Success in Serialization

Digital publishing has re-envisioned many of today’s traditional publishing methods, like the serial novel. While serial fiction is a piece of literature released through installments like it is now. Historically, each installment contained its own story loosely connected to an overarching narrative and popularized by The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens. Outside of Dicken’s writing style and themes, its popularity came from its accessibility. Besides being inexpensive like the traditional publishing texts, the modern serialized story is composed of episodes, or mini-chapters, that actively support a more significant narrative than individual shorts. Therefore, making it vastly different from its predecessor.

As digital publishing grows, many new outlets for serialized fiction develop, allowing more authors to thrive. The popularity of the modern serialized novel could arguably be traced back to websites like Wattpad, a highly interactive platform for digital publishing. Websites like these restructured how a community can create readership and reader retention, especially with the growth of the author’s note, and allow authors like Pepper Pace on Kindle Vella to become successful.

Kindle Vella

Kindle is not a new market in the field of digital publishing or self-publishing. However, Kindle Vella relatively is. While it did a soft launch in 2021, its official launch in 2022 was successful, albeit through marketing and a free set of tokens for new readers. Its success was thanks to the soft launch—ultimately benefiting many authors.

Reader Engagement

Kindle Vella is user-friendly and allows the reader to be as interactive as the author and platform allow. At the end of each episode, readers can like the episode, follow the story, or continue reading. Polls can even be done if the author wills it. Thus, building a community and allowing personability to negate pitfalls that can be faced in choosing to publish serialized novels, like upset readers from infrequent or inconsistent updates, grammatical errors, or what appears to be filler content that doesn’t move the story forward. Therefore, implying that reader engagement is the sole reason for success on Kindle Vella, as the top five promoted stories are stories that are “favorited” by the audience.

The Serialized Cost

As Kindle Vella is a self-publishing platform for serialized novels, authors have complete control over their success. No contracts hold the author to a particular word count, specific release dates, or approved plot arches. As a result, an author, in theory, can actively work on uncompleted stories like they could on platforms such as Wattpad or Inkitt. Except with compensation and, in turn, more options for revenue later as many outlets have strict guidelines for works that were previously available for free.

However, Kindle Vella charges approximately “one token per 100 words,” making word count crucial for pantsers—writers who don’t plot, plan, their novels—on the platform. Other platforms are successful due to regular updates and consistent costs per episode. Not ensuring these terms for readers can be highly detrimental for authors, even when delving into genres garnered towards adult audiences, making Pace’s success on Kindle Vella notable.

Pepper Pace and Audrey Carlan

Ever since the hard launch of Kindle Vella, the first and fifth place positions for the monthly top five favorited novels have stayed the same. Pace’s The Galatian Exchange has remained in fifth place for four consecutive months since January 2022. Her dedicated installment schedule and her personability through her reader engagement led her to this. The Marriage Auction by Audrey Carlan has remained in first thanks to Carlan’s pacing or, on Kindle Vella’s platform, low-cost installments.

While serialized stories are often accessible because they are generally affordable, Kindle Vella has made many readers feel as though they are being extorted by authors. This is one of the significant issues Pace has faced since the beginning, and it is most likely the reason she has not resin above fifth place. However, because of the platform’s emphasis on the author’s note and reader engagement, Pace has retained readership despite fluctuating prices due to word count. Since most users often don’t look for price explanations in publishing guidelines, as they are readers rather than publishers, Pace took it upon herself to explain. However, she only did so after much backlash in later chapters.

Alternatively, Carlan maintained her position arguably solely based on her accessibility. Though readers may complain about infrequent and short installments, Carlan seemingly follows a similar update schedule to Pace—updating twice about a week, negating such claims.

Knowing the main reasons why each author has achieved success, as well as what sets their levels of success apart, is key to understanding how to maintain success in self-publishing a serialized fiction in the digital age.

Webcomics: Formatting & Publishing

Sequential art has been a part of storytelling for as long as history. However, as the codex—or traditional book—layout became more prominent. Sequential art began to take on more of a blocked structure typically read in “Z” formation within a book, now known as the modern comic book. The movement shifted sequential art away from long canvases such as scrolls and tapestries like Bayeux Tapestry to fit inside a physical and easily accessible book. Nevertheless, the scroll has been reimagined and is now more prominent than ever in the digital era for e-books.

While the traditional format for a comic book is still prevalent in western comics and is accepted across multiple platforms without issue, the scroll or vertical strip has shot the comic market back into mainstream media. This makes it one of the most popular formats for webcomics, thanks to companies like Naver Corp, which founded Webtoon in 2004.

Now, even though novels can usually be straightforward to modify, comics are not. Determining the format of your book is often one of the first steps before creating your story since not every platform can support every format yet. Despite the current scroll format popularity, it is often recommended to begin publishing a story in the traditional “Z” block panel. This is because it is claimed to be easier to modify by artists into the scroll paneling format versus vice versa; however, opinions vary. An example can be shown by Carly Usdin’s choice to release a digital issue of her comic Heavy Vinyl in 2017 before the serialized comic in 2019.

