BoSacks Speaks Out: On Editors and Deviant Reading Behavior

BoSacks Speaks Out: The following editoral is posted by Noelle Skodzinski, who is one of the finest and hardest working trade magazine editors I have ever associated with. She is representative of a new breed of publishing talent with the determined wherewithal to succeed.

All you other trade magazine editors know exactly what I'm talking about. You didn't create the concept of multi-tasking, but trade publishers have sure honed it to a fine science. It is representative of the apparent need to collapse our work force to its lowest common denominator, combining and condensing skill sets of multiple disparate job disciplines into a single semi-cohesive unit of one - one person now doing the former tasks of many. Can it be done? Yes! But I ask you all, should it be done? Or perhaps better stated, must it be done?

In our industry's zeal for the holy grail of the bottom-most line, how will we know when we have past it? How will we know when we have diminished our workforce to the point that we have diminished the product itself? I have had over the past years hundreds of conversations with editors, publishers, circulators and every other member of our industry. There are many common threads that link people in the same industry, who have never met, to the same conclusions. One of those commonalities is that they are working harder and harder for less and less. And among the less that I make reference to is less satisfaction in the jobs that they hold. There was a time when most publishing employees felt empowered by their jobs and loved being in such a noble and exciting industry. More and more now I get a sense of stress and strain and recognition that in some publishing houses what we produce is more of a cog than a piece of art, more of a mass produced commodity then a unique and valued book or magazine.

Competition is a funny thing. It does bring out the best and worst in people and corporations alike. I suppose that at the end of the day, if under extremely stressful condidtions and a general lack of sustained support and well being, quality will still rise to the top and allow success. This falls somewhere under the addage that those that can will, and those that can't, will fold their cards, thier jobs and thier magazines. In that order.

Retirement kills more people than hard work ever did.
Malcolm S. Forbes



On The Onion . . . and Deviant Reading BehaviorBy Noelle Skodzinski
http://www.bookbusinessmag.com/
A recent story from satirical news source The Onion (www.TheOnion.com), entitled "Area Eccentric Reads Entire Book," read:
Sitting in a quiet, downtown diner, local hospital administrator Philip Meyer looks as normal and well-adjusted as can be. Yet, there's more to this 27-year-old than first meets the eye: Meyer has recently finished reading a book.

Yes, the whole thing.

"It was great," said the peculiar Indiana native, who, despite owning a television set and having an active social life, read every single page of "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee. . . .
Meyer, who never once jumped ahead to see what would happen and avoided skimming large passages of text in search of pictures, first began his oddball feat a week ago. Three days later, the eccentric Midwesterner was still at it, completing chapter after chapter, seemingly of his own free will.
. . . Over the years, Meyer has read dozens of books from beginning to end, regardless of whether he was forced to do so by a professor in school or whether a film version of the reading material already existed. . . .

According to behavioral psychologist Dr. Elizabeth Schulz, Meyer's reading of entire books is abnormal and may be indicative of a more serious obsession with reading.

"Instead of just zoning out during a bus ride or spending hour after hour watching YouTube videos at night, Mr. Meyer, unlike most healthy males, looks to books for gratification," Schulz said. "Really, it's a classic case of deviant behavior." . . .
After the humor of this story wore off a bit, I began to wonder: How far off is society at large from being in such a state that a story like this is no longer funny, but a horrible reality? I believe so far off that we can still laugh (and will be able to for quite some time) about The Onion's story of Philip Meyer; but obviously there is mounting concern about the nation's reading habits, and I can see why-among other reasons, I seem to question the intelligence of much of the population on a daily basis, especially while driving on the highway or watching the news.

Fortunately, the industry isn't waiting until the Philip Meyer story evolves from satire to widespread truth. The "Get Caught Reading" campaign, sponsored by the Association of American Publishers, comes to mind as one of the more well-known literacy efforts (even Yoda "got caught" reading during 2007's Get Caught Reading Month!). The National Education Association's Read Across America, which launched more than a decade ago, is another one. Of course, there are other national efforts, as well as many, many local efforts.

