Denver Post’s Tim Tebow Book Points to a New Business Model for News

I’ve been invited to participate in the latest Carnival of Journalism, a monthly blogfest in which journalists are invited to post about the same topic. This month’s question, posed by Steve Outing’s Digital News Test Kitchen, is:

“What emerging technology or digital trend do you think will have a significant impact on journalism in the year or two ahead? And how do you see it playing out in terms of application by journalists, and impact?”

Anyone who follows my user-contributed content experiments can guess my answer, but they may not guess the entire answer.

The most obvious first answer is my mind is “eBooks!” For the last year and a half I’ve run a startup called BookBrewer that makes it easy for anyone to create and publish eBooks. The eBook market has been growing at a 300% annual rate for several years now, and it’s only destined to keep up that rate if not exceed it.

The last study of sales from the International Digital Publishing Forum and Association of American Publishers showed eBook sales generating $120 million a quarter. That was 18 months ago, and since tablet ownership doubled from December 2011 and January 2012, it’s safe to assume that quarterly eBook sales are at least in the $300 million range.

Source: International Digital Publishing Forum

I’ve been urging journalists to hop on this trend since November of 2010 (see my original post about that on this blog). I suggested a few topics that would work well as books, including multipart investigative series, stories about major events, “news you can use” and collections of columns by popular columnists.

But now thanks to Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow, I have an even better suggestion. Leverage the intense interest of your local sports fans to create not just sports eBooks, but full-color Print on Demand commemorative editions. And make those available as Print on Demand titles.

Will to Win: How Tim Tebow and The Denver Broncos Made 2011 a Season to Remember

Here’s the story of the Post’s Tim Tebow book. If you think about how this could be done at dozens, if not hundreds of other newspapers around the country, the amount of revenue generated could be significant. It may even save a few journalists from getting laid off.

In January, we kicked off a relationship with The Denver Post that allows them to use our services to publish eBooks and Print on Demand. They said they wanted to do something about Tim Tebow, but weren’t sure how the book would end since the Broncos’ season was still underway.

In a previous era they would have waited until the the Broncos season was over (read: the Broncos had lost their last game), and then spent a few weeks editing a book of stories about the season. They’d make a deal with a local printer to print up thousands of copies on offset presses at an average of $30,000 for the run. They’d get a bunch of boxes of books that they’d then have to sell — usually for $30 or more — and when the interest waned, they’d need to lower the price and sell the remainders at a loss.

We told them that all of that goes away with Print on Demand. We gave the Post a URL that allowed them to take money up front as a preorder. This allowed the Post editors to finish writing and editing the story, and creating a nice print layout. Their online teams promoted a splash page about the book from their web site and social media channels.

And boy, did the sales ever start to come in! The actual figures are confidential, but I’m allowed to say that the total sales now are over 2,500 — most of that for the printed book — and the Post will be getting a first check in the high thousands. Unlike in the past when the Post had to put money down which they then scurried to make up, this time they put nothing down and generated a profit from the outset.

You can see how the sales followed the remaining Broncos game schedule here:

Sales of "Will to Win" by The Denver Post in January 2012

In early February, the final PDF came over from the Post, and the first copies were shipped to customers. For those print geeks out there, they were printed on a state of the art HP T300 variable digital printer run by our print partner Frederic Printing (a division of Consolidated Graphics) at a cost to the post of a little more than $15 per copy (or around $4 profit per copy to the Post, given the $19.99 consumer price). Because the orders are printed and shipped as each order comes in, there’s no need to use more expensive offset printers that require thousands to be printed up front. That leads to a lot of cost savings, less hassle and higher overall profits.

From this experiment we’ve learned that the keys to success are:

1. A topic that the newspaper knows its audience is interested in.
2. Good content, either original or curated into chapters, that reads well in book form.
3. Good cover design and visuals.
4. High level promotion from the newspapers’ web sites and social media channels.

When all of those stars align, you end up with a great information product that makes readers happy, and also makes money.

And here’s an interesting note on the so-called “eBook revolution.” We also converted the PDFs into eBooks and distributed them to all the major eBook retailers. But for at least this book, the print sales have consistently outpaced the eBook sales by a 3 to one ratio.

Thus, the second trend is one that I never expected. Print is far from dead — it’s just going through a wardrobe change. You never know if someone will prefer an eBook or print book, but the common denominator between them both is on-demand publishing.

In Search of Creative Revenue Ideas

My post on PBS Idea Lab this week is titled, It’s Time for a Revenue Revolution. It puts the upcoming Printcasting advertising tools in a context that hopefully everyone can relate to: how can we help local record and book stores more effectively reach local customers, hold their own with online competitors and Wal-Mart, and stay in business?

Thinking back to my journalism school days, I remember professors telling me that I should try to block advertising sales and business development out of my mind because it would taint my reporting.

But here’s what they missed. Local businesses are just as much a part of your community as the consumers who live there, and in fact business owners are often some of the most active, participating members of any community. It’s possible to serve the interests of the community, and also the interests of local business, and harness that to pay for services that help the entire community.

As newsrooms lay off reporters because the advertising side could no longer bring in enough to pay the bills, everyone at every level of a news organization has an obligation to think about how to fund the great work they do. If you continue to assume that someone else is going to step in and solve this problem, you may find yourself with a pink slip instead of a savior. Now is the time — and for some, the last opportunity — to make your ideas heard. Trust me: it won’t soil your hands, it won’t influence your reporting, and it may even be fun.

As far as I’m aware, Printcasting is one of only three Knight News Challenge projects that has any sort of revenue / sustainability plan at all. The other two are David Cohn’s Spot Us, and Richard Anderson’s Village Soup. I don’t say that to toot our collective horns, but rather to encourage more people to incorporate revenue into their plans for the next Knight News Challenge round.

Speaking of which, if you have such an idea you can use the new News Challenge Garage to start fleshing it out with the help of others who can tell you how to make it better — including all 26 existing news challenge winners (which means also me!) By the time the News Challenge officially opens on September 2, you’ll have a better proposal that will stand out against the thousands of others that didn’t benefit from such advice.

knight news challenge, revenue