the end of broadcast media and publishing's hidden radicalism - robert wheaton - tech forum...

The End of Broadcast Media and Publishing’s Hidden RadicalismRobert Wheaton Chief Operating Officer Penguin Random House Canada @rjwheaton

PUBLISHING DATA CHAOS HOPEFive ideas about publishing’s future

We publish too many books, no one gets their work done, and we make decisions from partial data

Two Inventions

The Publishing Business Model

1. THE PUBLISHING BUSINESS MODEL

2. WHY IT IS IMPORTANT

3. HOW TO STRENGTHEN IT



3. HOW TO STRENGTHEN IT RESPONSIBLY

PUBLISHING DATA CHAOS HOPE

“the end of broadcast media”

1. Decline in reach of traditional (mass audience) media

2. Decline in reach traditional (centralized buying) retail

3. Fracturing of “mainstream” audiences

U.S. Recorded Music Revenues by Format (1999-2015)

h!ps://www.wsj.com/articles/plummeting-newspaper-ad-revenue-sparks-new-wave-of-changes-1476955801

h!p://media-cmi.com/downloads/CMI_Discussion_Paper_Digital_Divides_082015.pdf

http://media-cmi.com/downloads/CMI_Discussion_Paper_Digital_Divides_082015.pdf

Where were you browsing/searching when you became aware of this book? (N=2,690)

How Canadians Buy Books 2015, BookNet Canada (September 2016)

1. Decline in reach of traditional (mass audience) media

2. Decline in reach traditional (centralized buying) retail

3. Fracturing of “mainstream” audiences

“Reading a paper book… is a statement, a human being's answer to being

increasingly surrounded, and now even threatened, by machines…”

–Leonid Bershidsky, BLOOMBERG

business model is destiny

“The Long Tail”

'-

50,000

100,000

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200,000

Publishing

0%

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2800%

1. PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT

2. ADVANCES PAID

3. RISK GATE-CHECKS

ACQUISITION PLANNINGSALES CYCLE & PRE-RELEASE

ON-SALE & MARKETING BACKLIST

Submission enthusiasm Sales in other territories Acquisition auction/negotiation Acquisition P&L Foreign rights sale

Internal launch enthusiasm Sales team response & planning Marketing response & planning Announcement response

Media/publicity response Library holds Account response (various channels) Initial orders Call-to-print P&L Galley/ARC requests Excerpt placement/sale

Point of sale data Bestseller lists Media reviews Reorders Point of sale forecast Library circulations

Rinse & repeat (second format) School & academic adoption



Submission enthusiasm Sales in other territories Acquisition auction/negotiation Acquisition P&L Foreign rights sale Indie publishing performance Wa"pad performance Author social media presence


Media/publicity response Library holds Account response (various channels) Initial orders Call-to-print P&L Galley/ARC requests Excerpt placement/sale Pre-orders Webpage performance Cover reveal Asset / metadata performance Goodreads shelf adds Netgalley response Blogger/influence response

Point of sale data Bestseller lists Media reviews Reorders Point of sale forecast Library circulations Online reviews Online bookclub adoptions eBook price promotion Reader response data Digital advertising Social media asset Online word-of-mouth

Rinse & repeat (second format) School & academic adoption Consumer insights data

We publish too many books

pragmatic theory of truth

“The best way to good ideas is more ideas”

–Peter Coughlan, IDEO

climate change

job automation

globalization

“Erratic demand is more and more the norm in our business”

–Noah Genner

What happens when you introduce social signals into a market for cultural products?

1. Increase inequality in market share for individual products 2.Increase unpredictability in which products will achieve

highest market share

Source: Experimental Study of Inequality and Unpredictability in an Artificial Cultural Market https://www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/salganik_dodds_watts06_full.pdf

Publishing

0%

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3. HOW TO STRENGTHEN IT

hindsight refraction device

DECREASE UNKNOWNS • monitor demand signals

DECREASE UNKNOWNS • monitor demand signals • find tangential demand signals

DECREASE UNKNOWNS • monitor demand signals • find tangential demand signals • share data

negotiate BRD receive (or, scrape) validate clean map warehouse headphones & sql time query normalize, outliers, etc. explain, converse ignore the “exception proves the rule” people benchmark dashboard report exceptions

CONFUSION

ENLIGHTENMENT

DECREASE UNKNOWNS • monitor demand signals • find tangential demand signals • share data

DECREASE UNKNOWNS • monitor demand signals • find tangential demand signals • share data • learn from consumers

hindsight refraction device

A/B test

open a store

publish online

— a digression on process —

–Encyclopedia Britannica

“The bildungsroman traditionally ends on a positive note, though its action may be tempered by resignation and nostalgia. If the grandiose dreams of the hero’s youth are over, so are many foolish mistakes and painful disappointments, and, especially in 19th-century novels, a life of usefulness lies ahead. In the 20th century and beyond, however, the bildungsroman more o#en ends in resignation or death.”

