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Children’s books in digital era

The annual Children’s Book Fair in Bologna, is a little quieter than two years ago when I was last here. I remember lines of people queuing up to get in, the squash around the coffee stand, and the chatter of publishers filling up all the cafes and restaurants in the old quarter of this lovely Italian city. None of that is true this year.

Some publishers - such all of Penguin’s children’s imprints from America - are not sending editorial teams this year. They only have the marketing people here. But those publishers that I’ve met say that they have been busy selling international rights for their books “to the usual people”.

I find that publishers are saying that they are “fascinated” to learn about all things “digital”. That is a real turn-around from two year ago when they were faintly polite about some guys with a website (Storynory).

The coming London Book Fair has an particular emphasis on digital publishing, with talks and seminars. Amazon has led the way with Kindle - the tool for easy-on-the-eye digital books. They’ve also bought Audible, which is a sort of Amazon for downloadable audiobooks. AudibleKids sponsors Storynory, and publishers are interested in that link, because in hard times they might not be so keen to give away a free CD in the back of a picture book. It’s more attractive to sell some downloadable audio.

It doesn’t seem so long ago that publishers were a bit sniffy about the internet, and not too happy using email. They were like the people who worked for BBC TV and didn’t realise that the BBC’s internet site had a bigger audience. Newspapers went through the same process, at first despising online publishing, and then, as their paper sales plummeted, realising that both the audience and the advertisers were living in a different universe. Now the papers with a future are those that have invested in digital - and it’s The Telegraph that’s leading the way in the UK.

I believe that publishing and digital are finally coming together. I also believe that free is the way forward - and that advertisers will start to look at buying slots in digital books. But that will take a while yet, because it will horrify traditional publishers, and besides, they don’t yet have advertising departments. Talk about culture shock !

By Hugh | Tagged | Comments (0)

Podango

About a year ago, as an experiment,  I uploaded some audio onto Podango, the podcasting start-up.  Today I received an email saying that sadly, their future is in doubt:

Our ability to continue operations past the end of this year (2008) is in question. We do not want any of you, or any of your shows to be negatively affected by this uncertainty and so we are encouraging you to begin taking all necessary steps to secure your data or begin moving to another hosting provider.

The truth is that podcasting isn’t profitable enough to support more than one or two major service companies. As far as we are concerned, Libsyn is the only game in town. They offer unlimited bandwidth and cost-effective hosting for audio and video based on the amount you upload and store every month - and they make a profit out of it. Through their parent company, Wizzard Media, they arrange sponsorship deals for podcasts. Wizzard is listed on the Nasdaq, and Libsyn seems to be a rare instance of a company that hasn’t lost its user-friendly start-up ethos after selling up to a bigger company.

Unfortunately, not many other podcasting service companies are going to survive the downturn.

By Hugh | Also posted in Examples, Media | Tagged | Comments (1)

Book Covers from Flickr

I was at the Nehru Centre in London last night to listen to our website client Edna Fernandes talking about her new book, The Jews of Kerala.

Loads of people are writing and blogging about Edna’s books on the web by the way - and with her regular speaking appearances she’s in a great position to build up her online community. In fact I think most authors have this opportunity - but many of them don’t quite understand the online / blogging factor yet, and the power of networking with readers and reviewers. In fact, I think the book publishing world has been immensely fearful of online, and slow to cotton on to it, despite Amazon’s blazing trail.

However, chatting to the MD of Edna’s publisher afterwards, I received encouragement that all is not lost. Apparently the designer for the paperback edition of her book has found a cover photograph on Flickr, and has of course been in touch with the photographer to pay him for use. That’s a great sign of the publishing world starting to get social media. He also said that the Internet has spurned a cluster of small independent publishers, because it’s made it so much more easier and cheaper for them to put the word out to distributors and bookshops when they have a new book.

Of course Storynory is on the lookout for a Children’s publisher that really understands the online opportunity that we have created. There has to be one out there !

By Hugh | Also posted in Social Media | Comments (0)

Storynory: Newcastle to Hyderabad

Hugh at Newcastle U

Hugh at Newcastle U

I’m just back from a great trip to Newcastle - a majestic city of the north with a great collection of railway bridges, wonderful Victorian architecture, and Earl Gray (he of the bergamot scented tea) astride his column.

I was a guest of Dr. Pauline Dixon of the E.G West Centre in Newcastle University. The center looks into the role of private education - particularly in developing countries. In the world of trendy-left academia, it’s pretty controversial stuff, but I found it quite inspiring.

For instance, they’ve identified 900 private schools in Hyderabad. Most of them are catering for the very poor - but even so the fees represent about 6% of the parents’ income. And in return the children receive motivated and enthusiastic teaching.

I’m very proud to say that Storynory is being used in some of those Indian schools to help with English.