This year, a new national advocacy effort was launched in January, with the Library of Congress' Center for the Book, the Children's Book Council (CBC) and the CBC Foundation appointing Jon Scieszka as the first-ever National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. Coughing up funds for the effort are a number of major publishers, including Penguin Young Readers Group, Scholastic, HarperCollins Children's Books, Random House Children's Books, Holiday House, Charlesbridge, National Geographic Children's Books, Candlewick Press and Marshall Cavendish Publishers.

Fortunately, Scieszka's perspective suggests that Philip Meyer's story will remain in satire for some time, but he's not leaving that to chance. In a recent interview with Book Business Extra, he said, "I've started a literacy group for boys called Guys Read (www.GuysRead.com). The more research I looked into, [the more I found data that] showed that boys are reading. It's just not how schools define it. It's not all novels. There are other kinds of reading. We should let kids read what they enjoy. There are graphic novels, and a lot of what kids want to read is nonfiction."

I have to say I can relate wholeheartedly to his point and can offer my first-hand perspective on the fact that kids may not be reading what we might expect them to read. My 12-year-old stepson is reading something right now that is definitely not literature. It's not a graphic novel. It's-and I am not being satirical-The Onion's "Our Dumb World: Atlas Of Planet Earth." Must be a classic case of deviant behavior.

Brothers and Sisters Be Warned

BoSacks Speaks Out: In 1995 I coined the expression EL-CID, Electronically Coordinated Information Distribution. In this article you will read about one aspect and the power of El-CID. We are in it now, but we are going deeper and deeper. The net is going to get stickier and more all-encompassing. Your refrigerators, toasters, and MP3 players all on the same connected grid. Your car that has Easy Pass (RFID) and your GPS-locate-me-anywhere cell phone, not to mention your inter-connected networked home and the new cars that talk to you and tell you where you are and where to go.

Oh yes, my friends, we are just putting our toes into the EL-CID matrix and it effects us all. Doesn't matter if you are a steel worker, gardener, belly dancer or publisher, we are all connected to EL-CID.

Like it or not, believe it or not, it is an advertiser's dream come to fruition. Direct contact and meaningful dialog with the exact client any time and any where they choose.

George Orwell almost got it right, when he wrote 1984 about Big Brother. Well, he forgot about Big Sister, and Giant Uncle, not to mention, the rest of the overly interconnected, oversight family. EL-Cid is really here and we are all related now. Welcome to the family.

"Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother's busy holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed."
Chuck Palahniuk (American freelance Journalist, Satirist and Novelist. b.1961)

In media, the new mantra of dialogue
Buyers be warned: The era of pushing ads is fast ending
By Kevin Downey
http://www.medialifemagazine.com



Media buying agencies just don't get it. They'd better start getting it pretty soon.

How people use media is changing dramatically, and the era of force-fed commercials is nearing an end.

What's taking its place--and has been for several years at least--is a dialogue between advertiser and consumer, and more and more the consumer is in charge.

Media buying agencies need to become part of that dialogue. They need to learn how to spark that exchange. Those that fail to do so will face extinction. Or that's the clear warning in a new study from Forrester.

"Today's agencies fail to help marketers engage with consumers, who, as a result, are becoming less brand loyal," writes Peter Kim, a senior analyst at Forrester and author of the report.

"To turn the tide, marketers will move to the connected agency, one that shifts from making messages to nurturing consumer connections."


The forces killing off the old system are twofold, and one is the explosion of media options that make no one medium a must-have experience. It's the end of mass media in which advertisers could push out their message and consumers were forced to accept that message as the price of admission.

Nobody's a captive audience anymore, argues Kim. Expensive ad campaigns across mass media no longer work in this new media landscape.

Pushing out messages has become particularly ineffective in reaching a generation that's grown up with social networking sites, videogames, interactive television and video-on-demand. They use those media as they please, often skipping commercials.