Assemble and send Excel POS reports

Inventory reports, same thing

Enter sales estimates

Build one-off catalogues

Aggregate preorder reporting

Maintain media contacts in discrete lists

DECREASE UNKNOWNS • monitor demand signals • find tangential demand signals • share data • learn from your audiences

PRACTICE ABOVE PROCESS • inspect processes

why does my screen look different from yours?

what are permission groups?

but I don’t want anyone to see the dra# yet

what do you mean there are “hidden characters”?

Instinct (n.) 1. The accretion of small experiences which aggregate

to judgement in ways which resist subsequent justification at the granular level.

2.What young people think experienced people say when they can't be bothered to do any work.

Sub TwoCompsSocial()

'Open the Excel workbook. Change this to where you stored the EXCEL FILE xlsFile = "C:\Users\apunja\Desktop\QuickDeck\Sales ops Presentation\SampleData.xlsx" Dim OWB As Excel.Workbook Set OWB = Excel.Application.Workbooks.Open(xlsFile) Dim WS As Excel.Worksheet Set WS = OWB.Worksheets(1) 'Set the Images path Dim strImagePath As String strImagePath = "C:\Users\apunja\Desktop\QuickDeck\Sales ops Presentation\Images\" 'reference the template slides Set myPres = Application.ActivePresentation Set firSl = myPres.Slides(1) Set secSl = myPres.Slides(2) 'Loop through each used row in Column A For i = 1 To WS.Range("A65353").End(xlUp).Row

ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Copy myPres.Slides.Paste (myPres.Slides.Count + 1) x = myPres.Slides.Count myPres.Slides(2).Copy myPres.Slides.Paste (myPres.Slides.Count + 1) y = myPres.Slides.Count 'Forma!ing a Date value (clean this up later) osd = Format(WS.Cells(i, 1), "[$-en-US]mmmm d, yyyy;@") tle = 3 isbn = WS.Cells(i, 4) authr = WS.Cells(i, 5)

FAVOUR MAGIC — FIGHT SORCERY • be transparent • use off-the-shelf so#ware • scripting, not markup • accept the time/consensus tradeoff • data in everyone's role

DECREASE UNKNOWNS • monitor demand signals • find tangential demand signals • share data • learn from your audiences

PRACTICE ABOVE PROCESS • inspect processes • favour magic — fight sorcery • explode the content model

We publish too many books, no one gets their work done

“The best way to good ideas is more ideas”

–Peter Coughlan, IDEO

BEHAVIOUR 1. read about the Sony hack 2.assume it will happen to you 3.behave accordingly

PREVENTION • Enable two-factor authentication • Different password for every service • Don't store your passwords in a file • (It’s 2017: use a password manager) • Don't click to find out if it was suspicious or not

Gamergate



3. HOW TO STRENGTHEN IT RESPONSIBLY

DATA ETHICS

DATA ETHICS • eschew data trails

DATA ETHICS • eschew data trails • gatecheck on data sharing

DATA ETHICS • eschew data trails • gatecheck on data sharing • new standards for data management


KEEP THE VALUE CHAIN DIVERSIFIED

We publish too many books, no one gets their work done, and we make decisions from partial data



PRACTICE EMPATHY IN CHANGE

– Cornel West

“Empathy is not simply a matter of trying to imagine what others are going through, but having the will to muster enough courage

to do something about it. In a way, empathy is predicated upon hope.”

Thank you

@rjwheaton



PRACTICE EMPATHY IN CHANGE

DECREASE UNKNOWNS • monitor demand signals • find tangential demand signals • share data • learn from your readers

PRACTICE ABOVE PROCESS • inspect processes • favour magic — fight sorcery • explode the content model