Summer Friday Links for August 9

Next to Now

The Ultimate Hothouse Review?

In which Robert Gottlieb uses a word we’d never heard of—“panjandrum”—to reference his old boss, Mr. Knopf. This is the review we’ve been waiting for.

The Return of the Comment?

After a good number of sites gave up on comments as a field for the worst in human nature, sites such as Quartz, Gawker and Medium are trying to make comments work with an in-story format coupled with a new name—“Annotation”. Even the New York Times is looking into it (gasp).

Measuring Twitter as a Driver of Consumer Behavior

Brian Stelter reports in the New York Times on a new Nielsen study that indicates Twitter is driving TV viewership. What does this mean for books? The report doesn’t speculate, and given the differences between TV and books that’s probably a good idea. TV remains at its heart a live experience with mass reach, while books live deeper in the niches, waiting more patiently and with greater memory than the most sophisticated DVR. While Twitter’s measurable influence on book buying remains elusive, the study’s implication is clear: Twitter is a driver of media consumption.

The “Untapped Marketing Opportunity” We’ve been Tapping for Years

Mobile Marketer suggests in-stream audio advertising is an “untapped marketing opportunity.” Really? We’ve been running campaigns for clients and touting the results for years.

Harry Potter as Allen Ginsburg?

We have mixed feelings about this, though early word is good. “Kill Your Darlings” with Daniel Radcliffe opens October 18.

Facebook to introduce video ads!

But book publishers might want to wait for the $2MM a day price tag to come down.

Summer Friday Links

Next to Now

Junot Díaz Puts the Genius into Rap Genius

From GigaOm: Junot Díaz has annotated a section of his 2008 book “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” on the interactive writing site RapGenius. Diaz added notes that explain his inspiration for the passage, including Star Wars, Dungeons and Dragons, Star Trek and a number of bad science-fiction movies. Sheryl Sandberg did something similar with her book Lean In.

How Does the Publicis-Omnicom Merger Impact Tech?

Ask GigaOm

How Does It Impact Small Agencies?

Dan Weiden thinks small agencies are the place to be:

“Giant agencies are wobbling like drunkards… the rest of you should be sharpening your knives.”

Can Social Media Sell More Books?

Pete McCarthy dares to use the words “wisdom” and “social media” in the same sentence.

U.S. Adults Now Spending More Time on Digital Devices Than Watching TV

This doesn’t account for screen overlap (e.g. tweeting while watching the Academy Awards), but it’s a big enough deal that it’s all over the media.

Good News for the NEW YORK TIMES

That is, “good news” in the sense that “the glass is half full.”

Never Count Oprah Out. Never.

OWN turns a profit.

Buzzfeed Puts Reza Aslan’s ZEALOT in Context

A list of books about a particular religion written by someone not of that faith.

 

Links to think by for a Friday afternoon

Next to Now

A shortlist of some of the articles we’ve noticed in the past week.

The Booker Longlist:  Every shortlist should start with a longlist, don’t you think? Our end-of-summer reading list is now locked up.

Our favorite review of the week:  OK, this actually came out a couple weeks ago, but Jess Walter’s NYT review of “The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P” is still too much fun to pass up: “. . . The data are in. All precincts have reported. It’s official: men suck.”

Oh, the granularity:  In a piece on bookstores, Mike Shatzkin lays out what makes the book industry so crazy-making for newcomers (we won’t get into what makes it crazy-making for old-timers):  “The unique characteristic of the book business that frustrates just about everybody coming into it from the outside: its sheer granularity…”

Keep your TV ads alive on the 2nd screen:  Twitter is opening up its ad service Twitter Amplify to any U.S. advertiser that has a nationwide TV campaign, allowing them to create Promoted Tweets featuring extra content, such as behind-the-scenes clips and highlight reels, and sending those to users Twitter says are likely to have watched their ad. The company said tests of viewers watching TV ads and interacting with related Promoted Tweets revealed a 58% higher purchase intent compared with those who just watched the TV ad.

iPad users love ads (the feeling is mutual):  CNET reports that Apple’s iPad commanded 84.3% of all tablet-generated Web traffic in the U.S. and Canada in June.

Goodreads doubles user base:  In one year, Goodreads goes from 10 million users to 20. Those are some very impressive numbers!

The long view:  Publishing consultant Brian O’Leary waxes lyrical about Norm MacDonald, John Updike, Abraham Lincoln, Carolyn Forché & the universe.

Spring Newsletter

Verso Newsletter

Verso’s spring newsletter is out. Highlights:

» App Advertising: Reach book buyers how and where they’re listening to relevant programming: NPR, Stitcher, Pandora, iHeart Radio

» Social Media: What’s Twitter up to now?

