All posts by Verso Advertising

Verso Reader Survey at the ABA’s Winter Institute

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We were honored that the American Bookseller Association asked our own Jack McKeown (alias @bookateur) to present the keynote at this year’s  Winter Institute — and excited at the chance to expand on the “Indie Mindshare vs. Marketshare” meme that is developing out of the first Verso Survey of Book-Buying Behavior. After the great conversations that started at Digital Book World, we knew independent bookstores would have a lot to say about our results. And did they ever! The twitter activity was off the charts and is still rolling a week later (thanks to @jchristie for creating the archive). See below for a small sampling of Winter Institute press and tweets that mention Verso’s Survey.

Some of the Press

Bookselling This Week wrote, “For 90 minutes on Thursday morning at the Winter Institute, booksellers zeroed in on the provocative aspects of consumer demographics and book-buying preferences offered by Jack McKeown…”

The day after the keynote, Shelf Awareness called it a “well-received breakfast keynote [that] many booksellers said gave them both hope and ideas for concrete action.”

Publishers Weekly reported that “Jack McKeown’s keynote on Verso Advertising’s survey of consumer book-buying habits was a relief . . . [highlighting] potential opportunities for independents to be in the digital space.”

In their wrap-up of the Winter Institute, Shelf Awareness wrote, “After the first day of sessions on technological trends, many booksellers felt overwhelmed and feared an e-future that would bypass bookstores. But the next morning, the mood changed, beginning with a presentation by Jack McKeown…”

The news was even picked up in Australia. From the PNP Booksellers Blog: “Even though [the Verso Survey] was about US readers there is a tonne of relevant information for the Australian market…..”

Some of the hundreds of Tweets

Verso’s stats about indie mindshare are definitely heartening #dbw  [full results here: http://bit.ly/bR5WEQ ] –@vsandbrook, 2/11/10

Thoughts from #WI5: from the Verso survey: How can indies convert mindshare into marketshare? — @corpuslibris, 2/9/10

RT @permanentpaper Reader stats A+ RT @DBerthiaume: Complete #WI5 presentation Verso survey results http://www.versoadvertising.com/survey  –@WNBA_NATIONAL 2/8/10

Hey indies! RT @DBerthiaume Complete #WI5 slide presentation of Verso survey results now up at http://www.versoadvertising.com/survey/ — @vertigobooks 2/8/10

Beyond thrilled to be hearing ebook convo based on DATA, not just feelings and anecdotes. Many thanks to @bookateur. #Wi5 /via @bookavore  @oblongirl 2/5/10

RT @BooksellersNZ: #Wi5 check out www.versoadvertsing.com/survey for insightful research of importance to booksellers — @KatMeyer 2/5/10

Feel much more encouraged & excited on #wi5 day two! :) — @AvidBookshop 2/4/10 (tweeted after Verso Survey Presentation)

Over 45% of males 18-34 download pirated copies. Bad boys. Whatcha gonna do? #wi5 — @yrstrulyREL 2/4/10

Hooray, data bears out that a large chunk of people are interested in bundling. Hope pubs saw this at DBW. #Wi5 — @bookavore, 2/4/10

RT @AvidBookshop: Thinking the same!RT @bookavore: Search engine marketing needs to be priority for indies. Good thing I went to a panel on it yesterday. #Wi5 –@JogglingBoard, 2/4/10

RT @bookavore: “Think about older market as cash cow to pay for experimentation with younger market.” #Wi5 –@NVbibliophile, 2/4/10

Interestingly, much of @bookateur’s #wi5 keynote applies to niche publishing, too. “Community, convenience and price.” –@glecharles, 2/4/10

Cannot tell last time I’ve seen “hissy fit” in PowerPoint. <3 @bookateur. Good job doing #s in early AM. #wi5 –@SarahRettger, 2/4/10

Verso Survey in the News

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The recent Digital Book World conference was one of the best run and most useful conferences we’ve been part of in recent years. It did a great job of airing necessary conversations and forging new ideas about the present and future of our industry. We couldn’t have picked a better place to debut the initial results of our Consumer Survey.  This is an industry that’s ready for hard data. There has been a lot of talk going on related to the conference over the last week, easily trackable with Digital Book World’s own link round-up, here.

If you want to focus on what people are saying, reporting and questioning about the Verso Survey Results in particular, however, here’s a list of some of the talk our survey helped generate:

Publishers Weekly reports that “Verso’s Jack McKeown offered a consumer book survey that acted as a counterweight to Napack’s manifesto…”

On the Digital Book World blog, Guy LeCharles Gonzalez comments on our survey results, “Indie Mindshare Offers an Opportunity…”

The Philadelphia Social Media Examiner cites Verso’s “massive” survey results in the article headlined “Nervous publishing community braces for the e-book revolution…”

Pete Nikolai uploaded the Survey slides to Business Week’s “Business Exchange” site, with brief commentary.

