Future Perfect Publishing

Blog networkshave been around for awhile and represent a new form of online publishing - functioning as online magazines or newspapers.  In earlier posts, I have talked in general terms about how blog networks might serve as the foundation for a more open model of book publishing.  Now it’s time to talk specifics.

First, the rationale.  Publishing is risky business.  The biggest risk, and the progenitor of most other risks in publishing, is title selection.  Publishers have experiemented with different modelsin an effort to address this risk.  In the past, publishers have relied on the judgment and experience of editors or agents to act as gatekeepers to the publishing kingdom.  Sometimes celebrity status or previous publishing success serve as good rpoxies for judgment and experience.  And sometimes the title acquisition process is more subjective and opaque.  More often that not the results are less than satisfactory.

Another approach is to substitute voting for gate keeping.  How would this work?  Enter the blook network.  It starts with the premise that anyone might be a successful author; we just don’t know which ones.  So provide anyone who has a story, an idea or a manuscript the opportunity to try and find an audience big enough to be book-worthy.  The tool for this is a blog.  The publisher rents the writer space in a blog network with a style guide for blogging in a manner that makes it relatively easy to go from blog to book.  The rental also includes an appropriate set of metrics to track how the writer’s audience building efforts are doing.

Blogs on related topics are linked.  In this way, stronger established blogs help direct traffic to newer blogs.  Blog statistics are tracked by the publisher to determine which blooks are developing an audience.  When pre-established audience targets are met, the publisher is alerted and may decide to publish the writer’s work.  The publisher correlates audience statistics with sales data for books in the category (e.g. from Book Scan) to make the final publishing determination.  In this way, analytics guide the decision to make the publishing investment.  Since the blog has been structured to be easily converted to a book, time to market is faster.  Editors use metrics to identify the best content in the final manuscript, thus helping to ensure a more marketable product.

The blook network helps the publisher find authors who can build an audience sufficient to warrant publication.  And the discovery engine pays for itself (or even earns a profit).  Even writers who are not successful in terms of getting published will have useful information (in the form of metrics, reader comments, etc.) that they can use to refine or retarget their efforts.

The process can be summarized as:

• Replace manuscripts with blogs
• Replace the slush pile with a publisher’s blog network
• Structure network blogs so their content can be readily converted into books
• Combine blog metrics and book sales data to determine when and who to publish
• Reinforce traffic to new writer blogs with links from high traffic network blogs

The benefits to publishers of using this approach are that it:

• Creates added capacity for publishers to take on new writers without expense
• Generates service revenue while the writer is developing an audience
• Provides detailed knowledge of the market before the book is published
• Provides a speedier path to market

The blook network is a potentially powerful tool for helping publishers better manage the risk of title acquisition and provide a firmer rationalization of their investments in editing, production and marketing.

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The idea that there are highly influential people who are trendsetters for the rest of us is very seductive.  So seductive, in fact, that it has held sway in marketing circles, in one form or another, for over five decades.  The media has picked up the concept by publishing lists of “top influentials” - e.g. The Atlantic magazine.  But this marketing orthodoxy is coming under greater scrutiny and being challenged by network scientists such as Duncan Watts. 

Fast Company, in its February 2008 issue, highlighted the new research and the ensuing debate among marketers in an article Is the Tipping Point Toast?by Clive Thompson.  The theory of “influentials” had its origins in the 1950’s with the work of Elihu Katz and Paul Lazarsfeld (authors of Personal Influence).  Its latest  proponents include Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point) and Ed Keller and Jon Berry (authors of .Influentials: One American in Ten Tells the Other Nine How to Vote, Where to Eat, and What to Buy).    The influentials theory goes like this.  Target a sophisticated minority of  highly connected consumers (the “influentials”) and motivate them to talk up / recommend your product or service.  They will convince others to use the product or service and get a viral buzz going.

Duncan Watts, a noted network theorist and author of Six Degrees, has challenged these long held beliefs with some new studies he has conducted while on sabbatical from Columbia University at Yahoo Research   His conclusion?  He finds that viral buzz is as likely to be started by poorly connected ordinary Joe’s and Jane’s, as by in-the-know hipsters.  What matters, he argues, is the readiness of the environment to accept the messages delivered, not the messenger.  In a receptive environment, a weakly connected individual can spread a trend as easily as someone with a large Rolodex.  Without that receptivity, even those highly connected hubs of society may be ineffective in a viral campaign.