The Serialized Webcomic vs The Comic Issue

Two out of the three most common digital publication options for online comics are known for serializing webcomics as episodes that are initially released weekly. The third option for publishing currently relates more to traditional publishing than digital. It markets digital comics primarily as issues, or volumes, with the idea of possibly having multiple issues. The current formatting options also imply a more traditional background—the lack of the scroll formatting option.

Webtoon

Beginning with Webtoon, as one of the pioneers of the scroll format, the platform is easily available as both a website and an app to the public for free. There are two major sections on the forum that can determine pay and usually quality—Webtoon Originals and Webtoon Canvas, previously known as the discover page. Webtoon allows everyone to freely post a comic, in any format, following the size constraints of the platform if it falls in line with the community guidelines on Canvas. Webtoon has only recently initiated a way for creators who have achieved a certain amount of foot traffic to receive funds through an ad revenue service. However, “there is no guarantee that members will receive net ad revenue as a result of their participation in the program.” Consequently, implying that the only guaranteed pay is for featured authors and artists on the Webtoon Originals section of the platform. A status that is only achievable when the company reaches out to the selected creator.

Tapas

Tapas, previously known as Tapastic, is an “open publishing platform” much like Webtoon. However, making money on the platform is seemingly a much easier feat than its main competitor. The platform hosts both novels and webcomics in multiple panel formats in both free to read and premium. Both sections have opportunities to make money. The former through advertisements or donations from readers called ink. There is even a yearly event called Inksgiving around Thanksgiving to increase support from readers. Donations or tips like this are often motivated by authors on the “free to read” section because ad revenue does not pay much. Last year a user even noted that:

for Tapas, I have about 2.4k subs and 43.5 k views, and I have only earned 0.71$ in total in ad revenue alone in the past six months. — so, like most people say, don’t get excited too much or don’t expect too much on ad revenue.
(“How Much Do You Earn from Your Webtoons/Novels?” 2021)

To have a story placed in the Premium section, one just has to submit a form that pitches the story to studiotapas@tapasmedia.co, which is effectively easier than simply being noticed. Additionally, as of last year, Kakao Entertainment has purchased Tapas and Radish, a dedicated serialized story platform. It now also hosts the top 27 webcomics available on Tapas. Thus, signifying a potential merger between platforms or an increased opportunity for readership across multiple outlets, inherently demonstrating a future increase in foot traffic for revenue.

ComiXology & Kindle

Now, as of February 2022, ComiXology has merged with Amazon, making the webcomic format increasingly available on Kindle for purchase and sale. A few selected comics have even become available on Kindle Unlimited, one of the largest self-publishing platforms on the market. However, rather than the company allowing all comics to be placed on Kindle Unlimited, there is now ComiXology Unlimited. Comics can now be placed on Kindle Unlimited through KDP and on ComiXology Unlimited after acceptance of “nomination,” which can be submitted via email to support@comixology.com. However, neither sub-platform currently appears to accept the scroll paneling format and opts for the traditional “Z” block paneling for paging through an e-book. This can be noted by Usdin’s comic, Heavy Vinyl, layout on ComiXology Unlimited vs. her layout on Tapas. Now, despite having separate sections, all comics are viewable and readable on the Kindle app. However, sadly navigation or discovering a comic for readers can be difficult. Establishing a readership may be slow at first because of the new merger, despite an easier chance of revenue.

Even though each platform currently has its difficulties and obstacles to monetary gains, there are a variety of benefits as well as the potential for growth for both creators and publishers.

Used E-books for Sale

When customers buy traditional print books, they expect to be able to use the book however they please. When that customer buys a book they can sell, trade, or give it away because they own the product. E-books are different in this aspect, though. When a customer buys an e-book, they do not own the product. Rather, they own the licensing to use the book, and the licensing agreement usually states that customers cannot sell or trade the e-book.

Amazon’s licensing agreement states,

Unless specifically indicated otherwise, you may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense, or otherwise assign any rights to the Kindle Content or any portion of it to any third party, and you may not remove or modify any proprietary notices or labels on the Kindle Content. In addition, you may not attempt to bypass, modify, defeat, or otherwise circumvent any digital rights management system or other content protection or features used as part of the Service.

The rules outlined in this agreement might confuse some users or make them feel unsettled about their purchase. However, some changes may arise in the world of e-books, soon. A few years ago, rumors that Amazon and Apple were looking to change their licensing agreements began to circulate. These changes would allow e-book “owners” to resell their used e-books.

While Amazon and Apple have both applied for patents concerning e-book resale, it has been about three years since there have been any advancements surrounding the issue. This time gap could mean that Amazon has completely done away with the idea, or that this new feature could be right around the corner. This article aims to deep dive into what this theoretical change would mean for e-book readers and publishers.

How Would It Work?