Library Journal mentions the survey in their article, “Digital Book World Attendees Address Changing Future of Reading.”

Industry media reporters Galley Cat reports that the Verso presentation was well-received, “cheering up the publishing crowd.”

In Huffington Post, Steve Ross comments on Verso’s “significant amount of relevant and at times meaningful demographic information…”

Also, here‘s Galley Cat talking about Verso’s pinpointing “Publishing’s Statistical Sweet Spot.”

Publishing industry newsletter, Publishers Lunch headlines an article, “Verso Presents Consumer Survey; Asks Why Indie Market Share Is So Much Lower than Mindshare.”

Industry newsletter Publishing Trends is not available without subscription, but here’s a glimpse of their report on the conference:

Publishing Trends on Verso Surveyy
Publishing Trends on Verso Survey

SOME OF THE BLOGS:

FSG’s Ryan Chapman: “Verso’s Jack McKeown notes that people who go through the effort of downloading illegal copies, for the most part, represent an opportunity for booksellers….”

Dainty Ninja: “Among the findings was one surprising bit of data that could be a sign of encouragement for beleaguered US independent booksellers…”

Paul Biba led off his Teleread post with “Dedicated e-book readers won’t be the easiest sell if you go by Verso’s 2009 Survey of Book Buying Behavior—presented at DigitalBookWorld…”

Mick Rooney on the Verso Survey Presentation, “It was perfect, and set the tone among delegates for the rest of the day….”

SOME OF  THE TWEETS:

@MJRose BTW, I think studies such as Verso’s and BISG’s on book buying behavior are very valuable. –@DonLinn

If you’re an indie bookseller,you need to see Verso’s #DBW presentation and think abt converting mindshare to mkt share http://bit.ly/aAF7qS –@DonLinn

“Turning Indie mindshare to marketshare” Fantastic title! @bookateur @TatteredCover @DBerthiaume @DonLinn #DBW –@AnnKingman

RT@GalleyCat: RT@eBookNewser: Generation Lost? #DBWverso: 2/3rds of avid readers  surveyed are 45 or older; 28%  are in the 18+ bracket #DBW –@CitrusNaNo

RT @DigiBookWorld: RT @ljndawson: Survey says even avid readers who own ereaders are buying both p-books and e-books. Not mutally exclusive. #DBW #DBWverso  –@coopertjon

RT @DigiBookWorld: RT @ljndawson: Maximum $ willing to pay for ebooks! 28% won’t go above $10. 28% are flexible between $10-20. 37% not sure. #DBW #DBWVerso –@krishvenkatesh

RT @BookPros: RT @RonHogan: RT @ljndawson:Author publicity and instore events are biggest driver to purchase. But author tours are dying! #DBW #DBWverso –@ShennandoahDiaz

RT @KatMeyer: slides from @versodigital will be available on slideshare and versoadvertising.com — EXCELLENT information. highly recommend #dbwverso #dbw –@toddbeals

am i crazy to think verso study shows demo most likely to pirate books is demo least likely to *buy* them in any format –@Booksquare

… AND FOR FUN:

CNN’s report on the iPad quotes pundits at the conference and shows Verso’s presentation (don’t blink):

Verso Slides Up on CNN!
Verso Slides Up on CNN!

E-Book Pricing: A Split Opinion Among E-Reader Owners

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Maximum price e-book readers will pay for e-books
Maximum price e-book readers will pay for e-books

Over 27% of e-reader owners are unwilling to pay more than $9.99 for e-books, while an equal number, 28%, are willing to entertain a range of prices up to $20.00. (The typical Amazon price-point for Kindle e-book sales is $9.99.)  Further, over 37% of e-reader owners have yet to form a firm opinion about e-book prices.

The results are based on Verso Digital’s 2009 Survey of Book-Buying Behavior, the full results of which will be presented at the upcoming Digital Book World conference, January 26-27 at the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers in New York City. Conducted in two waves during November and December, 2009, the survey polled 5,640 book-buying respondents, weighted to mirror the U.S. adult population.  The results are statistically reliable within a 1.6 percentage-point margin of error, at a 95% probability level.

The Survey further reveals that only a very small minority of e-reader owners, 7.5%, is willing to entertain prices typical of new-release hardcover books, $25.00 and above.  “The results suggest a much greater diversity of opinion among consumers regarding the emerging e-book market than the industry pundits allow,” says Jack McKeown, industry consultant and Director of New Business Development for Verso Digital.  “We think the survey results point to a potential ‘sweet spot’ for publishers in the $13.00-$18.00 price bracket, including the prospect of converting a lot of the undecided owners.  The results should offer some encouragement to publishers that have been struggling with issues of e-book pricing, timing and potential cannibalization of print sales.”