His findings were based on research that reproduced some of the original work of Stanley Milgram- arguably the father of the notion of six degrees of separation - except on a much larger scale.  Milgram had 160 individuals in Nebraska attempt to get a letter to a stockbroker in Boston by sending it to a colleague who they thought could get it one step closer to its final destination.  Only a small percentage of the letters made it to the stockbroker and these made the final step through the same three friends of the target.  Milgram concluded that the separation between strangers is generally 6 degrees or less.  Marketers concluded that the fact that the same three individuals appeared to act as gatekeepers proved that influentials were a critical part of communication among strangers. 

Watts’ study increased the size of the study by two orders of magnitude (61,000 participants) and used e-mail instead of postal mail.  He confirmed the six degrees, but showed that only 5% of the e-mails passed through hyper-connected individuals.  The bulk went through weakly connected participants.  He concluded that the apparent gatekeepers in Milgram’s study were a statistical artifact because of the extremely small sample size.  Watts has studied all sorts of human networks, from disease patterns to how rock bands become popular. 

So what’s the big deal?  Two things:

• Advertisers and marketers are spending billions of dollars annually targeting so called influentials who they hope will spark viral campaigns
• All of this money, time and effort may be wasted if what really matters is the receptivity of the general public to a new product, service or idea

One has only to think about the current presidential campaign in the U.S. to see how important Watts’ ideas could be.  In the world of book publishing, it may mean that we should find ways to gauge the receptivity of a market to a new author or title rather than hoping that some well placed book reviews will make the difference between failure and success.  Watts is the first to admit that some will find his conclusions counter-intuitive, but the science of networks and his carefully organized experiments appear to support them.  Relativity and quantum mechanics are counter-intuitive, but modern science and all the benefits it has bestowed would be impossible without these “unnatural” theories. 

Our intuition can be powerful, but it can be seduced and canalized by appealing ideas that don’t stand p under closer examination. 

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We have often speculated that blog networks will play a key role in the future of publishing.  We decided to get an expert’s opinion and talk with Jeremy Wright, the CEO of b5 media.  ZDNet defines a blog network as “An organization that hires people to write blogs. It sells advertising and owns the blogs.”  With more than 290 blogs, 15 vertical channels and over 10 million unique visitors a month, b5mediais clearly one of the largest blog networks in operation today. 

Jeremy Wright is a serial entrepreneur, some have even said a “blogpreneur” for his focus on communications-oriented ventures.  He is also the author of Blog Marketing, designed to help businesses figure out blogs, and use them to get into the conversation with their customers.  In addition to running b5media, he also writes the blog Ensight, a popular business and technology blog, and consults on blogging, communication, IT and time management.   

In our interview, Jeremy provided insights about the inner workings of blog networks and what he sees for the future of this nascent publishing medium.

FPP:  Technorati has indexed over 100 million blogs. Why do you think blogs have become such a powerful publishing medium?

Jeremy:  There are really 2 kinds of blogs (as far as I’m concerned): personal/family blogs and “professional” blogs. Personal blogs are really all about you telling your family how you’re doing, what you’re up to, etc.  In some ways, social networks like Facebook are starting to take the place of this kind of blog. But personal blogs are about expression, connecting with people you know and love, etc. For these kinds of blogs, this is the first time in history that we’ve been able to basically pen pal with everyone we care about, which is incredibly powerful. The second kind is “professional” blogs, which is really 2 camps: those who are blogging what they love and are good at (at least in part) so they can improve their career, establish new connections, network, establish themselves as thought leaders, etc. And the second kind are commercial properties which range from one guy writing about something to make money all the way to true blog-based content companies like b5media, Gawker Media and Know More Media.

FPP:  What is a blog network? Are blog networks like online newspapers or magazines, or do they represent a new type of media?

Jeremy:  In a lot of ways a blog network is like a magazine, just without the paper. Some networks, like Gawker Media, treat each blog as their own magazine (complete with editors, researchers, correspondents, etc). Others group blogs together and treat the whole as a magazine (this is how my company, b5media, does it). At the same time, they definitely represent a new form of media, as they really bridge the gap between mainstream media’s “we talk, you listen” metaphor and blogging’s “we talk, we listen” metaphor. It’s still commercial, but the best of these blogs (or magazines) are the ones that serve both metaphors: quality content, interactive conversation, by/for/with passionate people.