Pauline asked me to do a presentation on Storynory to some of her graduate students taking her Education and Entrepreneurship module. The students come from all over the world, and hold every sort of view. Of course I was delighted. But before I even got going with my bit, the class discussion touched on whether a business person running a school in a slum of a developing country would be interested in anything else other than profit. I felt I had to speak up

If you are going to dedicate your life to a business - you aren’t just doing it for the money - you have to a vision. Yes, money is important - but so is creating something of value for the world. There may be some business people who are just perusing wealth - but most of us want to create something of worth.

I did my presentation - and the voice of our narrator - Natasha - filled the room with our atmospheric Baba Yaga story - and the advertisement for AudibleKids to show how we pay for Storynory’s development.

I also played this YouTube video from a five year old Storynory listener in Chicago:

Which I think says it all about the closeness with our audience.

Richard Graham

Richard Graham

I was followed by an extrovert presentation by Richard Graham of Genki English. For the past 8 years he has been developing lively course of English teaching based on songs - and he’s selling the CD’s and teaching plans online. To show how it works, Richard had the whole graduate class jumping up and down and singing LEFT RIGHT FORWARD BACK.

Genki English has sold all over the world - Richard’s just back from Cambodia where it is now in every Government school. He’s a true online entrepreneur - and somebody who has shown that you can bypass traditional distribution routes and get your product out there - but you do have to know your market. He began by teaching English in Japan - and I think that’s why he understood the market opportunity for his teaching method that won’t have any bored kids.

By Hugh | Also posted in storynory | Comments (0)

Social Media Works…

I often hear something like “I would never go on Facebook” from my friends. For the more conservative types, Linkedin is just about the limit of their experimentation, because it looks professional (and is very boring). Here’s a couple of examples of where the sort of social media that you are not supposed to do at work as been working for me.

Example 1 - Flickr

Sophie Green Illustration for StorynoryFor a long time I’ve been looking for an illustrator to work with us on Storynory. I’ve asked a few people if they knew of anyone, looked at a few portfolios on the web, even emailed one or two - but never really found anyone whose work that I really liked.

Then Sophie became a contact of Storynory’s flickr page. So I took a look at Sophie’s page on Flickr, and then her website, and realised that she’s a talented artist who wanted to do some children’s illustrations. I got the hint. And so I asked her to do some illustrations for us. And then, as she’s a graphic designer, she started to do some of that - - see the new banner and colour scheme of this blog. And soon we are working together on Blog Relations. She’s in Liverpool, I’m in London. We’ve never done anything so old fashioned as to meet or talk on the telephone. It doesn’t seem necessary.

Example 2 Facebook

Facebook has been great for me for catching up with old friends scattered around the world in places like Iraq (working for UN) and Israel (working for Reuters). But recently I found a very old friend nearer to home. I was looking at the corner of Facebook dedicated to my old prep school, and left a comment there. Soon I was in touch with Jeremy, somebody I haven’t seen since (I hate to admit this) the 1970s. We met up at the Royal Festival Hall’s bar near Waterloo. Jeremy, who always was better at maths than me, worked out that it had been 32 years since we had last seen each other. Neither of us had changed a bit of course. And what’s more, it looks like we might be working together on an interesting web project of his.

So next time somebody says “I would never put my mug on Facebook” I’m going some things to say back to them. Facebook etc is not only about socialising (see BBC Bosses should Embrace Facebook). I’m both finding work for myself, and giving work to others via social media. In fact, work and social life always were connected (the golf course, the Lloyds Coffee shop). I’m so enthused, I’ve even signed up for Twitter. See you there !

P.S Linkedin has never worked for me, because it’s so stiff and formal and false. Everyone is in it to show how successful they are - not really to meet up and chat, and see where it goes.

By Hugh | Also posted in Social Media | Comments (3)

What’s up

If you are one of our loyal band of followers on RSS, you might be wondering why the sudden flurry of activity. The recent posts are material for Blog Relations redesign - coming soon. They are meant as a basic introduction - normal blogging to resume soon, and hopefully it will be quite active.

By Hugh | Comments (2)

What We Can Do For You…..

We can build you a blog, podcast, or website that is :

  • Easy for your visitors to navigate
  • Easy for search engines to list
  • Easy for you to update

And our services don’t stop there: we are always around to advise you on content strategy and moving up the search rankings because

We don’t just like to build websites…
We love to build Successful Websites.

For beautiful graphics, our first port of call is on the talents of Sophie Green. We work as a team - so you receive custom design + user friendly technology and tips.

Our sites are powered by WordPress - the coolest Content Management System available. It will make updating your content as easy as sending an email. It’s a Web 2.0 blogging platform that can also power just about any type of site. See Why WordPress?

