How do we best get books into readers hands? Or should I say, onto their devices! Find out in this fortnight’s BookMachine article.
Last week, Apple announced partnerships with 50 publications across 18 publishers, who had all signed up to provide content for the new Apple News app. The platform will aim to provide the best digital news reading service available, in a move to commit to the mobile-first world of technology that we now live in.
There is an increasing pressure on the publishing industry to embrace new technologies such as this. In recent years, we’ve had to fundamentally reassess how we distribute and monetize our content, and continue to do so as new platforms like Apple News present themselves. But how can we best use these technologies to our advantage?
Is DIY really the best option?
Other industries have seen great success with alternate distribution models. Subscription services like Spotify, for example, have revolutionized the music industry, both in good ways and bad. While it is easier for independent artists to gain recognition, the rise of Spotify and similar subscription models has also compromised income streams for artists across the board.
In an attempt to imitate these subscription models’ successes, and perhaps to preempt and nullify some of their compromises on revenue streams, several publishers have started up their own subscription services, both digitally and in print. Similar attempts have been made where individual publishers, large and small, have endeavoured to create their own eReading platforms.
The truth is, however, that while such attempts have met with varying degrees of success, none of these in-house DIY distribution models have been runaway hits with readers in the same way that other, larger, cross-publisher platforms have been. [READ MORE]