FPP:  Do blogs in a network intentionally reinforce each other with shared readership? Or do they operate as standalone media properties?

Jeremy:  The ability for a network to grow and establish a community of bloggers who are all passionate about similar topics (be it technology, business, entertainment or fashion) is really where the magic happens. Sharing strategies, linking to relevant stories across multiple blogs, drawing energy from the community… These are what make blogging at a healthy network so much more enjoyable than blogging on your own (which can often feel quite lonely). At the same time, the individual blog still has its audience to serve. So bloggers in a network are able to write for their audience, while drawing strength, inspiration and energy from the community.

FPP:  What do you believe are the key success factors for a blog network? Are there particular metrics you use to measure the effective of blog networks?

Jeremy:  The best metrics for any online company are the hard and fast ones: traffic, revenue and growth. But those don’t really speak to what it takes to achieve those key metrics. Each network motivates writers, chooses content areas and builds out the network differently. For us, we’ve always believed that if we keep writers happy, they’ll produce great content. And great content will mean more traffic. And with enough traffic it’s hard notto make money. So we focus a lot of energy on community and blogger happiness. We also regularly conduct surveys of our bloggers, our readers and our partners to see how we’re doing on the “soft” elements of success.

End of the day, a strong network has a strong editorial side with committed and energized writers, a solid business behind it, and talented folk to run technology, ad sales, marketing and admin areas.

FPP:  Many authors have successfully gone from blog to book. Do you think it is feasible for book publishers to set up blog networks to enhance and scale this process?

Jeremy:  That’s an interesting question. It’s not something I’ve seen yet, primarily because book publishers tend to exist to promote a book at launch, and then sit back and wait. The exception to this rule would probably be O’Reilly, which publishes a lot of information online, and encourages its authors to publish a lot of information online both pre and post-publication of the book. The idea of publishers getting into daily publishing is interesting, but it’s probably outside the DNA of all but the most technically-oriented publishers (where daily content is the norm). After all, if a publisher can’t do a weekly newsletter, can they really run 10-20 blogs, all with daily content?

FPP:  What services do blog networks typically provide the writers who work for them? What type of compensation models are currently used by blog networks?

Jeremy:  In terms of compensation, there are typically 3 types: revenue share (where the writer gets a percentage of the revenue the network earns), payment per post (often with a traffic bonus) and flat-fee (ie: like a contract writer would make). All 3 models work, though revenue share tends to put all the risk on the writer so is often used by networks when they’re starting out (to keep costs down). But, all 3 models can work. At b5media, we use a combination of flat-fee for meeting the writing requirements (which is kind of payment per post) along with a traffic bonus, though we’re currently evaluating new pay models. In terms of services, most networks really just ask writers to write and try and get them and their blogs exposure. I know at b5 we try and do as much as we can for our writers, ranging from free hosting for their personal blogs to training and from attempting to arrange press access for events to promoting the individual blogger in every way we can. It’s certainly one of the things writers should ask about before joining a network.

FPP:   What traits does a writer need to have to be effective in a blog network?

Jeremy:  I’ll defer to some of our most prolific writers on this, but in a recent training session, Leora Zellman and Mary Jo Manzanares said the most important things to have or develop were fantastic time management, to find your source of motivation daily and to both have your own quiet space and to reach out to other network writers so that you aren’t alone.

FPP:   Blog valuations and acquisitions have become hot topics recently. What factors does b5media take into consideration when evaluating a blog purchase?

Jeremy:  At b5media we have an internal engine we use to value a blog’s worth. We typically stay within range of that valuation when we acquire blogs, but sometimes there’s something that’s intrinsically more valuable than our model takes into account, so we don’t mind deviating. For us, traffic, revenue, unique visitors and subscribers are the key metrics. We’re able to gauge pretty successfully how well a blog will do over the long term with these metrics, so tend to stay pretty close to them. If it’s more of a strategic buy (we recently purchased a video platform company, for example, and are currently negotiating for a podcast network), then other factors may come into play that can bring the valuation up or down. As with any acquisition, you set your initial boundaries and then either go up or down based on strategic or external factors (such as a trend towards or away from text links, in the case of our most recent acquisition).

