Engagement May Be the Most Important Measure of Product Value
Recently I went to a 5th grade STEM class, on a very cold and dreary winter day in a Chicago suburb. The class started at 8:00 a.m. yet all 20-plus kids were in attendance–some actually arrived early. A few of them had just come from band practice so it...
The Importance of Live Audio with Leveled Readers
New E-books on Science and Social Studies We just completed two series of illustrated readers for a K-12 publisher: three on science topics and three on social studies. The books will be available in print and digital formats, and the latter includes audio tracks...
Nudge, Don’t Noodge
Summer reading has prompted me to share the following thought. I think we can all agree that two important concepts in business are “communication” and “response.” Curiously, both words have a noun and a verb form, and “to...
Brain and Body Food for Kids this Summer
I originally created this post for one of our city’s local publications, but the publisher decided to drop it in favor of more photos of people attending parties. Although the specific locations may be local in nature and of little use to people outside of our...
Digital Publishing Ideas
- Paid and Free Website OptionsTypes of education and consumer subscription models currently available The many ways that educators and consumers can obtain web-based content varies greatly depending on the market and the type of content. The choices can be bewildering, especially because the landscape continues to change. Netflix, for example, for years followed the HBO subscription model where for […]
- How Publishers Can Best Leverage Libraries in the Digital AgeFor almost the entire history of the library ecosystem, publishing companies and libraries have been as tightly aligned in their missions as any other pair of mutually beneficial partnerships. It is hard to imagine a more symbiotic relationship than that between publishers and libraries. The two entities appear more interdependent than baseball bat manufacturers and […]
- Why Libraries are Critical to Our Cultural IdentityThere’s no use going to school unless your destination is the library—Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 In his book Palaces for the People, Eric Klinenberg suggests that the future of democratic societies depends not only on shared values but on shared spaces: The libraries, childcare centers, churches, and parks where crucial connections are formed.[1] The title of […]
- Pricing Models for Online ProductsWhat Price Is Right? Pricing models for books and physical media (CDs, DVDs, audiocassettes) are straightforward, whereas the current pricing models for online content can be baffling—a mixed bag of sponsored content and motley subscription and licensing models, with little market consensus on what online access to various products should cost. Buyers favoring subscription models […]
- Preface excerpt from “Publishing in the Digital Age”(From the Preface) In 2007 I wrote a book entitled Publishing without Boundaries: How to Think, Work, and Win in the Global Marketplace, which had two main objectives: to provide publishers with editorial strategies for creating culturally appropriate products for non-traditional markets; and to outline ways to leverage emerging digital technologies to generate additional revenue […]
- Salt of the EarthSaving Analog Film for Future Use Located about 50 miles northwest of Wichita on the Arkansas River, the city of Hutchinson, Kansas—known as “Salt City” for its extensive labyrinth of salt mines—is the home of Underground Vaults & Storage (UV&S), one of the largest and most secure storage facilities in the world. A 60-year-old […]