Book Publishers: Run Don’t Walk To Apple App Store Development
Next Friday on June 19th, 40 million iPhone and iPod touch users will be able to give you money at the click of a button. This isn’t news. Apple announced in-app purchases months ago. It has more or less been inevitable since the iPhone was announced. So where is everybody? With all the talk of innovation in publishing and with the risk-averse among us afraid to act until “a sure thing” drops itself on the C-suite board table, you would think book publishers would be all over this.
R-e-v-e-n-u-e. A marketing intern can even point to it.
Instead you have S&S signing a deal with Scribd. You have HarperCollins putting QR codes on their books. There hasn’t been a iPhone related announcement from the major publishers this week. How come? Because publishers like to do B2B partnerships. Because publishers talk about innovation but don’t live it. Because to move the needle at a major house you need be that rare employee with vision, a budget, nothing to lose AND the ability to influence the boss and have the boss get multiple departments to execute your idea at the same time.
If this is beginning to sound ranty it is because I am super excited about the possibilities while also super disappointed at the likes of HarperCollins. In 2007, just after iPhone 1.0, Harper announced mobile.harpercollins.com. They were on it. Finally. Two years later the site is busted. Last week when I checked, it was off line entirely. This week I went there and was prompted to “come back using my iPhone”. I was checking on my iPhone!! Harper have neglected to keep up with the safari browser updates. Arghh! So much promise. Wasted.
Why doesn’t publisher-driven innovation ever live up to its potential? That is a topic for another post.
What I am really trying to get to here is I am afraid publishers are missing an opportunity that is right in front of them. It is always years later that businesses look back and wonder how they got painted into a corner. This is how.
Sure publishers have partnered with ScrollMotion, Stanza, Wattpad even but with nothing at risk themselves they are bound to drag their feet on this. If Harper, Random, and MacMillan had some skin in the app-store game, surely they would be invested in success. Surely, they would have learned the lesson about price experimentation O’Reilly learned with The Missing Manual app. Surely the inane conversations about pricing would go away. Instead the responsibility of selling books in new and innovative ways is being left to outsiders. Apple is already standing between publishers and readers. Why add more intermediaries? Fewer middlemen. Isn’t that the whole point of digital???
During the WWDC presentation, Scroll Motion’s Josh Koppel gives props to Wiley, McGraw Hill and HMH. Good luck to Scroll Motion. Good luck to the crew at Lexcycle. Good luck to the publishers that are taking meetings with either company. Good luck finding a model that splits a $4.99 purchase 7 different ways.
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