» Outdoor 2.0: Digital outdoor advertising gains the benefits of digital connectivity

» Print: A landmark publication, and its blue chip audience, gets affordable with an exclusive rate for Verso clients

To read the whole thing, follow the link.

Improved Digital Ad Serving for Verso Clients

Verso

Verso Advertising, Inc.

Great News for Verso Digital Clients

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IN BRIEF
  • Through its new partnership with AdSwerve, Verso Advertising gains a significantly improved level of direct in-house control over the entire ad serving process on behalf of its clients
  • Verso now can deliver state-of-the-art verification, standardization, and post-click tracking of campaign data across all the relevant measurement categories (CTR, CPM, CPC, CPA, etc.) on a daily basis
  • All these improvements are delivered at a minimal increased cost to the client

 

Verso · AdSwerve · DoubleClick

 

Verso Advertising is pleased to announce the next stage in the continuing evolution of our digital services. We are now offering all of our clients the benefits of a third party server for digital campaigns through a new agreement with AdSwerve, a provider of DoubleClick for Advertisers ad hosting and reporting. Continue reading →

Verso Reader Survey: In the News

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PaidContent reports on our latest Reader Survey:

“E-reader usage is growing beyond a group of early adopters, but new stats suggest that consumers are also increasingly resistant to buying an e-reader.”

The article does a good job of putting the Verso Survey results together with the latest numbers from Bowker/BISG.

eMarketer considers the Verso survey together with their own research and suggests there might be limits to the future growth of the e-reader market.

Our Survey provides a snapshot of consumer attitudes from December 2011, and over the past four surveys provides into the ways book-buyer sentiment and behavior have been shifting over the past three years.

Here’s a link to our slides from 2012 Winter Institute.

Here’s a link to our slides from 2012 Digital Book World.

Click here for links to news reports related to the latest Verso Survey of Book-Buying Behavior presented at Winter Institute and Digital Book World. Click here for a report from the survey presented at Tools of Change.

Also, check out Library Journal‘s report from Digital Book World, “A More Optimistic Unconference,” which noted “a markedly different psychology among the Big Six,” and remarked that “the all-important data to buy into a new, bigger picture [of the publishing ecosystem] is compelling.”

 

Verso Reader Survey: Reasons for Optimism

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We are thrilled that our agency’s research was part of of two big reasons for optimism in book publishing over the past two weeks:  The American Booksellers Association “Winter Institute” and Digital Book World. Both conferences revealed crucial data from book publishing’s recent-past and evolving present, and both generated actionable ideas for our industry moving forward.

Here’s a link to our slides from 2012 Winter Institute.

Here’s a link to our slides from 2012 Digital Book World.

For links to news reports related to the latest Verso Survey of Book-Buying Behavior, click here.

For a final word, check out Library Journal‘s report from Digital Book World, “A More Optimistic Unconference,” which noted “a markedly different psychology among the Big Six,” and remarked that “the all-important data to buy into a new, bigger picture [of the publishing ecosystem] is compelling.”

 

Verso Survey: “Moving Toward a Hybrid Market”

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Publishers Weekly reports on our presentation at the ABA’s Winter Institute (Wi7):

“Even as more consumers buy dedicated digital reading devices and tablets, a hybrid market for books is developing in which readers will buy both print and digital books.”

The article also details how the Survey indicates some opportunities for Independent Booksellers in the wake of the Borders shut-down.

Moby Lives mentions our Wi7 survey, and reports that they’ve been seeing hybrid all along.

Shelf Awareness reports a full roundup of our Wi7 presentation.

2012 Verso Survey news as mentioned in previous InVerso posts, includes:

Our presentation at Digital Book World this Wednesday, January 25, will discuss the Survey’s implications for the publishing industry as a whole. Join us!

For those who’d like to follow along on Twitter, the hash tag  is #dbw12.

 

Verso Survey: The Borders Effect

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Information from the forthcoming release of our December 2011 Reader Survey continues to make news. Yesterday, “Bookselling This Week” published an extensive report on what the Survey results mean for independent booksellers.

 

Previous news releases, include:

Shelf Awareness with the first take on the Borders Effect,

Publishers Weekly on consumer interest in an indie-branded e-reader,

and Publishers Lunch on the changing dynamics of reader format preferences.

 

Verso’s Jack McKeown will discuss the Survey’s full implications for independent bookstores at Wi7 on January 19 and what it means for the publishing industry as a whole will be discussed at Digital Book World on January 25.