The other major force of change is the internet experience that allows consumers to respond and react to those messages. Though initially threatening--do we want our competitors to know how little folks think of our product?--it wasn't long before shrewd marketers saw how this backtalk could be harnessed for good.
In listening to these voices, they saw that some voices stood out. They were the ones others listened to, the influencers. In effect, the internet created for marketers a listening post from which, for the first time, they could listen in on what's long been recognized as the most powerful form of advertising of them all, word of mouth.

As Kim sees it, the new model is all about media agencies capturing the hearts of these influential people--bloggers, for example--who can help them create ad messages that resonate with their friends.
Kim suggests agencies need to become something of a hangout where agency people and regular Joes talk about products and ads.


This is not a new idea. It's been around since the early days of the internet.

Putting it to work will prove to be a huge challenge, going as it does against the fundamental notions of mass-market advertising. Agencies make their money creating ads and spending great bundles to buy ads across many media.

But as Kim observes, while it benefits agencies, it isn't doing much for advertisers, and that failure to deliver will force agencies to change.
"The talent and processes [in] creative and media agencies focus on delivering work efficiently for above-the-line media with large audiences and large budgets," writes Kim. "As new media grows and asks for agility and speed, agencies can't expect a quick fix of widening capability gaps."

Marketers Say eMail Strongest Performing Media Buy

BoSacks Speaks Out: Call me a skeptic or just a realist, but I don't believe these statistics. And I am a guy who has sent out more emails in the last 15 years than Bayer has pills. But I pass it along for you to make up your own minds and draw your own conclusions. Is email powerful? Yes, you're reading one now, right? Is it the best ad platform money can buy? No, at least not alone. And that may be the answer to this and several other studies. The possibilities of media dilution are now endless and there is no longer a single answer as the best media buy. So take this info with either a grain of salt or a Bayer Aspirin.

"If you have a lot of tension and you get a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle: "Take two aspirin" and "Keep away from children"."
-Unknown

Marketers Say eMail Strongest Performing Media Buy

http://success.datranmedia.com/research/2008survey.php
Datran Media recently released the results of its second annual survey of over 2000 online marketing professionals, finding that 82 percent of the marketers surveyed indicated that they plan to increase their use of email marketing in 2008, and 55 percent of the respondents cite that they expect ROI from email to be higher than any other channel. The reports says that the survey results are consistent with the Direct Marketing Association's recent report, which found that email ROI will hit $45.65 for every dollar spent in 2008, more than twice the ROI of other mediums including search and display.

In addition to increased use of email as a media and lead generation channel, the Datran Media survey found:

80 percent of respondents indicated email was the strongest performing media buy ahead of search and display.
Search is the favored channel for complementing the email channel.
More than 80 percent of marketers send targeted email campaigns.
Selected key findings include the following...

Company Email plans for 2008, compared to 2007:

82.4% to increase use of email marketing
15.3% to stay the same
2.4% to decrease email marketing expenditures
Source: Datran Media, January 2008

Expectations for company's Email marketing ROI in 2008:

55.3% say higher than other channels
25.9% feel ROI roughly equal
18.8% say lower
Source: Datran Media, January 2008

Advertising media buys that perform strongly for your company: (multiple response OK)

80% say eMail
37.6% display
70.6% say Search
16.5% feel Print
10.6 say Broadcast
7.1% Cable
1.2% think Mobile
2.4% report RSS
34.7% say Ad Network
8.2% uncertain
Source: Datran Media, January 2008

Media channels that complement the eMail media channel: (multiple response OK)

51.8% say Display
71.8% say Search
24.7% think Mobile
17.6% say Broadcast
10.6% Cable
41.2% report Direct
Source: Datran Media, January 2008

Of those who plan to employ eMail, they also expect:

80% to send newsletters
78.8% drive sales
67.1% will increase upsell or cross sell opportunities
50.6% will sent transactional messages
52.9% to reactivate dormant customers
70.6% plan to enhance customer relationships
64.7% expect to increase brand awareness or lift
Source: Datran Media, January 2008