Could it be true that current e-book users are willing to entertain more flexibility in e-book price points than it first seemed?

E-Book Piracy a Growing Concern According to New Verso Consumer Survey

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Percentage of e-book readers who use unregulated file-sharing services
Percentage of e-book readers who use unregulated file-sharing services

Over 28% of e-reader owners have used unregulated file-sharing services, such as RapidShare, Megaupload and Hot File to download at least one e-book within the last twelve months, and 6% have used such services to download ten or more titles during this interval.

The results are based on Verso Digital’s 2009 Survey of Book-Buying Behavior, the full results of which will be presented at the upcoming Digital Book World conference, January 26-27 at the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers in New York City. Conducted in two waves during November and December, 2009, the survey polled 5,640 book-buying respondents, weighted to mirror the U.S. adult population.  The results are statistically reliable within a 1.6 percentage-point margin of error, at a 95% probability level.

The Survey further reveals that questionable downloading, while affecting all age and gender brackets, is concentrated disproportionately among younger male readers. Among males aged 18-34, over 45% report engaging in such downloading activity within the past twelve months. Nearly 13% have downloaded ten or more e-books from file-sharing services, more than twice the level of the Survey population as a whole.

Jack McKeown, industry consultant and Director of New Business Development for Verso Digital, acknowledged that “the results are bound to set off ripples of alarm within a publishing industry already distracted by issues of e-book pricing, timing and potential cannibalization of print sales.”

What do you think?

7x20x21 for 2010!

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As part of the lead-up to the Digital Book World Conference, Verso Digital is sponsoring the next 7x20x21 event this Wed., January 13 at 7PM. (It’s the same pecha kucha format and feel to the 7x20x21 event Verso helped spark for last year’s BEA). It promises to be a fun evening with some super-smart people — booksellers, marketers, artists, and more — who care deeply about books and have gathered together to give us all reasons to be optimistic about publishing. It will be held at the Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery, NYC. For more details and to RSVP, you can go to the Meetup page.

Making Book Ads Work

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“As publishers and authors strive to connect with their audiences through more channels than ever, what can the latest trends in book advertising teach us about how readers are engaging with books on the web and beyond?…”  Thanks to Charlotte Abbott, the Follow the Reader blog, and the #followreader community on Twitter for a thought-provoking week of interviews and live chats. Part one of Charlotte’s interview with Denise Berthiaume and Tom Thompson is here. Part two is here. And the tweetchat summary, “Book ads in the Publishing Ecosystem,” is here.

Verso Reader Channel-Nielsen BookScan Study

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Point of sale data collected from Nielsen BookScan shows that Verso Reader Channel campaigns have a strong positive effect on book sales. A Verso Reader Channel study of the first thirty five Reader Channel campaigns shows a statistically significant .588 correlation between weekly sales increases (based on BookScan unit sales data) and number of impressions delivered via Reader Channels campaigns.

BookScanChart1

As the above graph demonstrates, there is a clear inflection point at the 1.5-2.0 million impression level. This means that campaigns that deliver 1.5 million or more impressions ($10,000 spend at the standard $6 CPM) yield dramatically improved results.

This study also shows that total impressions are a more important metric than click-through rates. The individual ads might not result in an immediate purchase or click, but the impressions increase buyer’s awareness. This supports what we found with recent campaigns in which average to below-average CTRs produced outstanding results in terms of site visits, awareness and, most important, sales.

Beyond the Click Through

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From the beginning, online advertising has been touted as something altogether different from print, broadcast and outdoor—an advertising medium where you can truly measure results. Unfortunately, the reality is that when there is so much information to be had, it’s hard to know what’s worth focusing on. In fact, the full-on pursuit of ROI can distract not only from significant results but also from pursuing the kind of thinking we need to create truly innovative and effective marketing campaigns.

Most advertisers concentrate on click-through rate (CTR) as the definitive measure of any digital campaign. But several recent studies from comScore suggest that CTR is not the single most important measurement. By studying search, site traffic and consumer spending patterns, comScore has found a significant correlation between ad impact and consumer behavior for up to four weeks following ad exposure.

The Silent Clicke
from "The Silent Click"—(c) 2009 Online Publishers Association and comScore

You can see from this graph that online ads have a powerful “display” function that resonates beyond the campaign itself, and is not measurable by CTR alone. As Forbes reported on a 2008 study, “comScore found readers were 46% more likely to visit an advertiser’s site within four weeks of seeing its ad online than they were if they did not view an ad.” Verso Digital’s own experience with campaigns for book publishers supports these findings.

