It's about time I published my strategy for my new topic-focused blog, eBook Culture. Although upon reading Erik Benson's post tonight about getting on and building something rather than "talking about it but never building it", I now feel a bit guilty about writing yet another grand plan instead of getting my hands dirty with implementation work. But I did promise you that I'd publish my strategy, plus it will serve as a public reminder of what I have to do.
In a previous post, I explained that my personal goals with eBook Culture are four-pronged:
1. Explore the niche world of eBooks.
2. Build up a weblog community of eBook users.
3. Prove to myself and future employers or customers that I'm able to successfully
implement a web strategy and build a social media website.
4. Earn some money and potentially grow a business.
So let's start with asking: what's the business problem I'm trying to solve with my new website? Crudely put, it's that eBooks aren't accessible enough for mainstream users. The technology (hardware, software) is still too hard or too messy to use - it's not user-friendly enough. eBooks have too many obstacles in front of them.
I started the new blog to help remove some of those obstacles and make eBooks easier to use.
Now let me define who my 'target audience' is with eBook Culture. Basically I want the site to appeal to ordinary but tech-savvy people. The sort of people who currently use iPods/iTunes, only they'll be readers. Note: I expect this will be a much smaller user group than for music, because - well frankly, reading isn't as cool as listening to music. I'm specifically not targeting people who are already converted to eBooks, because a) that group is very small, and b) they know much more than I do on this subject. I do however want to earn their respect and links with good content.
Let me refer back to goal #1 - explore the niche world of eBooks. So really, my target audience is me and others like me! That is, I'll be learning as I go and my aim is to bring others along for the ride.
I expect this will be the most difficult of my goals to achieve. I don't have many social contacts on the Web, indeed I'm not even a very sociable person. How can I expect to build an eBook community when I won't even participate in social networks like Orkut and Friendster? Well, I need to take a different approach. And that approach will be based on trying to make eBooks as user-friendly as possible. It's also important to point out that I don't necessarily want to be come a focal 'place' on the Web for the eBook community. Let me explain...
One strategy for building a community is to provide a platform for community. Enable and encourage people to contribute reviews and content and participate in community discussion. I doubt I will go down this route, because a) developing such software isn't my strength, and b) other people have already created social platforms for the eBook community.
My approach will be to provide information and services to take the pain and hassle out of eBooks. And believe me, there's a lot of pain and hassle with eBooks at this point in time. Some things I can't control - like DRM. Other things I can make an effort to influence - like providing easy instructions on how to read eBooks, download software and convert texts into eBooks.
So I will put a bunch of things that eBook users want on my site and hope that people travel through it often enough. This is similar in a sense to the portal strategy from the Web world, although what I have in mind is less ostentatious and more focused on useful content (rather then e.g. fancy web services). Things like: news, reviews, content summaries, conversion tools, articles, analysis.
Even though I won't end up as one of the 'places' where the community gathers and meets, I'll be doing my bit to make eBooks easy to use and share. I'll be providing a useful service to the community and hopefully helping to grow it. That's the sort of community I'm aiming to build - one that visits my site often but doesn't necessarily use it as a focal point for discussions and collaboration.
I'll also be an evangelist for eBooks, which is an important role in a community.
I specialize in the Web. I'm also a writer and prolific reader. So another aspect of my strategy is to marry eBooks with the Web. I want to help provide a seamless integration of eBooks from the reading device (typically a mobile device like a PDA) to the server. This isn't a revolutionary thought, Apple are doing exactly this with iPod/iTunes and Tim O'Reilly is doing it with eBooks with his company's Safari service. Where I fit in is probably not so much in the software/hardware side of things, given I'm not a company (to paraphrase a Dave Winer line). My focus here will be to provide top-notch written content - how-to's, reviews, analysis. Playing to my strengths as a writer and analyst.
Come on, you knew the two-way web would stick its oar into the strategy ;-) Basically my aim here is to encourage people to create and produce eBooks, not just consume them. The key for this is to provide easy-to-use conversion services, or instructions / tutorials.
I think there's some overlap with blogging and eBooks and they could learn from one another. For example, longer blog posts could be converted into eBook formats. And some eBooks would benefit from blogging technologies, like finding ways to cut eBooks into digestible chunks (microcontent). So a part of my strategy is to push the two-way web philosophy into the eBook culture and see what evolves.
There's more to write, but I'll wrap up Part 1 and continue at a later date. So what are your thoughts on my strategy so far? Am I headed in the right direction?
Comments
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1) What other eBook social platforms are there out there?
2) Why isn't this site going to be eBookPortal instead of eBookCulture if it is going to be a portal? Or did you mean to call it eBookCulturePortal?
3) Why will people return to your site?
4) Why will people care about a review of an eBook as opposed to a review of the same book in printed form?
5) Given the ease of converting HTML into an eBook using Plucker, does the world of eBooks thus not, by definition, include all pages on the web as well?
6) Do you think you will ever "outgrow" eBooks resulting in the languishing of eBookCulture unless you get others to contribute to it as well?
Most of those questions are only questions for my idle curiousity. 3 is the only one that matters to your possible future success, IMHO. While you've touched upon it, I think the other questions I ask impact it as well.
