BOOK
LOVER SPECIAL Digital Dilemma
How
Brian Murray is repositioning HarperCollins in the digital landscape
Three 'cons'
are converting the way books are read - consumerism, convergence and
concurrence. And Brian Murray knows the three cons like the back of his hand.
After all, he runs a 3,000-people organization spread across a major part of
the English-speaking world. On a dull October afternoon, the 47-yearold
President and CEO of the $1.19 billion HarperCollins Publishers, engages with
CD on the future of the book:
Hacker amid hacks
As sales and earnings of his company slide for the second consecutive year, Murray is well positioned to confront the transformation from print to digital in the world of books. The New Jerseyraised electrical engineer wrote computer code for four years before joining Booz Allen as a consultant and today he is an unlikely hero in a creative industry populated by artsy editors, moody authors and flitting literary agents. The rigor he brings to publishing is much needed as HarperCollins moves into the digital domain and Murray says he understands the people on the other side - Apple, Google, Amazon and other big channels of distribution who partner with HarperCollins: "They have the background that I have."
Being part of Rupert Murdoch's $33.7 billion News Corporation certainly helps. When it comes to promotions, Murray relies on cross-synergies within the group. For instance, reviewers from group publications like Wall Street Journal, can certainly give a leg up. Besides relying on group resources, Murray does dare to go it alone, thanks to his scientific bent.
At HarperCollins, books are now being priced dynamically. Propped up by the success of dynamic book pricing in the US and UK, Murray is raring to bring it to India. It's a move away from the traditional pricing model wherein books were printed, maybe a year's worth of stock, and there was only one price decision to be made based on the number of pages the book contained. "We're in a very different world now," says Murray.
In the new world, dynamic pricing really optimizes the life cycle of a book. If the book is new, there's a pre-order period, and a lot of orders take place even before the book physically goes on sale. That offers the first window of setting the price. Again, for the first two months the book is on sale, alongside marketing and promotions, an opportunity arises for re-setting the price. Beyond those couple of months, the price again tends to settle down a bit to what seems to be the long-term price point of the book.
"But it really gets interesting when the author has a new book that's coming out the subsequent year. In that case, we've learnt how to price the older book," says Murray, adding that at an appropriate time, his company would reduce the price of the older book significantly as well as throw in a new chapter from the new book. "So you lower the price and pick up all new readers to buy it, and by then, the pre-orders on the new book have gone up. It's about the life cycle of changing prices and understanding the value of promotions because we can set the price and track sales across different platforms, like Google and Amazon and understand the price sensitivity of consumers when they shop on such platforms," he says. the frenemy quotient
Alongside dynamically pricing books, Murray scouted and hired someone from the music industry who does detailed consumer research on Harper-Collins authors and books. Earlier, he used to do so for musical bands around the world. So that's a new capability at HarperCollins that never existed before. Also, in the past, it was necessary to have state-of-the-art technology in warehouses. "'Today, we think it's more important to have less capital going into the warehouse and more into consumer insights and pricing," says Murray. So from five warehouses in North America, the company is down to one.
Upping the frenemy quotient
As Murray seems well-poised and tech savvy to take digital strides, his company partners with a few big guns on the information highway to bring his books to market, including Apple, Google, Amazon, Google, Nook in the US and Flipkart in India. Harper-Collins recently tied up with Scribd to gain a share of the 80 million unique visitors a month. "Five years back, both Apple and Google weren't in the business (of retailing books) and it was almost all Amazon but today, you have to make sure you have a lot of partners so that no one partner can hold you up as well as provide consumers the greatest amount of choice as possible about the site from where they would want to buy their books," he says.
At the same time, some of the online selling platforms, like Amazon and Google, have turned publishers, echoing a frenemy-like relationship with HarperCollins, where partners collaborate as well as compete. "You have to be really s ch i z o - p h re n i c these days to be able to work with some of these really big companies and figure out what your policy positions are," says
Murray. "They're all developing publishing programs and are encroaching into what traditionally would have been our turf but that's not material compared to the kind of business we'll do with them since a major distribution partner for us would have 100 million active users and there's no way we are going to match that."
