its tremendous benefits to their digital businesses. And, publishers can use this leverage to get their software and ebook device partners to implement .epub a little faster.

While people don't seem quite in the mood these days to do so, I'd give Amazon (and others) the benefit of the doubt and a little time on .epub. The format is clearly in everyone's best interest.

[Links and emphasis added]

Nick's comments are reasoned and rational (not unexpected from someone who's spent time on both the standards side and the vendor side). And while publishers need to be realistic in their expectations for adoption of such a new standard (here at O'Reilly we're still working ourselves to efficiently retrofit content for .epub), publishers still need to keep the .epub goal in sight, and make sure that our actions continue progress toward that endpoint. As Nick suggests, saying "ok, I'm now only giving you .epub and you better either provide software that reads .epub or provides an automatic conversion from .epub to Y format" is the right way to go, for publishers and consumers.

Related Stories & Information:

• .epub FAQ
• Pssst, Buddy, Wanna Buy a Kindle?
• Amazon Ups the Ante on Platform Lock-In
• A Twist on Mobile Book Content

Tag an Audio Clip, Buy it Later

Mac Slocum
April 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Stick with me on this one. TWICE says HD Radio iTunes Tagging lets listeners mark a song for future listening/purchase. The process is clunky -- users have to hear the song, press a "tag" button on a special HD Radio, connect an iPod to download the tag metadata, then sync the iPod to a PC -- but I imagine syncing will improve as the functionality matures (ideally, the HD Radio should wirelessly transfer metadata to a PC or a mobile device).

Usability issues aside, the idea of "tag-then-buy" could extend to audio books. If publishers and radio broadcasters team up to air select chapters from audio books, HD radio users could tag the book for future purchase through an online retailer.

Or, if the technology catches up, consumers could make a direct purchase through a mobile service and download an audio book or ebook to a mobile device, in-car hard drive, PC, set-top box or server.

A system like this might be just around the corner. If the move toward DRM-free content continues to gain steam and consumers get comfortable with mobile-based buying, electronics manufacturers and content creators will look for ways to shorten the line between discovery and purchase.

Roundup: No Returns for New HarperCollins Unit, Amazon's Mobile TextBuyIT, Publisher Staffers Get Sony Readers, Ebook Shortage, Custom Cookbooks

Mac Slocum
April 4, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

New HarperCollins Unit: No Returns, Few Advances (Subscription Required)
The Wall Street Journal says a new unnamed HarperCollins unit will not accept retailer returns and will pay little or no author advances. The business will direct its efforts toward Internet sales and writer profit-sharing.

Update 4/4/08, 1:30 p.m. The New York Times has additional details on the HarperCollins unit:

• Hyperion founder Bob Miller will run the business.
• The unit will release ebooks and audio books for all its titles, a move designed to give consumers "information in any format that they want," says Jane Friedman, president and CEO of HarperCollins. Alternative formats might be included with printed editions at no extra cost.
• Miller says the business will aim for 25 published titles per year.
• Authors may get a 50-50 split on profits, but the tone of the article suggests these details are still to be determined.

Amazon Offers Mobile Shopping Through TextBuyIT
Retailers might want to confiscate cell phones at the door. Amazon's new TextBuyIT service lets customers peruse and purchase Amazon products via text messaging. Purchases are confirmed through an automated calling system.

Publisher Staffers Get Sony Readers
Publishers Weekly says Sony Readers are being distributed to employees at major publishing firms so manuscripts and other documents can be managed digitally. Random House, Hachette, Simon & Schuster and St. Martin's are all on the Reader bandwagon. Phil Madens, Hachette's director of publishing standards and practices, tells PW:

"We looked at how much we were spending on paper, postage, ink. A 400-page manuscript would cost $7 to print. In the first couple of seasons, the Reader will pay for itself."

Ebook Shortage from Big Publishers?
In an analysis of Publishing Trends' latest ebook figures, David Rothman concludes:

... right now readers just aren't getting all the titles they need in E [ebook format], partly because DRM and other eBabel-related issues have complicated life for shoppers and many publishers and e-bookstores, thus reducing the potential rewards for publishers of all sizes.

Custom Cookbooks on Demand
Members of BigOven, a food-focused social network, can create and order custom cookbooks through the BigOven site. The system runs on SharedBook's "reverse publishing platform" API.

Pssst, Buddy, Wanna Buy a Kindle?

Andrew Savikas
April 3, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Never mind that Amazon continues to be sold out of Kindles (as of this writing), and that the process for getting content into the Kindle still leaves a bit to be desired, amid a recent email from Amazon was this interesting item:

Earn a 10% revenue share on Kindle content and Kindle devices purchased through Amazon Associates links on your site -- with Kindle priced at $399 you earn $39.90 on each Kindle purchase you refer.

Amazon's affiliate program is nothing new, but offering 10% on such a high-priced item for referring even just one is worth noting (the 10% rate is only also offered for mp3 and Unbox downloads, with the latter capped at $1.50).

Publishers should be alarmed about how aggressive Amazon is becoming in pursuing a platform play -- or arguably a vertical integration drive. (I suspect there's folks at Amazon viewing today's news about Apple passing Wal-Mart as motivational.) Let's look at three critical trends relevant to the future of publishing:

1. Ebooks
2. Print-on-Demand
3. The ubiquity of mobile devices

Now look more closely at each:

• Ebooks. This one's easy: Kindle. Ten percent is a strong incentive, and the more Kindles they sell, the closer they get to becoming the price arbiter for ebooks, and the closer they get to establishing their proprietary format as the standard for ebooks. The goal? Ebooks = Amazon (Kindle + $9.99).
• Print-on-Demand. The cost and quality are on a predictable trend toward parity with traditional offset printing. The economics are already heavily in favor of POD for long-tail titles, and Amazon is now maneuvering to capture as big a chunk of the value in that tail for themselves as they can get. The goals? POD = Amazon (BooksSurge). (However, today's announcement from Ingram and On-Demand Books underscores a critical Amazon weakness around POD: one of the most attractive benefits of POD is that readers can have a book printed right in front of them, with no need to wait for shipping.)
• Mobile. Their new TextPayIt program is an acknowledgement that mobile payment is coming (they're not the only ones to notice), and a way to avoid dealing with any intermediaries. The goal? Buying on-the-go for later use = Amazon.

These are some bright, blinking dots that publishers (and retailers, and distributors, and authors ...) need to connect. And perhaps more importantly, as Michael Cairns suggests on PersonaNonData, figure out how to respond:

Publishers can do the same kind of thing to distinguish themselves and their authors in the minds of consumers while also establishing more balance in the relationship between producer and retailer. Change is certainly on the horizon but whether publishers move fast enough is the question.