Stanza’s COO Neelan Choksi (and future BNC Tech Forum speaker is interviewed on TeleRead.org
I fundamentally believe the one thing every publisher needs to do is to figure out their overall strategy and see how digital publishing fits into it. Right now, the sense I get is that each digital group is not really part of the overall picture but more of a skunkworks, or side project.
To Choksi, tactics on the ground include:
- Prioritizing conversion: converting the titles you think will work best digital first. Asking for help from your distributor if you have one. And understand that electronic text works differently than print - make it work for you instead of against you.
- Support EPUB: save long-term headaches by supporting the standard now.
- Work on going DRM-free: your savings could be as much as 5% which could be shared between profits for you and your author and a lower price for consumers.
- Insist on reasonable prices from your retail partners: readers won’t buy eBooks at twice the price of paper. Ever.
- Market your books: if you don’t support your e-books, why would your readers?
Marrying strategy with execution means that your digital program is sustainable even if you’re not converting everything all at once. Everything you have and everything you will acquire is already a potential digital asset…