The book, resurrected
Alongside platforms, convergence throws up newer devices, from tablets to e-readers, which are changing the way people read. And a multitude of such digital transformation is vying for consumers' attention concurrently. So will a book remain the book as we know it? Well, yes and no. As tablets evolve, for instance, book publishers, the music industry, television and film producers are all trying to figure out how to distribute their content over such devices. So consumers now expect to consume all media on digital screens. Alongside music and newspapers, consumers now have a bookstore in their smartphones/tablets. "They have an ereader in their pockets and that's going to drive growth in the book business for years to come," says Murray.
All that implies the act of reading is going through rapid transformation. Though the book has to be a complete standalone work that can stand the test of time, it can offer a lot of extras, courtesy technology. "I've always felt consumers are going to tell us what they are willing to pay for," says Murray. He thinks that with the ebook, his industry has done a better job at giving readers more value. "We have authors with tremendous amount of extra content and there's no reason why we shouldn't be bundling in something from behind-the-scenes, providing video footage of where the book is set, charts, animations," says Murray, hinting at endless collaborations as reading segues into the perception of a central idea.
In simplistic terms, think of reading Chapters 4 and 5 in the print format, while Chapters 6 and 7 may be read out to you while gymming on the treadmill and wolf down Chapter 8 on the public transport over your smartphone. Today, it is indeed possible to have such convergence and Murray is at the cuttingedge of these experiments.
Again, ebooks are coming up with software and social elements that have the ability to update books and provide the reader with a sense of timelessness. For example, when HarperCollins published Game Change a few years ago, it began as an American discussion about the last Presidential campaign, but the book went on and on. "When I love the book, I don't want it to end," says Murray.
TENETS FOR HARPERCOLLINS
Treat competing partners, like Amazon and Google, as frenemies—engage with them to sell as they have the consumer base and compete with them in a healthy manner Price books dynamically by optimizing the life cycle of a book Don’t shy away from hiring experts from other fields, like music, to do consumer research on authors and books Warehousing is a cost publishers can do without. Instead, focus on consumer insights and pricing Authors have bountiful extra content that can be bundled along with the book. Think audio chapters, video clips of where the story is set, behind-the-scenes action, and more Offer regular updates of ebooks over ereaders, tablets and other devices to make a book immortal
Hacker amid hacks
As sales and earnings of his company slide for the second consecutive year, Murray is well positioned to confront the transformation from print to digital in the world of books. The New Jerseyraised electrical engineer wrote computer code for four years before joining Booz Allen as a consultant and today he is an unlikely hero in a creative industry populated by artsy editors, moody authors and flitting literary agents. The rigor he brings to publishing is much needed as HarperCollins moves into the digital domain and Murray says he understands the people on the other side - Apple, Google, Amazon and other big channels of distribution who partner with HarperCollins: "They have the background that I have."
Being part of Rupert Murdoch's $33.7 billion News Corporation certainly helps. When it comes to promotions, Murray relies on cross-synergies within the group. For instance, reviewers from group publications like Wall Street Journal, can certainly give a leg up. Besides relying on group resources, Murray does dare to go it alone, thanks to his scientific bent.
At HarperCollins, books are now being priced dynamically. Propped up by the success of dynamic book pricing in the US and UK, Murray is raring to bring it to India. It's a move away from the traditional pricing model wherein books were printed, maybe a year's worth of stock, and there was only one price decision to be made based on the number of pages the book contained. "We're in a very different world now," says Murray.
In the new world, dynamic pricing really optimizes the life cycle of a book. If the book is new, there's a pre-order period, and a lot of orders take place even before the book physically goes on sale. That offers the first window of setting the price. Again, for the first two months the book is on sale, alongside marketing and promotions, an opportunity arises for re-setting the price. Beyond those couple of months, the price again tends to settle down a bit to what seems to be the long-term price point of the book.