Our own projects—on the Reader Channels and throughout the digital sphere—indicate that the most relevant campaign metric is often not CTR, but numbers that reveal other user behavior such as site visitation, engagement, and, most important, sales. While generating outstanding site-engagement, some of our most successful campaigns in fact showed only average to below-average CTRs. In one case, a pre-sales ad campaign for Thomas L. Friedman’s Hot, Flat and Crowded promoted free audio downloads. It led to over 99,000 downloads, 13,000 registered email addresses and 160,000+ users available for retargeting. In another case, an ad campaign promoting a key chain giveaway for John Grogan’s Bad Dogs Have More Fun led to over 100,000 people registering to learn more about the book. The publisher saw major traffic continuing for at least four weeks following the conclusion of the Verso Reader Channel ad campaign—with no additional publicity, promotion or advertising to support it.

CTR remains a useful metric, but only when considered in relationship to sales, traffic, search, and total impressions delivered. Campaigns on premium sites with a great book audience, such as the NYTimes.com, often generate CTRs well-above average. But because ads on the site are so expensive, the total number of people reached, and thus the total number of people who click through, is relatively small. For example, a $10,000 spend on a site with a $40 CPM results in 250,000 impressions delivered. When the CPM drops to $5, however, that same $10,000 delivers 2 million impressions. At a standard .1% CTR, $10,000 spent with a $40 CPM delivers 250 clicks. With a relatively below-average .05% CTR, $10,000 spent with a $5 CPM delivers 1,000 clicks. In this scenario, the campaign with the lower CTR actually performed better by delivering more users to the site. For this reason, CTR should always be considered hand-in-hand with total impressions delivered.

The goal of each new marketing campaign—and the measure of its success—must reflect the resources at hand and how you can best reach the community of potential readers. What doesn’t change is the need for flexible ideas and an ability to think through each niche effort in its full context.

Put Your Video to Work

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In the past few years, book publishers have created a lot of interesting, entertaining and relevant video content that sits un-watched on You Tube and author websites. The “Post-It-and-They-Will-Come” model is clearly not working. Several major publishers are creating dynamic homepages in hopes that they will become reader destinations and communities. While there is a useful role for these sites as resources for reviewers, news gatherers and others in the industry, none has either the mass scale or niche credibility needed to gain traction with the reading public. One exception might prove to be Tor.com which is leveraging their Sci-Fi brand and expertise with a publisher-agnostic site.

Verso Digital encourages all publishers to take their video to the book’s audience where it’s most active and engaged online. Here are some strategies for leveraging that content right now.

VideoToWork_image

A recent report from DoubleClick, mirrors our own experience with flash and video book ads—showing that video ads have significantly higher levels of engagement than standard flash ads. Recent technology breakthroughs make it easier than ever to use in video in all kinds of places that were formerly off-limits for technological or budgetary reasons. We have run highly successful video ad campaigns on everything from Facebook apps such as Visual Bookshelf to NYTimes.com–and can now run video ads across the entire Verso Reader Channel ad network for a minimal additional cost. All without incurring the additional expense of using a third party server.

As the average time spent online officially passes time spent watching TV, it’s important to remember that viewers don’t necessarily make the same distinction as a professional data company like Bowker does between “TV” and “Online.” With the explosive growth of sites like Hulu, audiences are increasingly accessing TV content online. This creates an opportunity on sites to reach TV audiences in new ways. Hulu’s channels, from News & Information to Sports to Food and Leisure, are a perfect fit for the categories of contemporary publishing. And in the last two months, Verso has had success with campaigns on Hulu’s “Science Fiction” channel for everything from Vampire Romance to an epic Norse poem translated by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The NYTimes R&D Lab has been inspirational in rethinking content and advertising—mixing high-quality reporting with photos, video, audio and Web 2.0-style community-input. There is an ever-increasing array of advertising products associated with this new content, and Verso Digital is taking advantage of them as they come along—not only with the NYTimes iPhone and Blackberry apps, but also with pre-roll and rich-media offerings on the site. It’s important to stay current with what the Times is working on, so Verso teamed up with them for a series of breakfasts that introduce our clients to the latest thinking from R&D. We’ve had two sold-out events so far, featuring such forward-thinking strategists as Martin Nisenholtz and Nick Bilton, and will be scheduling more in the months to come.

While sites like Hulu and NYTimes.com allow us to re-purpose the traditional :15-:30 spots we’ve always created, the Web gives us the chance to reimagine how we can use video assets of all kinds. Whether it’s for author blogs, news sites, broadcast-TV, and social media apps, Verso can create or repurpose existing video for use wherever it’s needed. You know all those book trailers you made that are sitting in your digital basement? Well, it’s time to dust them off and put them to work.