By Jon Reed
Textbook companion websites are dead. Long live subject portals!
Textbook publishers are in a bit of an odd situation with their book websites: they pay to develop digital supplements that they don’t make money from, and which aren’t used by students. Only 15% of publishers’ textbook companion websites are used frequently.
Why are publishers producing digital resources that don’t make money and aren’t used? Well, of course, they do make money, indirectly, from the printed book that they’re packaged with. Or, rather, the printed book wouldn’t sell without digital supplements. It’s an issue of market expectation rather than market need. A printed textbook on its own is no longer a good value proposition. It needs to be part of a multimedia learning package.
But if our supplements aren’t actually used, aren’t we just publishing into the wind?
The trouble is, too many simply replicate material from the book, such as learning objectives and weblinks, on a static site. This may be what Peter Collingridge had in mind when he talked about some publishers barely being on top of web 1.0 recently. It’s time to get more creative.
What would happen if you went a bit ‘web 2.0′? If you added some genuine interactivity, feedback, and community to your offering? Something that students could engage with and find value in, over and above their textbook. Maybe a blog, a few video clips, audio files, or even a limited run podcast. What you need is a portal.
However, you probably don’t need a “[insert the name of your publishing company here] Portal”. No one cares who the publisher is. Really. People care about the subject matter. Perhaps the author. Definitely the content, and whether it will help them do well at college. You need a subject portal.
A subject portal should aim to be a valuable one-stop resource that students and lecturers will want to go to, will talk about, and will find and buy your products from. But the content should come first – an up-front hard sell won’t work.
The great thing about including web 2.0 content, or social media, is that it can be found in other ways. Ways over and above your traditional marketing campaign. Podcasts, blogs, videos, RSS feeds all have their own search engines. People can find your content in all sorts of new ways – and be directed back to your main site. You can track these separately to monitor the effectiveness of your content as well as your campaign. Niche content finds its audience. And it’s often viral in nature – people will pass it on if it’s good enough to share.
Here are some ideas for things you can do with a portal:
- provide valuable subject-specific resources
- update them regularly – or, better still, have your users contribute content
- create a community of subject specialists who will want to interact and share
- link to your bog-standard ‘web 1.0′ companion websites
- start a blog with multiple contributors – perhaps including your authors
- use video and audio clips. But try not to rely solely on author talking heads.
- start a podcast. A regular one if you have time and resources – or a limited run podcast leading up to a major product launch
- use RSS feeds and email updates for your blog or other regularly updated content
- use internet marketing tools – don’t rely on a web address in a catalogue or on a back cover
- have some fun with it!
There are some examples of good practice out there – I may pick some out to share with you in a later posting. But there is also a lot of untapped potential. Meanwhile, if you have an interesting portal or other site that makes good use of ‘web 2.0′ or social media, please nominate it for inclusion as an example on these pages.
Last 3 posts by Jon Reed
- The Smirnoff effect - coming to a magazine near you - August 20th, 2010
- 2010: A Publishing Odyssey - July 26th, 2010
- Are you too big for social media? - July 2nd, 2010
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