The respondents say eMail planning includes these elements in 2008:

74.1% to conduct content or creative split testing
36.5% will test creative across inbox devices
29.4% to pay for eMail marketing based on CPM model
58.8% will pay on a CPC or CPA model
36.5% will include banner ads
25.9% will measure effect on Brand lift
36.5% will measure effect on customer satisfaction
64.7% will measure eMail effect on sales
Source: Datran Media, January 2008

Response to... "use and/or plan on using an outside vendor for email marketing?"

69.4% say Yes
20% say NO
10.6% Not Sure
Source: Datran Media, January 2008

BoSacks Speaks Out: 3 Concepts for Every Publisher's Success

This article comes from the most recent issue of Publishing Executive Magazine.

This is not one of those usual tips and tricks issues, because the editor, managing editor, and most of the writers are personal friends of mine, and from my perspective that means that they know "stuff" worth knowing. The fact that I'm a monthly columnist for said publication has nothing to do with my aforesaid observation.

"You are the embodiment of the information you choose to accept and act upon. To change your circumstances you need to change your thinking and subsequent actions."
Adlin Sinclair (British born Businessman, motivational speaker and Humanitarian,)


3 Concepts for Every Publisher's Success

By Robert M. Sacks
Publishing Executive Magazine
http://www.pubexec.com/

My friend Dr. Joe Webb is one of the graphic arts industry's well-known and outspoken consultants, economic forecasters, commentators and pundits. As director of WhatTheyThink.com's Economics and Research Center, he was pontificating and predicting in a recent online column the future of our industry, and he threw out the following ideas.

1. "Managing" content is not the issue; deploying content is.

As my readers know, I have been suggesting similar concepts in this column for years. I think we can all agree that today's print publishers have attained and acquired an excellence in creating and managing vast amounts of content. In fact, nobody does it better than we do, and that is why we get paid the big bucks to continue plying our chosen trade. But, as we move forward, we will be continuously challenged and even threatened by the need to deploy our content. These deployment tactics will require increasing needs for greater global reach, efficiency and accountability. It is/will be the deployment of this well-managed content that will be at the core of any successful franchise.

2. Reaching desired targets is not as important as having targets find the content.

This has always been an intriguing exercise for print publishers, but now it gets harder. There was, at one time, a finite playing field for print publishers. You had either the newsstand circulation or subscription circulation or, in the best of both worlds, you had both. Here, you were limited to the actual number of newsstands available to you and the efficient use of the U.S. Postal Service. In the new and future tier of publishing, you enter the infinite world of global digital publishing.

Now, instead of trying to maximize a limited number of newsstands to attract loyal readers, you have to attract them in the forest of unlimited competition of the worldwide Internet. This shouldn't scare any publisher; it can be just a matter of perspective. You now have the ability to reach a far greater number of potential readers than ever before. That is the good part of the equation.

The down side is that, where once you had, at best, 7,000 consumer titles to compete with in a limited newsstand arena, you now have an unlimited number of writers, bloggers and publishers seeking the attention of as many readers as possible, just as you are.

3. Rules may change, but the objectives do not. Long-term profitability and innovation never go out of style.
This, my friends, is what we must take to heart. We have always had the content, and we have adapted technologically quite well as an industry to bring superior efficiencies to content distribution.

Now we need to adapt once again to a new paradigm of content distribution. The rules are, indeed, changing-and changing quickly. But with creative innovation and smart leadership, any title or series of titles can not only exist in the new world order, but prosper as never before. Where once the best possible execution of a well-rounded business plan had somewhat narrow parameters of possible success, we can now pursue and sell our content to an unlimited number of readers.

The new performance possibilities, paralleled with new, innovative technologic practices, may yet prove to be the best candidates for initiating the biggest revolution in successful publishing since Gutenberg's moveable type.