By Hugh | Also posted in Front | Comments (0)

Quick Indian Cooking

Quick Indian Cooking with Malika BasuQuick Indian Cooking is a lively blog written by Mallika Basu. Since starting her blog Mallika has become the rising star of Indian Cooking and is often in demand for media appearances. (more…)

By Hugh | Also posted in Portfolio | Comments (1)

Content Tips

KYOTO, JAPAN - FEBRUARY 9: Ichimame, an 19-yea...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Content is the life blood of your site.  Nothing else really matters.  Get the content right, an visitors will come to you, you will get known, and you will succeed.

  1. Write for your visitors - not promotion for yourself.   Yes, be clear about what you can do for people.  No - don’t go on about it.  Publish useful, interesting, and entertaining content for your users.
  2. Never, never write marketing spiel on the web.  Visitors are ruthless and will swiftly move on.
  3. If you are a newsy site - publish often, add your own take, invite comment.
  4. If you are more or a timeless site, think in terms of building a resource - like a section of a library - people will come to you for what… Poems? Recipes? Fashion-tips?  Stock-Picking?  Medical Advice?  Pictures of Pedigree Poodles?  Build up your resource over time.
  5. Divide your content into no more than 6 main categories - And then start making sub-categories under them.  This should keep you on-topic.
  6. Break up your thoughts into lists and short paragraphs.  People scan web pages, and are put off by solid blocks of text.
  7. Don’t copy and paste from other sites.  There’s no point.  You will never outrank the original for more than a day or so - and then you will be tagged as rubbish by the search engines and by users.
  8. Be friendly and informal, and always courteous even when you disagree with somebody.  The web is about making friends.
  9. Write as if you were talking to a friend - this helps bring out your personality.
  10. Work in bits of your life to help you find your own voice. You don’t have to lay your soul bare, but you can give a little bit of yourself away.
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By Hugh | Also posted in Tips | Comments (0)

Social Networking Tips

Social Networking is a powerful way to build up your contacts to help you in your professional or personal life, and to get your site known.   Here are our top tips for social networking.

  1. Write a blog and post regularly -  blogs are the most personal social network tool.
  2. Go to meet-ups of like-minded people in your area.  Take lots of business cards.  Blog about them before, during and afterwards.  Research events at upcoming.
  3. Link to relevant sites, especially blogs, from your posts.  The owners will notice you.
  4. Take part in online conversations - comment on sites - pick up the debate on your own site.
  5. Set up a Flickr account for your pictures - and join relevant groups on Flickr - and befriend like-minded people on Flikr.
  6. Work at social networking sites and services such as Facebook, Twitter, Friendster.
    Organise or help organise an event or regular meet-up for people in your industry - for example, Geek Dinners here in London.   As the organiser everyone will get to know you.
  7. Use Google Reader to follow what your network is up to.
By Hugh | Also posted in Tips | Comments (0)

Make Your Site Visible To Search Engines

It’s amazing how many sites just aren’t visible to search engines. view the site without pictures, and there is nothing there. Here are our tips for making your site visible to search engines

  1. Avoid putting any text into pictures or flash (apart from masthead).
  2. Meta Tags. There are only two meta-tags that matter: Title and Description. These appear in Google search results:
    Search result uses title and description

    Search result uses title and description

    • Your pages should have a descriptive title. So if your name is Joe Blogs you might want to add a few words describing what you do. If where you are located matters, add that too: “Joe Blogs: Paddington’s Pain-Free Dentist”.
    • Google can scan your text to generate its own description for each page: if you write one yourself, keep it under 25 words.
  3. Avoid URLs that are made of numbers and symbols. Try to get a URL for your site that contains one or two key words (eg http://Quickindiancooking.com.
  4. Submit a sitemap to Google and to other search engines. WordPress has a plugin that can do this for you.
  5. Once you have submitted a sitemap, sign up for Google Webmaster tools - this will give you more information about how Google sees your site.
  6. Never copy content from other sites such as Wikipedia - your content must be unique or Google will consign you to the Outer Hebrides.
  7. Use Google Analytics to analyze your traffic and where it is coming from.
  8. Avoid duplicate content on your own pages (and similar e titles for pages).
  9. Use good headlines
  10. Keep your site well structured - search engines like good structure.
  11. Link to your most important content from the home page
  12. Keep your most important content at a high level in the structure - not three levels down.
  13. Don’t fill up your site with affiliate marketing
  14. Never hide any text on your page.
  15. Write alternative text (alt text) for images.
  16. Link out to top quality and highly relevant sites. Never exchange links spammy sites and be very wary of anyone who approaches you with a link swapping idea.
  17. Submit your site to high quality directories such as http://www.dmoz.org/about.html
  18. Ultimately what will drive you up Google are high quality sites that link to you - and that will depend very much on your content and your social networking skills.
  19. Have patience - Google takes its time to rate you.

Further Reading

Google Webmaster Guidlines
SEO Book - by Search Guru Aaron Wall
Search Engine Journal

By Hugh | Also posted in Tips | Comments (0)