Taking the Digital Plunge

By Matt Keller, President, Capstone Press

Capstone Press is a well-known publisher of children’s books for school and public libraries. Specializing in high-interest, non-fiction topics, we have created a very respectable niche in the education market over the last 15 years. Up until now, we have only published paper books and have done very little in ebook or other digital delivery options. For some time we have watched other publishers’ attempts to go digital and felt somewhat smug when their results were less than stellar–those results being sweet vindication for our inertia. However, looking at other industries’ (e.g., music, newspapers) rapid change in business models and the subsequent turmoil it caused made us sit up and take stock of our own situation. Couldn’t that turmoil also happen to us? Will we be the next in line of “where are they now” companies? Urged on by the greatest of motivators–fear–we decided to take action. If your company is now starting to look at digital delivery or is in the early stages, I offer the following points of advice.

First of all, remember that technology or digital delivery of content is a means to meeting your customers’ needs and should match their expectations. Too many times, I hear of a company’s plan to “go digital” with no real understanding of what their customers think is appropriate. Scholarly publishing requires a different technological approach than children’s publishing. Remember that what customers like about your company is going to be the same reason they will want to look at the technology you have developed for them. Stay very open to feedback from your core customers. They won’t steer you wrong, and they are the best source for understanding your real strengths as you branch into new ways of delivering your content.

The myriad of approaches and platforms for offering digital content can be so overwhelming as to be paralyzing. Don’t set your sights too high and keep your expectations in check. Your organization needs to struggle with new processes, and your sales and marketing groups need to grapple with new business models. Don’t underestimate the impact these changes can have on other parts of your business. The digital approaches for your company can only be found by working through them one attempt at a time.

If you are starting down the road of offering new digital formats of your books, your company needs to be clear on expectations for this endeavor. Are you exploring new revenue streams? Are you trying to increase sales of current books by offering digital enhancements? Consistently communicating your expectations to the organization is very important. You must let others know that there will be failure and false starts as part of this process, and it is to be expected. It’s not possible to take new risks without failures. In fact, if you haven’t failed a few times, you probably aren’t taking great enough risks.

Once we at Capstone Press decided to start a digital strategy for reaching our customers, the best thing we did was commit to starting small and keeping it simple. Our first foray was creating 20 interactive versions on CD of some of our best-selling titles. These versions consisted of having an audio component combined with simple page-turning software that the student would watch on the computer. The audio could be turned on and off, and some titles could switch between English and Spanish. Definitions of glossary words could be read, and there was a link to safe websites on that particular topic for further information. These 20 titles were well-received; we have now created another 150 titles and offer them on CD as well as through online subscriptions.

I’m sure the above points may seem rather obvious or too simple to mention, but they have really helped our organization. Starting the digital initiative is the hardest part of the process. Once that has happened, the opportunities and ideas start to unfold. Understand that your organization will need to learn new processes and skills along the way and that will take patience.

We are in a time of tremendous change in the publishing industry. I have been in the industry over 20 years and for the first time feel that there is a great acceleration of customers’ expectations that they want content where they want it and when they want it. Our job is to be there. Where ever it is.

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Matt Keller’s career has been entirely in educational publishing. He started out as a college sales representative for Prentice-Hall. Matt then went to work in marketing for special needs students at AGS Publishing. He began as a product manager, eventually becoming vice president of marketing. From there Matt moved into the school library publishing market as vice president of marketing for Capstone Publishers and is now president of Capstone Press.