Bob Sacks (aka BoSacks) is a consultant to the printing/publishing industry and president of The Precision Media Group (www.BoSacks.com). He is publisher and editor of a daily international e-newsletter, Heard on the Web. Sacks has held posts as director of manufacturing and distribution, senior sales manager (paper), chief of operations, pressman, cameraman, publisher, columnist, politician, volunteer fireman and well known corporate janitor.

BoSacks Speaks Out; Steering the New World Digital Order

Steering the New World Digital OrderBy BoSacks
http://www.pubexec.com/story/story.bsp?sid=83154&var=story

There is a book by Ray Kurzweil called "The Singularity Is Near." In this book, Mr. Kurzweil has a theory about The Law of Accelerating Returns, which states that in today's business environment, "Change happens faster than we are able to forecast or predict it." This is a departure not only from long ago, but from our more recent past as well. There was, in our lifetime, the possibility of accurately predicting technologic growth. Those days have gone up in digital smoke. Technologic growth that once took multiple generations to achieve now happens in months.

Another of Mr. Kurzweil's concepts is that the rate of technologic change is not linear, but exponential. This is not a new concept to anyone in the publishing field.

Everyone knows that I love technology and the possibilities that it holds, especially for those in our industry. We are, no doubt, on the bleeding edge compared to most other professionals. Retailers, lawyers, cabbies, mothers and most others, although impacted every day by the new world digital order, are affected somewhat less visibly than those of us who transmit information in the forms of magazines, newspapers, newsletters and the like. We are pushing and prodding the system to go ever faster.

Over the past decade, publishers have digitally married the electronic workflow. It occurred to me this morning that a magazine can no longer be produced without a computer. This is not a shocking discovery, but it did make me stop and think. From the written word pecked out on a keyboard, e-mailed and clipped by the editor, formatted and manipulated by the art director, spun with great skill and digital alchemy by the production elite, and converted by the printer magically to CTP, there is no longer any step in the process that is not fully and completely computerized. The presses are controlled by digits, the bindery is efficiently automated, and the bundling and shipping is all tagged and directed by database files. In the near future, magazines will likely have little computer chips called RFID imbedded into them for further electronic enhancement and accountability.

But what exactly have we produced with all this speed and technology? We have precision-engineered a book, a magazine or a newspaper--all three printed on paper. We have created a product that requires no electricity to operate. You don't need to plug it in or even attach a cord. In fact, if you do have a cord, it won't fit. It is not sensitive to magnetic surges or system failures of any kind. If left alone, it retains its imagery indefinitely. It can be dropped, stepped upon and will still be totally functional. And if, God forbid, you should spill coffee on it, for a few bucks you can get an exact duplicate. Basically, the format can never become outdated.

So now that that is out of my system, I can move on. Mr. Kurzweil is right about the dramatic speed of change, and that change has affected society as well as technology. And although the printed product is near perfection, there is one thing that it just cannot do, and that is refresh, change and update itself. Once, these were unnecessary, unsought-after functions. Now, we may have a society that demands them.

Here is another interesting thought on technology and our new society that comes from the findings of an in-depth, seven-month study by MTV and the Associated Press on happiness and young people: How happy are they, what makes them happy, and what are they doing to ensure future happiness? The results are that cell phones, the Internet and other technologies are woven into the lives of today's young people, and nearly two-thirds say that technology makes them happier.

What we have now in "screenagers" is a generation that has the ability to be in touch with each other immediately starting at earlier and earlier ages. This new generation of kids is naturally adept with technology and the speed of its change. They are comfortable with having virtual access to friends, family and the world at large. This is a generation that is just as comfortable with digital delivery as it is with bound books.

My conclusion from all this is that there is a very positive and robust future for publishers. We have the technology to print perfect books and magazines for those who desire them. We also have the ability to reach out to new generations of readers in new formats such as e-paper, cell phones and PDAs, and who knows what is right around the corner. All that matters is that we monetize our franchise and deliver our product to readers everywhere and anywhere they would like it.

