Wayne, the “Wild Man” Metcalfe???

Honestly, until this showed up on YouTube, we had no idea.

 

Along those same lines, is it me or does Martin Hensel look like someone being called to the stage on the Price is Right?

Back For More…

Last year, Nxtbook Media was named the #1 Best Place to Work in PA. Mind you, this isn’t a small state.

The finalists have been announced for this year, and we’re back, baby. Our chance to prove, once again, that our dress code is the sloppiest, our snack machines are easily jimmied, our parking spots are silly close to the door, and our coffee is C-R-A-Z-Y fresh. They say you can’t go up from #1, but we’ll see… We’ll see.

He’s Rather Tall for a Small Business Person, But Whatever…

A couple weeks ago, our CEO, Michael Biggerstaff, was honored as the Small Business Person of the year by the Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce. It was a gala event, held at Lancaster’s newly opened (and hotly debated) convention center. A good time was had by all.

You can read a short profile about our not-so-small leader and the other winners here.

Find Your (Digital) Niche…

We’re pleased to be a sponsor of a new and exciting show coming this Fall: The Niche Digital Conference, to be held in Minneapolis from September 21-22. Niche Poobah Carl Landau writes on his website:

Ready or not, here we come! All magazine publishers are grappling with digital publishing. So how do you integrate your print and digital components? Or possible go "digital only"? And most importantly, how do you build a digital strategy with small budget resources, but maximum profit potential? You can do all this and more at the new Niche Digital Conference! 

For fun magazine publishing events, they don’t come more special than Carl’s Niche programs. If you can work it in, work it in!

Are You Going to Audience Development This Year?

That question is a teeny bit rhetorical as pre-registrations are (expectedly) down this year. Still, Nxtbook is thrilled to be a sponsor of this year’s event, the best of its kind for those in the circulation business.

If you are there, be sure to check out Nxtbook stars Eric Gervase & Beth Molloy as they deliver 7 Ways Digital Magazines are Changing Audience Development.

You’ll learn:

• Which social media tool brings you readers that stay 40% longer
• Which new digital magazine newsstand is open for business, regardless of what platform you’re using now
• How to grow your circulation on Kindles, iPhones, BlackBerries and more

Where: The Audience Development Conference, Chicago
When: Tuesday, June 9, 10:45 am

Fipp Magazine Congress, Day Two

This place is a regular circus, I tell you.

Actually these pictures were taken last night during the cocktail party. Notice the copious branding in front of the performers. Notice, too, how the bicycling twins made it a bit difficult for Nxtbook’s Jeff Martin to work the booth. All of that being said, we’ve been at a lot of cocktail parties at a lot of shows, but this was certainly the most unique.

Today’s program has been equally enlightening (if perhaps a tad less entertaining). The speakers are all top-shelf and the delegates will be leaving here with plenty to think about, including digital magazines.

How to compare the Fipp Magazine Congresss to US events? Imagine the best ABM crowd, plus FOLIO content coupled with dynamite food and a few circus performers, and that would pretty well cover it. We’ve learned a lot, ourselves, and look forward to future Fipp events.

 

 

Save $100 @ Audience Development

Planning on going to Audience Development this year (the recently re-branded CM Show?). Well, why not save $100, courtesy of your friends at Nxtbook Media? Use the code on the coupon and save yourself a Benjamin!

 

 

 

Nxtbook – Collectors Edition

Sadly, the WPA Conference has been canceled for this year. As a sponsor of the event, Nxtbook hopes the show comes back bigger and better next year. This year’s show guide (in Nxtbook format) should be considered a collector’s edition of what could’ve been and what we hope will be again.

Publishing Expo (and Digital Magazine Symposium) Review

Nxtbook had the opportunity to sponsor the Digital Magazine Symposium at this week’s Publishing Expo show in New York City. This was the second time around for this event which was received with mixed reviews last year.

While the recession probably caused some vendors to pull out of sponsoring marquee events like the FOLIO Growth Summit this year, the lower costs and hoped synergy of two shows in one (Book Business and Pub Expo combined their exhibit halls again) helped keep the sponsorships from the digital magazine industry in this show near what it was last year. (As I recall, there was one vendor missing who sponsored this event last year and two additional who didn’t.)

This year’s symposium was chaired by David Renard, of mediaIDEAS, who brought a very broad perspective to the room.

The first panel included two publishers doing “Best of Breed” solutions and included both the New Yorker and the new Popular Science Genius Guide. Both projects were quite interesting, Mark Jannot of Popular Science admitted later that the level of cost and complexity associated with the new Guide might not be sustainable long-term.