FPP:   Where would you like to see b5media in the next 3 years? Do you think book publishing is part of its future?

Jeremy:  While we might do a few e-books or encourage our authors to do books, I don’t think we’ll get into the book industry in a big way. I do see e-books as being a potential growth area, though. Beyond that, I’d like to see b5media move beyond the “blog network” box. We’ve started to do that a bit already by licensing our platform to Know More Media, doing ad repping, syndicating our content, etc. But we need to do more. I don’t want to get into specifics, largely because I believe talking before you have something to show is bad luck ;-).

FPP:  How do you see blog networks evolving in the future?

Jeremy:  Well you’ll definitely see more consolidation and more partnerships. The last year has already seen a dozen or so of these (we’ve led 3-4 of them), but the pace will continue to quicken as the larger networks are able to grow traffic and revenue more quickly than the smaller ones, the larger ones will simply pick up small to medium sized networks because it’s cheaper than building blogs themselves. Beyond that, you’ll continue to see a meshing of blog networks with social networks (9rules and Instablogs have started to do this, and our gateway release at www.spekked.com will continue this trend over the next few months), and you’ll see more partnerships between blog networks and mainstream media networks (online and off).

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The Huffington Post, the creation of Arianna Huffington, was featured in an article by Richard Siklos in the November 12 issue of Fortune magazine.  The article charts its rising acceptance as a media outlet to be taken seriously.  What was intriguing about the story, however, is that it outlines a path for next generation new media moguls.

Most traditional news organizations make big investments in the news-gathering areas of their business.  This is expensive and when ad revenues fall (or fail to grow fast enough to suit Wall Street), this is one of the first areas to be sacrificed.  Unfortunately, this also diminishes the product.  Old media institutions are slowly embracing blogs, but they still carry a lot of old media overhead with them.  The Huffington Post, however, operate with a different set of economics.  

It uses a large team of unpaid celebrity (and emerging) bloggers to build readership and concentrate the cash on editorial and management resources to maintain consistency and quality in the product.  Bloggers contribute on their own schedule and, according to Ken Lerer in an interview with USA Today, receive the benefit of the exposure, promotion and distribution of their work that a high traffic venue offers.  There have been some complaints in other quarters of the blogospherethat this is an unfair trade, but so far the bloggers at the “HuffPo” (as the blog is known), don’t seem to be too concerned.  This creates a virtuous cycle: name bloggers build traffic and readership, which in turn attracts advertisers.  And readership of the Huffington Post has grown rapidly. 

Today, the Huffington Post, which about two and a half years old,  has a paid staff management / editorial of 43 and a blogging staff of 1,800.  Monthly visitors range from 800,000 (ComScore) to 1.3 million (Nielsen / Net Ratings) and the site gets tens of millions of page views and hundred of thousands of comments each month.  And its credibility has shot up in the blogosphere and elsewhere.   Technorati ranks it number 5 among all blogs in the number of links from other sites.

Now enter the venture capital groups.  The HuffPo has received a total of $10 million in financing from Softbank Capital, Greycroft Partners and individual investors.  Though the exact amount of equity sold by the founders isn’t known, TechCrunch speculates that the deal could now make the company worth somewhere between $60 million and $100 million. 

While the ad revenues for the Huffington Post aren’t published, the company has created its own ad sales staff and is moving away from its ad sales partnership with Barry Diller’s IAC.  This is another indication that the company’s strategy is paying off.  Is the HuffPo the prototype for the next generation of news media? 

It may be a bit early to make that call, but certainly its open publishing model is something that traditional media should note.  It may be easier to morph from an A list blog to a news media success than the other way around.  Can true journalism flourish in such an open model?  I believe it can.  The rise of sites like the Huffington Post may mirror the early history of major newspapers. 

In summary, the playbook for next gen news media moguls might go something like this:

• Build traffic cred with celebrity and emerging bloggers
• Use the traffic to draw advertisers
• Secure venture capital based on advertising revenue growth
• Use the additional capital to strengthen your management team and expand your journalistic offerings

Good night and good luck!