Bob Sacks (aka BoSacks) is a consultant to the printing/publishing industry and president of The Precision Media Group (www.BoSacks.com). He is publisher and editor of a daily international e-newsletter, Heard on the Web. Sacks has held posts as director of manufacturing and distribution, senior sales manager (paper), chief of operations, pressman, cameraman and often called a new age corporate janitor.

Bob Sacks: In an Iconoclast By Himself

Bob Sacks: In an Iconoclast By Himself
By John Parsons
The Seybold Report
Volume 7, Number 21 · November 1, 2007

Bob Sacks ("BoSacks" to his readers) is an outspoken columnist and lecturer to the
media and marketing industries. A veteran of many printing and publishing ventures since the 1970s, Sacks has been an advocate for innovation and change, as evidenced by his popular e-newsletter, "Heard on the Web" (www.bosacks.com), and the BoSacks blog.

Sacks straddles the past, present and future. "I've had every position there is to have in our industry," he said. He's been an editor, a publisher, a columnist, a director of manufacturing and distribution and a chief operating officer. He's also been a pressman, sold advertising for print and radio and worked for International Paper, "selling dead trees to major publishers." Sacks is sometimes cast in an adversarial, Jeremiad role, usually opposite the optimism of Prof. Samir Husni ("Mr. Magazine") in the debate over magazines and their fate. Far from being a prophet of doom, however, Sacks views technical innovation as the key to successful publishing - in whatever forms it ultimately takes. He consistently challenges past assumptions and his measured skepticism, combined with his vast expertise in media of all kinds (his first publishing venture used hot type), make him a valuable voice in the publishing industry. We asked Sacks about the future of publishing as we know it.


TSR: On your Web site, one of your lecture topics is something known as "El-Cid."
What is that?

BoSacks: It's all about the future of publishing. El-Cid is a key component to what
I'm trying to project. It means electronically coordinated information distribution.
It's imperative that we no longer consider ourselves as just publishers. We are information distributors. El-Cid is the ability to deliver information anywhere instantly, which is where our business models have to be. The future of publishing is the ability to access any information - all the time, effortlessly and accurately.

TSR: So you're talking about all forms of media, including browsers and readers?

BoSacks: I'm totally indifferent to the platform. Our franchise is information, and we shouldn't be hung up on atoms. That's a good way to distribute it; it's just not the only way.


TSR: Speaking of digital distribution, there are a number of digital edition vendors, the equivalent of a turn-the-page book or magazine on your screen. Do you think people are ready to turn virtual pages instead of paper ones?

BoSacks: I'm uncomfortable with your phrase "ready." We're getting there. It took us 600 years to perfect the magazine, and it works. It's easy to read, usually beautifully designed. How many Web pages can carry that description? Electronic magazines are improving every day and they have something else that no other Web page can emulate: a beginning, middle and an end. That's critical. Once the correct platform is developed for the digital magazine experience, it will readily be adopted.

TSR: What do you think the correct platform needs or what is it missing right now?

BoSacks: Touch-screen e-paper. When you can emulate the magazine experience, fly
your hand across your page and it will flip for you - what the iPhone does today -
that's the correct platform. A sheet of plastic, polymer, e-paper - looks like paper,
feels like paper, smells like paper but it isn't paper. It's a screen that works on reflective technology. Light doesn't shine through it or from it. It uses ambient light, which makes it a pleasant reading experience. It needs to be four colors, it needs to be wifi connected and it needs to be scalable.

TSR: Does size matter?

BoSacks: Yes, for some, but the beauty of publishing platforms of the future is that we don't care. You want it little? I'll deliver it little. You want it medium? I'll do that. You want e-paper? I'll do that. Would you like dead trees? I've got plenty of them, too.


TSR: The old print advocate saying is that they want media they can take to the beach
or read in the bathtub. Is that realistic? Is e-paper going to get there eventually, and how do you think it's going to happen?

