Content and Digital Asset Management

By definition, libraries have always served as a “threat” to publishers—why pay for it, when you can get it for free at your local library? And yet, libraries and publishers have existed side-by-side. I think a point that gets missed is that when you give people an opportunity to open their minds up, to explore and dream you create additional demand.

Longreads founder Mark Armstrong is bringing his long-form journalism curation skills to Read It Later, where he is signing on as editorial advisor. Armstrong launched Longreads, a feed of long stories “best enjoyed away from your desk” (long-form journalism, short stories, interview transcripts, historical documents, etc.), in 2009 as a Twitter feed and hashtag; a year later, he launched Longreads.com.

The Authors Guild is taking a stand against the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, Amazon’s new initiative allowing Kindle-owning Prime members to borrow free e-books. Amazon is “boldly breaching its contracts” with publishers, the Guild contends, in “an exercise of brute economic power.”

The future of media turns out to be a return to the past. Think back to an age before mass media and subsequent fragmentation; we had one thing that we could rely on: the story. We need stories that are as dynamic as they are timeless, changing to greet contemporary audiences. Like folklore, brands must tell stories that are colored by the audience, its participation, and its re-telling of the story. Simply, we must let go.

Today, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced the launch of the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. With an Amazon Prime membership ($79 annually), Kindle owners can now choose from thousands of books to borrow for free – including over 100 current and former New York Times Bestsellers – as frequently as a book a month, with no due dates.

Chris Meadows at Book Business' sister site Teleread writes today:

At GigaOm, Matthew Ingram writes that our relationship with e-books is “too complicated.” He cites the example of some innovative new e-book-related social-networking services, OpenMargin and Readmill, which can only work with DRM-free e-books—meaning they will not work with most of what Amazon and Barnes & Noble sell.

The ability to “share” e-books with friends is not uniformly available, either, often locked down by publishers who want people to buy their own copies.

By definition, libraries have always served as a “threat” to publishers—why pay for it, when you can get it for free at your local library? And yet, libraries and publishers have existed side-by-side. I think a point that gets missed is that when you give people an opportunity to open their minds up, to explore and dream you create additional demand.

The freedom and the depth of information that tablet and smartphone technology offers is not disputed. But for publishers and other content creators, the same technology that has simplified the way we capture and share information presents yet another daunting challenge when it comes to content licensing: Adapt or else!

In an effort to insulate core, legacy print-based operations, digital programs often get siloed—shut off in their own program domains—while traditional editorial and production processes continue undisturbed. While this may seem practical in the short-term, in the long-term it is a costly strategic blunder.

Ignoring your digital readership potential is not an option; and treating e-books as an afterthought by offering up a recycled printer's PDF is not a digital strategy. For some types of highly formatted content, a PDF version may be useful, but if that's all you do, you'll be leaving significant distribution and enhancement options (aka revenue) on the table.