"But it really gets interesting when the author has a new book that's coming out the subsequent year. In that case, we've learnt how to price the older book," says Murray, adding that at an appropriate time, his company would reduce the price of the older book significantly as well as throw in a new chapter from the new book. "So you lower the price and pick up all new readers to buy it, and by then, the pre-orders on the new book have gone up. It's about the life cycle of changing prices and understanding the value of promotions because we can set the price and track sales across different platforms, like Google and Amazon and understand the price sensitivity of consumers when they shop on such platforms," he says. the frenemy quotient
Alongside dynamically pricing books, Murray scouted and hired someone from the music industry who does detailed consumer research on Harper-Collins authors and books. Earlier, he used to do so for musical bands around the world. So that's a new capability at HarperCollins that never existed before. Also, in the past, it was necessary to have state-of-the-art technology in warehouses. "'Today, we think it's more important to have less capital going into the warehouse and more into consumer insights and pricing," says Murray. So from five warehouses in North America, the company is down to one.
Upping the frenemy quotient
As Murray seems well-poised and tech savvy to take digital strides, his company partners with a few big guns on the information highway to bring his books to market, including Apple, Google, Amazon, Google, Nook in the US and Flipkart in India. Harper-Collins recently tied up with Scribd to gain a share of the 80 million unique visitors a month. "Five years back, both Apple and Google weren't in the business (of retailing books) and it was almost all Amazon but today, you have to make sure you have a lot of partners so that no one partner can hold you up as well as provide consumers the greatest amount of choice as possible about the site from where they would want to buy their books," he says.
At the same time, some of the online selling platforms, like Amazon and Google, have turned publishers, echoing a frenemy-like relationship with HarperCollins, where partners collaborate as well as compete. "You have to be really s ch i z o - p h re n i c these days to be able to work with some of these really big companies and figure out what your policy positions are," says
Murray. "They're all developing publishing programs and are encroaching into what traditionally would have been our turf but that's not material compared to the kind of business we'll do with them since a major distribution partner for us would have 100 million active users and there's no way we are going to match that."
The book, resurrected
Alongside platforms, convergence throws up newer devices, from tablets to e-readers, which are changing the way people read. And a multitude of such digital transformation is vying for consumers' attention concurrently. So will a book remain the book as we know it? Well, yes and no. As tablets evolve, for instance, book publishers, the music industry, television and film producers are all trying to figure out how to distribute their content over such devices. So consumers now expect to consume all media on digital screens. Alongside music and newspapers, consumers now have a bookstore in their smartphones/tablets. "They have an ereader in their pockets and that's going to drive growth in the book business for years to come," says Murray.
All that implies the act of reading is going through rapid transformation. Though the book has to be a complete standalone work that can stand the test of time, it can offer a lot of extras, courtesy technology. "I've always felt consumers are going to tell us what they are willing to pay for," says Murray. He thinks that with the ebook, his industry has done a better job at giving readers more value. "We have authors with tremendous amount of extra content and there's no reason why we shouldn't be bundling in something from behind-the-scenes, providing video footage of where the book is set, charts, animations," says Murray, hinting at endless collaborations as reading segues into the perception of a central idea.
In simplistic terms, think of reading Chapters 4 and 5 in the print format, while Chapters 6 and 7 may be read out to you while gymming on the treadmill and wolf down Chapter 8 on the public transport over your smartphone. Today, it is indeed possible to have such convergence and Murray is at the cuttingedge of these experiments.
Again, ebooks are coming up with software and social elements that have the ability to update books and provide the reader with a sense of timelessness. For example, when HarperCollins published Game Change a few years ago, it began as an American discussion about the last Presidential campaign, but the book went on and on. "When I love the book, I don't want it to end," says Murray.
TENETS FOR HARPERCOLLINS
Treat competing partners, like Amazon and Google, as frenemies—engage with them to sell as they have the consumer base and compete with them in a healthy manner Price books dynamically by optimizing the life cycle of a book Don’t shy away from hiring experts from other fields, like music, to do consumer research on authors and books Warehousing is a cost publishers can do without. Instead, focus on consumer insights and pricing Authors have bountiful extra content that can be bundled along with the book. Think audio chapters, video clips of where the story is set, behind-the-scenes action, and more Offer regular updates of ebooks over ereaders, tablets and other devices to make a book immortal
Moinak
Mitra CDET131018
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