Nxtbook take-away: Animation is cool, no doubt, but it’s often complex and expensive. In 2007, Nxtbook released Ad-Jolt, our low-cost, low-effort way to add buzz to your project. Granted, you can’t use Ad-Jolt to get to the level of animation in Pop Sci, but you can start (and go pretty far) for a fraction of the cost.

Next up was a panel on choosing a DME (Digital Magazine Enabler – as Renard likes to call companies like Nxtbook). This panel included Barry Green from Hearst (publisher of this Nxtbook) and Bob Fernekees (publisher of many Nxtbooks including this one) and Matt Carey of Rodman Publishing (who never bought a Nxtbook – what’s up with that, Matt?).

This panel was highly engaging, with lots of key take-aways for publishers. In the end, Renard asked them each what’s most important. Here’s what I wrote down (though if I got it wrong, blame me, not the speaker. It’s important to note I was under high doses of cold medicine at the time):

Carey: Don’t worry about the capabilities of the vendor at first. Instead, focus on your own goals for your digital magazine. If you do that first, it makes the evaluation much easier.

Green: Figure out how much work your production department can and will do, as different vendors have different requirements. (Ed. note: As a full-service provider, Nxtbook takes the same PDF you give your printer.) Also, watch out for nickel-and-dime charges. There’s lots of discussions about page rates, but some vendors charge a lot more for additional services. (Ed. note: Barry nails it on the head. At Nxtbook, we pride ourselves in including many of our services for the standard fee. First up, we feel it’s more honest. Second, we know that many of those “additional things” (like social media and RSS feeds) are critical for your long-term success.)

Fernekees: Ask the vendor to show you examples of other publications they’ve worked with a similar or identical business model to your own, which will show both the breadth of the vendor and demonstrated success. Also, with all of the buzz about social media, inquire as to how the product can tap into those possibilities.

The final panel was about Paginated Media: a Vision for the Future. The panel was supposed to include Darren Budd of the infamous Mygazines, though he was an unexplained no-show. Whether he was dodging papers or missed his plane from Anguilla is anybody’s guess, but the panel seemed none-the-worse without him.

Instead, attendees were treated to information about the soon to be released MyMag.com, which hopes to eventually allow readers to compile their own magazines, but is starting with celebrities doing a similar thing. (Think MTV cribs for digital magazines.) Stay tuned for coverage on that one.

The other seat on the panel was taken by Andrew Degenholtz, who spoke at length about eMagazines.com, a platform-agnostic digital newsstand available to Nxtbook Media customers. It was an interesting juxtaposition of one really out-there idea and one less sexy one that just makes a lot of common sense.

Attendance for the Symposium fluctuated from 25-40 throughout the panels, which was about the same as last year. However, there was definitely a greater sense of hope and possibility than last year, which ain’t a bad thing to be sharing during this wintry economic season.

Accolades should be given to the Publishing Expo crew for pulling off the Symposium. Last year, they successfully pulled in sponsors for the first iteration of the show and delivered some decent content. This year, they held the line on sponsorships and delivered better content.

It’s anyone’s guess whether Media Business or FOLIO will remain content to let Publishing Executive produce the only significant live event for the digital magazine industry, but after two successful airings, Publishing Executive may be positioning itself as the go-to event for digital magazine industry changes. How long their competition allows them to do so remains to be seen.

The Upside of the Downside – FOLIO Growth Summit Review

This year, Nxtbook Media has a staggering number of events we’re going to exhibit at. Thus far, at everyone of them, the nervous sales rep who convinced us to exhibit has said some variation of the same thing:

"We’re expecting less quantity, but more quality."

I’m not knocking the reps who say that. In their shoes, I’d probably do the same thing. But the reality in most cases is that less usually means less. Less usually means fewer people at your booth. Fewer people asking for demos. Fewer people asking how others are being sucessful with digital magazines. But this week, the FOLIO Growth Summit was the first show I’ve seen this year that truly delivered more quality with less quantity.

While attendance was down over last year, as an exhibitor we couldn’t tell. Our booth was busier, the publishers had more questions and the people we talked to had no interest in waiting out this recession. Somehow, FGS managed to attract the fighters and innovators – those publishers who may inevitably lose this battle, but have no interest in surrendering to it, as well as those publishers who are using this opportunity as a way to kick the competition when it’s down.

Early on the last morning of the show I had the opportunity to run a few miles with one of those publishers along Lake Michigan. It was a great conversation because it was mostly about how both of us are doing things radically different. It’s a shame to say, but would we be so innovative right now if the market weren’t forcing us to be? Maybe, but maybe not, too, so that’s a good thing.

There’s a line runners are taught to remember at the end of a tough race: If it’s hurting me, it must be killing them. At FGS this week, all the winners were on hand, even those who are hurting right now.

Tony Silber said it better than I, though. Don’t miss his analysis here.

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