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In a post about a year ago on ProBlogger, Mac Slocum of Fodder Networks, reflected on mistakes he had made with his bllog network.  He focused on 5 hurdles he had to overcome:

• Underestimating the time commitment of developing multiple successful blogs.
• The time / cosst investment in infrastructure / maintenance for multiple blogs.
• The tradeoff between breadth and depth in creating sites for the blog network.
• Keeping participating bloggers happy.
• Managing the advertising that helps fund the network.

One strategy for establishing a blog to book publishing network is to start by buidling up an anchor blog.  This is a single blog that has depth of content and a loyal, growing readership.  Refine and templatize the knowledge and processes that have made the anchor blog successful.  These would include content research techniques, SEO / SMO, analytics, blog to book publishing, and online book marketing.   Once this is in place, bring in newer blogs that can immediately benefit from this experience and the traffic referrals from the anchor blog.  (In a sense the anchor blog acts like a strong force field that bends traffic to the newer blogs.) 

This strategy helps keep the incremental investment in the subsequent blogs lower.  The penalty in this strategy is that it may take longer than simply try to start up multiple blogs simultaneously.  But it avoids some of the exponential scale up problems that can occur with networks of any type.

Keeping bloggers happy will always be a management problem.  However, in a blog to book publishing network, a network owner has more ways to compensate writers.  For instance, they can share a greater percentage of the advertising revenue, or nvest more of that revenue into marketing the writer’s book(s). 

In earlier posts,  I’ve talked about the advantages for independent publishers of using blog networks.  One of the key advantages is that a group of related blogs can provide comprehensive and overlapping (but not duplicate) topic coverage for a given subject area thus potentially capturing a larger audience.  Audience paths through the blog network’s content can point to good book publishing candidates.

In the world of baseball statistics, a new understanding of the interrelationship of player and team performance is emerging  from the mountains of statistics compiled over nearly 150 years.  There are numerous metrics you can employ to measure the growth and impact of a single blog.  But when it comes to blog networks, there is considerably less available guidance. 

Below are a few analytics I propose as a kind of scorecard for a blog network.   (Note:  In the metrics below, “in-network” means occurring on one of the blogs in the network and “topic” refers to a category label on any blog in the network.  A “referral” is a path taken by a visitor from one point in the blog network to another point in the network.) 

Topic strength = (number of topic page views) / (total in-network page views)

This shows the overall percentage of views being captured by posts in a particular category.  In a sense it shows which topics are “hot.”  A proxy for this could also be visitor comments, but since comments are less frequent, views are more reliable.

Synergy of topic A with topic B = (number of referrals from topic B to topic A) / (total in-network neferrals)

This shows how one topic can refer a visitor to another topic either in the same or a different blog within the network.  Two topics which show a highly synergistic relationship are important clues to audience interests.  (Note that the synergy of topic A with topic B is not necessarily equally to the syngergy of topic B with topic A.)

Audience momentum = % increase in unique page views

Topic momentum = % increase in topic page views

Audience engagement = Average time in-network per visit

The more time a visitor spends in the network, generally the more they are engaged by the content they find there. 

Network efficiency = Average in-network page views per visit

This shows the amount of content being consumed during a visit.  It demonstrate the ability of the network to provide the visitor with compelling content and keep them in its member blogs.

These metrics collectively show how good the network is at capturing and building an audience around a given subject.  I would welcome other input on blog network analytics.

There is always a great deal of excitement among bloggers when the latest announcement of a blog sale is made.  With some of the high prices paid by Old Media for popular blogs or blog networks lately, it inspires all bloggers to figure out how to increase their own value.

But how do you try and gauge what the value of your blog is?   Jeremy Wright of b5Media did some research on this and, with the help of his team, came up with a model that takes into account traffic / readership size and growth, advertising type / rates, and costs.  The model then computes a range of valuations based upon different multiples of net income.  (You can download the model - an Excel workbook - at his site.)

Dane Carlson at Business Opportunities Weblog also has a blog valuation calculatorwhich is based on the same link to dollar ratio as the AOL-Weblogs Inc deal.  (When you plug in the URL of your blog and click Submit, it generates a value and gives you some code to paste into your blog in case you want to share the valuation with your readership.)  Lorelle VanFossen of the Blog Herald provides an intersting discussion of valuing and selling a blog. 

