Publishing App Expo

In a panel at Mediabistro’s Publishing App Expo last week, publishing professionals discussed the challenges of publishing digital books. On a panel called, “Beyond the Paywall: Real Life Business Models for Apps”, publishing consultant/project manager at Electric Publisher Ron Hogan said that publishers are testing enhanced eBooks and aren’t always happy with the results.

“In the traditional book world, we saw publishers look at what would distinguish an enhanced eBook from a traditional eBook,” he said.

Hogan said that Simon & Schuster were building enhanced eBooks but threw up their hands up after the response was poor. “They don’t know how to market this yet,” he said. “A lot of publishers are saying this. They don’t know what to do with an enhanced eBook and how to make it stand out from the other eBook markets.”

One challenge that Hogan said is still up for debate is the cost. Publishers don’t know what to charge and they don’t know how much they should invest in enhanced eBooks and book apps. “They hear they are going to have to pay $40,000 for an app, and half the time they don’t make the money back on a $40,000 print book,” he said.

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In a panel at the mediabistro Publishing App Expo today, app publishers discussed how to create business models out of apps.

On the panel, developers discussed Apple’s controversial in-app selling rules, when Apple began demanding a 30% royalty on any content sold within apps. For Jenny Lam, co-founder of Jackson Fish Market, a startup that designs children’s eBooks, said that this was bad news when Apple first changed their rules. But she said that she now sees this as a marketing cost. “We thought that that cut would drain us of all of our profit, but actually the App Store as a marketplace is almost our number 1 source of visitors, so now we realize it is just a marketing cost,” said Tam.

David Steinberger, Co-founder/CEO of comiXology, said that he finds Apple’s in-app royalty to be a marketing cost. “I see it as a customer acquisition cost,” he said. He also encouraged publishers to build up their own customer database within the app, so that customers will have accounts with your business. This way, they can access their account with your company on any device. Read more

For those of you that can’t be with us today, we are live at the Mediabistro Publishing App Expo today. In a session called “App Building 101,” app making experts shared ways to help build apps.

Using an interface that looks like a PowerPoint presentation, StoryDesk lets you create an app that includes video, audio, animation and Google Maps. Why the boring interface? Jordan Stolper, CEO/co-founder of StoryDesk, explains that this to help plan the navigation from the beginning. “Before you start coding, before you start deciding all of the cool stuff that you can do, make sure you build your road map,” said Stolper. Read more