Needless to say, I look forward to your Part II in this series.
Posted by: Andrew | September 3, 2004 1:43 AM
Andrew, great questions! I will endeavour to answer them...
Firstly I'd like to point out that I didn't explain myself very well when I used the word 'portal'. I've now edited that section of my post to hopefully clarify it. Here's the update:
"This is similar in a sense to the portal strategy from the Web world, although what I have in mind is less ostentatious and more focused on useful content (rather then e.g. fancy web services). Things like: news, reviews, content summaries, conversion tools, articles, analysis."
Now to your questions:
1) What other eBook social platforms are there out there?
A particularly good one I found the other day is MobileRead Networks: http://www.mobileread.com/
My main point about not wanting to build a platform is that I don't have the web dev skills to pull it off. Well maybe I could do it, but it'd be an awful lot of work. I want to concentrate on the *content*.
2) Why isn't this site going to be eBookPortal instead of eBookCulture if it is going to be a portal? Or did you mean to call it eBookCulturePortal?
Please refer my comment above. I apologise, my use of the word 'portal' was not quite right in the original version of this post (which you were replying to). I hope my edit clarified it. Basically, what I'm building is a content-rich site not a portal in the sense that it is known today (web services, personalisation, etc).
3) Why will people return to your site?
An excellent question that goes to the heart of any web strategy. Hopefully people will return to eBook Culture due to its incredibly useful content and startingly insightful analysis of the culture and practice of eBooks ;-)
4) Why will people care about a review of an eBook as opposed to a review of the same book in printed form?
Well I think my original posts over at eBook Culture established that there are *differences* between paper books and eBooks - that's the eBook "culture" I am referring to. I'm still exploring this and I've had to answer the same sort of question elsewhere: ref http://9rules.com/whitespace/design/blog_design.php#6049
This issue is a work-in-progress that I'm exploring...
5) Given the ease of converting HTML into an eBook using Plucker, does the world of eBooks thus not, by definition, include all pages on the web as well?
You're forgetting that the word eBook includes the word 'book' :-) So no it doesn't include all web pages. However I am exploring the issue of whether a long-form weblog post could be considered an eBook - I suggested as much in my post here. I don't know for sure whether it is yet...
6) Do you think you will ever "outgrow" eBooks resulting in the languishing of eBookCulture unless you get others to contribute to it as well?
I don't think so, because I've always been into books and reading - eBooks is a natural extension of that. It's like asking: will I ever get bored of the Web? The answer on both counts is no, because the Web and books will always be a part of my life.
***
Great questions Andrew. I'd encourage others to ask me questions or critique my strategy too.
Posted by: Richard MacManus | September 3, 2004 8:53 AM
Content will go a long way towards making your blog a focal point. Given the Tower of Babel state that ebook hardware, software, conversion and formats are in anything you can do to help people in reading ebooks will be welcomed.
Content is also a good strategy for gaining search engine traffic. Over time it will serve you well.
1) What other eBook social platforms are there out there?
Starting your own forums is a lot of work. However participating in established forums like Mobileread will probably help you.
2) Why isn't this site going to be eBookPortal instead of eBookCulture if it is going to be a portal? Or did you mean to call it eBookCulturePortal?
In some ways blogs can act as a portal. One way blogs direct people is by acting as a filter - seperating wheat from chaf - and pointing them to links that you think are important and telling them why they are important. Of course with the blog format, it is easier if they check back frequently.
3) Why will people return to your site?
To read new, constantly updating, content. Also #2 above. People will tend to bookmark sites they wish to revisit.
...
5) Given the ease of converting HTML into an eBook using Plucker, does the world of eBooks thus not, by definition, include all pages on the web as well?
Not really. To truly have an ebook there is an editing and layoput process that must be done first. Plucker (or iSiloX) spidering a web page is extracting data much like a photocopier, but that does not mean the data is a book unless it has been edited and layed out as a book for that purpose.
I do not consider Project Gutenburg txt files to be truly ebooks until one converts them into a more readable format like Blackmask or Manybooks.net does.
However the intersection of the web and ebooks is a distribution area that needs to also be explored.
Micro content, published on the web but intended to be taken by handhelds is an interesting concept. Things like 2ztxt http://linuxfocus.org/cgi-bin/2ztxt?about provide a web based means just as Plucker provides a client side means for offline reading. It is one of the reasons I went with a Creative Commons license so people would feel empowered to make use of the web based material.
It's all interesting. Great discussion!
Posted by: Brad | September 6, 2004 11:44 PM
> Come on, you knew the two-way web
> would stick its oar into the strategy ;-)
> Basically my aim here is to
> encourage people to create
> and produce eBooks,
> not just consume them.
great!
> The key for this is to provide
> easy-to-use conversion services,
> or instructions / tutorials.†
well, it is my belief that first and foremost,
authors need to be given a simple format,
so they can create an e-book themselves,
and readers need to have a viewer-app
that will give them full e-book functionality.
i have invented such a format, and am
now beta-testing such a viewer-program.
i'll let you know how things go... :+)
-bowerbird
Posted by: bowerbird | September 14, 2004 11:31 AM