Blog valuation is still new, and more art than science.  But for book publishers that move to a blog network model and writers who want to use the blog to book approach, it will be very important.  The back list is one of the key component for valuing traditional book publishers.  A good back list provides a dependable source of revenue of the publisher.  A publisher using the blog network model can create two sources of value.  The titles that emerge from the network and ultimately go on the back list.  And the network itself which generates ad revenues from the always desirable targeted “eyeballs.” 

Writers who create a blog with the intent of producing a book can realize the same kind of dual value.  Value from the book (or books) that result fromt he blog.  And value of the revenue generating potential from the audience that visits the blog. 

Of course, no calculator can tell you with certainty the valuation you’ll actually get.  That’s the result of mysterious and unpredictable interaction that occur between buyer, seller and the deal environment.  Happy calculating!!

In an earlier post (Blog to Book Networks), we explored morphing blog networks into book publishing houses.  This would work especially well for the specialty book publisher for several reasons:

• Writers within a network, blogging about sub topics within the same general topic area, can reinforce each other with links and help each other build readership.
• The network can use blog analytics to detect hot content areas and, once there is sufficient content, quickly create collaborative titles that can draw their readership from that of the individual blogs contributing the content.  These analytics are like deep ocean tsunami sensors.  They detect movement and strength well before the big wave becomes visible.  Examples of analytics that might come into play here could include: number and quality of comments to posts in a category; total number of trackbacks to posts in a category; categories with posts that are frequently bookmarked; total number of downloads of certain kinds of content and so on.  Networks could even detect whether there is systematic movement of particular visitors between related blogs.
• Content for a prospective book can be tested in the network and adjusted to the audience response.  Keyword research can be used to identify and extend the audience for promising topic areas.
• The network becomes an early book promotion and marketing machine - e.g. the place where virtual blog tours begin. 

Think of a literal net.  The general topic area represents the size of the net.  The number and relationship of sub topic blogs is the mesh.  The closeness of the sub topic areas is the fineness of the mesh.  A finer mesh will more quickly sense and respond to a developing trend.  But too fine a mesh could result in subject overlap and duplication. 

A network that has a coherent topic space, an extent sufficient to capture a reasonably sized audience, and enough fineness to sense trends quickly, has the capability to ’surround” and quickly mine profits from a subject area.  Compare this with the lengthy developments cycles of traditional publishing:  waiting for a publishable manuscript from a lone author and guided by gut instincts or past sales data that may no longer be relevant. 

When considering how book publishers might operate in the future, I think the blog network offers one potentially viable business model.

There are numerous blog networks and most are still in their infancy.  Like any nascent business, they are struggling with their identity and finding the right business model.  Many blog networks are essentially online magazines, supported by advertising revenues.  There has been lots of “turnover,” with many blog networks going out of business.  There has also been extensive controversy over how to recruit and compensate blog writers.  But in the seeds of the failures, there is the potential for a new form of book publisher.  Here is a vision of what this new publishing house might look like.

• The publisher sets up a blog network with a strong topic focus.
• The publisher provides blog marketing and management services to help the writer develop and monitor readership.
• Writers are recruited who can contribute to specific aspects of the general topic area in a complementary fashion.  The idea is to track audience growth and interest, and then repurpose the content into books and related products.  
• Writers are encouraged to share information and publish collaboratiely.
• Writer are paid a percentage of all revenues derived from the content; the percentages may be tiered so that revenue growth isn’t capped. 
• The publisher provides blog to book services - editorial / design / marketing - at the point where there is sufficient audience and the right content to go from blog to book.  The publisher may draw content from several blog writers.  The publisher has the analytics to see where the content “hot spots” are and the ability to quickly get a book to market to take advantage of this knowledge.
• The publisher may market the book initially in non-traditional venues and then perhaps co-pubish a title with a larger traditional publisher to get into wider distribution once it has found its market.

The goal would be to build a blog network with a tight content focus, and the ability to produce a greater number of books with a higher probability of success than traditional publishing houses, and at the same time provide some compensation to their writers while they are developing content.  This might be an attractie strategy for a smaller, established traditional publisher looking to reduce expenses while increasing title throughput.