BoSacks: I predict in five years we'll have a workable e-paper solution, commercially
affordable. We're predicting under $50 in five years. Comfort level, ease of readability is really important. It's interpreted as wanting paper and books, but that's a learned exercise. What they really want is to get their intellectual fix, the information that they're addicted to. It could be news, it could be about Britney, it could be wooden boat building, whatever your focus or passion is. People want that and that want it in an easy-to-read, portable format. This could be e-paper or something we haven't invented or thought of yet. E-paper seems like the most likely next mechanism of change. There is also nanotechnology, which is not what e-paper is about currently. Nanotechnology might jump ahead of e-paper or follow behind it, but I see e-paper as the next defining moment in information distribution.


TSR: What do you see as the future of printing on dead trees, as you put it?

BoSacks: I see it just like vinyl records. That used to be the way people used to listen to music, and the majority of the public now uses MP3s and MP3 players. There is still a market out there for audiophiles who swear by records and they still make some records. Collectors are out there. My friend Samir Husni is a collector, and I think that's a part of his philosophy. He's a dead-tree hugger. He loves his magazines, and he's a vinyl record collector.

TSR: How long do you think there are going to be printed publications on paper?

BoSacks: I could foresee there are a couple of generations left. The number of titles is clearly going up, but the number of printed pages is clearly going down. Magazine circulation is going down. Printed products will be around for quite some time, but I think the right question is, how long will printed products be the dominant source of information distribution? The answer is, not that long.

TSR: A couple of generations?

BoSacks: It doesn't matter. The inevitable conclusion is that digital media will be the dominant way that we distribute and monetize our franchise, and printing will be less dominant as we move forward - not disappear, but be less dominant.

TSR: What about the business of publishing bothers you the most? What's your pet
peeve about magazine publishers?

BoSacks: It's the distribution model, which once worked and once worked well but is
archaic. Today, for newsstands, we print 10 copies and sell three. This is not a successful formula to compete with the digital world. I want to distribute 10 copies to the 7-Eleven and sell 10. I don't want to have the infrastructure to go back and pick up seven out of the 10 and take it back and shred it. It's inefficient. Compound that with the circulation side, where Samir and I are in agreement. We basically tell our newsstand readers that they're stupid. Here, you just spent $6.95 for this magazine on the newsstand, but we'll give you 12 issues for $4 if you subscribe. What is going on there? That is a model that only exists in this country. In Europe, newsstand and subscriptions are the same price, as it ought to be.


TSR: What is it about the magazine world that gratifies you the most?

BoSacks: I love being in the thick of it. This has to be one of the most exciting times in the history of information distribution. My first magazine was typeset in hot lead, pretty much what Gutenberg did and we've done for 600 years. Now, in one lifetime we're making these technological evolutionary jumps. It's exciting. I love being around and involved in this part of publishing history. In my lectures, I say, "What Gutenberg did was democratize knowledge." I think this digital process is doing the same thing, democratizing knowledge all over again, empowering and teaching people, giving them access to information that they never had before. The libraries of the world are now available to damn near everybody. Admittedly, you have to have an Internet connection, but the barriers to that connection are fewer and fewer. I love that about what we can do.

TSR: Don't we have a ways to go with finding all that information? It seems to be
pretty well buried.

BoSacks: You're absolutely right. But I'm not sure that anything has really changed.
Before the Internet, let's say 10 or 15 years ago, there were literally millions of books: hard, dead-tree books. How did people find them? They went to a bookstore and asked for recommendations. You need experienced professionals. In those days it was
the bookstore manager, and now you have Web sites and editors of Web sites who
can make recommendations to get you the information you want. Search engines also
are only going to get better. I'm not daunted by the amount of information out there. I think it will continually improve the filtration process, and this may be fee- based, because everything has to revolve around revenue. How do we monetize our information? That's what we do. We own information. We distribute words. How do we place enough value on those words to monetize it?


TSR: So it'll be democratized for those who can afford it?

BoSacks: It's democratized now without the structure. It takes a certain skill set to really find what you want. Anybody can get on Google, put in the name "Bob," and they'll probably get 2 million hits. You want to find Bob Sacks, you have to have the skill set to say, "I want Bob Sacks," and you'll only get 1,000 responses. Of course, if you do put in my name, it will be top of the list. That's just my ego talking.

So it's out there, but as we move forward, I think the question is, what's the next business model going to be? One path may be the cable TV model. People will pay and publishers will sign them up for programs. You can get the basic package, which might include your local newspaper and a magazine of your choice for $6 a month. Then you get the silver package, the gold package, all the way to the platinum package - everything that's been ever printed - for $79 a month. You refine your research, you refine your sources, much like the 500 channels we have now, and combine that with the value of editors. Editors can help you sort and deliver the information that's relevant. I do that for the industry. For my newsletter, I'm the editor, the sorter, the filter. Based on 37 years in the business, I decide what's important to know and I pretty much have a successful handle on what's worth knowing. That's a human intervention.


TSR: What's your long-term prognosis for publishers of information and their business?

BoSacks: The most important thing that publishers need to know is that their franchise is nothing more or nothing less than words and ideas. They don't own paper companies. Publishers don't own computer companies. They sell words. If they put the words in the proper order, those words have value. So they shouldn't care about the distribution path; all they should care about is monetizing their franchise, their franchise's words, and words aren't going to go away. We've been at this a long time. To go way back in history, we used to do cave paintings. That's how we communicated and took out-of-brain memory and shared it. Then we scratched on bones or wooden sticks and passed them on from generation to generation 25,000 years ago. Those were the first books. Then we get into parchment, then Gutenberg, now we're into electronic transmission. We're doing the same thing we've done for 25,000 years. We're reading words. The platform doesn't matter.

BoSacks Speaks Out: This is Very Important

BoSacks Speaks Out: This is Very Important
by Bosacks
www.bosacks.com

I have received a few letters of late asking me if I could distribute news items that are upbeat and constructive to the printed side of information distribution. That seems a fair request made to a guy who has spent 36 years putting ink in just the right place on a formulation of dead trees, starch and assorted fillers.

My answer is thus: You have no idea how very hard I try to find upbeat, balanced and thoughtful information about our industry. I spend many extra hours each week pounding the internet to find a modicum of "good news". Please make special note here, that there is actually some good news out there once and a while, and when I find it, I pounce on it and send it out. There just isn't enough good news for the dead tree guys, these days.

At the end of the day the truth is the truth. We are a diminishing race. We are not, nor will we be extinct. But we are getting smaller every day. Niche titles will be around for a very long time to come. But they will not be mainstream communication devices. It is never going to turn around and be like it was. There just is no turning back. As my buddy Omar Khayyam once wrote:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it

So in my writings and my daily newsletter, I am offering a new kind of hope. Nature abhors a vacuum. For every job that is eliminated in print there are even more new jobs created in the digital arena. Look it up. It is in the US census bureau data. Graphics jobs, editorial jobs, production jobs, and jobs we have never heard of. Those jobs are the new frontier. And it is growing by leaps and bounds.

I can't help those that are at the end of their career in a dead industry, who won't help themselves. I too am a dinosaur of sorts. But I have reinvented what I was and have transformed myself into something else. Forward thinking and not wistfully wishing I was still a VP at McCall's Publishing. I will never be a Director of Manufacturing at McCall's again. It is DEAD. gone, finished.

But there is hope for others. There is a huge future out there for those that can see the forest for the trees.

My readership on the most part seems grateful for my honest portrayal of where we are and even more importantly, where we are going. Sometimes I get a note that has a depressed angle to it. I do my best to respond with hope and encouragement.

I have a worldwide audience. I take that as a responsibility to deliver the best most accurate information I can, regardless of the implications.

I make several claims as to who I am and what I know. What I am dead sure of is the future direction of information distribution. The king of the information forest is not tree based life, but silicon based information distribution.