What makes reselling traditional print easy is its simple nature. The seller resells the book to a buyer and when the buyer gives the seller money in return for the book, the seller then no longer owns the book. If the resale of e-books becomes possible, the reselling process will be slightly different because buyers do not actually own the e-books.

The resale of e-books would require an e-book owner to sell the license to use the book to another reader. Selling the license to the material means they then give up their rights to use the e-book. This transfer of rights is made possible through digital rights management, or DRM.

In my previous article Is DRM For You?, (Links to an external site.) “Digital rights management controls not only when the customer can use the product, but also how the product is used.” Once the seller resells their e-book, they will no longer be able to view the book because of DRM.

Possible Issues

To put it simply, e-books are essentially one unified code that creates pages readers can view on electronic devices. Since there is not a new code for each copy of a particular book, reselling e-books would mean that there needs to be something that identifies each specific book. For example, every print book has an International Standard Book Number (ISBN). According to the International ISBN Agency, “An ISBN is essentially a product identifier used by publishers, booksellers, libraries, internet retailers and other supply chain participants for ordering, listing, sales records and stock control purposes. The ISBN identifies the registrant as well as the specific title, edition and format.”

If it is made possible for readers to resell their e-books, there must be something created to identify each specific e-book. If this identification doesn’t exist, keeping up with e-book piracy will be a much more difficult, if not impossible, task.

When a reader resells a physical book, there are a few factors that affect the price at which it will be sold. For example, the publishing year of a book and its current condition can determine its value. Since e-books are digital, the condition of the book will never be an issue. David Pogue (Links to an external site.) of The New York Times writes,

Turns out material degradation isn’t just a fond side effect of book resales. It’s essential. It’s what ensures that the resale price matches the diminishing value of the product. If every copy is perfect, the whole thing breaks down. With unlimited e-book sales, every book’s price would eventually drop to a penny.

With the patents proposed by Amazon and Apple, publishers may be able to set a limit to the amount of times one copy of an e-book can be resold in order to help prevent this “one-penny problem (Links to an external site.).” According to Pogue,

Both proposals suggest that publishers could also limit the number of times a digital item can be resold: ‘A threshold may limit how many times a used digital object may be permissibly moved to another personalized data store, how many downloads (if any) may occur before transfer is restricted, etc.,’ says Amazon’s patent. ‘These thresholds help to maintain scarcity of digital objects in the marketplace.’

It is also possible that companies like Amazon and Apple would seek to take a percentage of the money made from the reselling of an e-book, which is similar to how Amazon takes a percentage of a textbook sold on their Amazon Textbook section.

This raises concerns with authors and publishers because they do not make a profit when their physical books are resold, so what then gives these companies the right to make money from digital resales? The control these companies currently have over e-book buyers and the control they could have with a new e-book resale patent could potentially be dangerous for the e-book community.

The idea of reselling digital property is a new frontier and, while rumors of possible e-book resales have died down in recent years, users cannot help but wonder what companies such as Amazon and Apple have in store for the future of buying and selling e-books.

The Rise of #GirlPower

Women all around the world are demanding that their voices be heard and they continue overcoming obstacles and hardships due to their femininity. Digital publishing is opening doors to allow women a platform to express themselves and the issues they face.

Oprah Winfrey tweeted: “We are enough. We matter. We are NOT invisible. Girls around the world are having their say. This is the moment to listen — # GirlDeclaration.”

Feminism, as a movement, is a fight for equal rights. The campaign challenges the traditional assumptions of social roles for men and women. Through feminism, women feel empowered to have their voices be heard. The movement intends to demolish the hierarchy and create equality for everyone.

Today, feminism is a movement that defines, establishes, and desires to achieve the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes.

Feminism has gained an abundance of attention and revenue due to digital publishing. Feminists choose to publish online because it allows them to reach more readers than ever before. Through digital publishing, women can create and control their craft.

The platform allows women to take a stand on issues and topics that often are overlooked or unknown to other individuals. Digital publishing gives feminists a new platform to use their freedom of speech to empower and motivate women all around the world.

At one point in time, feminist bookstores were mainly where female-made publications were obtained. Female writers have always dealt with the issue of being muted, oversimplified or objectified. Today women writers have numerous more opportunities than they have ever had in the past.

According to Simone Wolff:

This Times article about indie authors who started for kindle and now run their own publishing houses — all of which, incidentally, are women — claims that only 30% of readers engage only with print publications. The rise of the eBook and the internet’s facilitation of the woman-centric literary community has even created new forms of book distribution and literary community-building.

E-books and Kobo have become an essential aspect of keeping feminist books relevant and flourishing.

E-books give female writers a more significant opportunity for past, present, and future publishers to project their books. Simone Wolff explains, “Emily Books is perhaps the first of its kind, a chimera-like entity that combines eBook store, book club, subscription, and publishing house, all to a decidedly-feminist end.”

Emily Books explores and praises the famous works of past and present female writers. According to the “How Digital Publishing Has Changed Feminist Writing”:

Emily Books is, essentially, an online feminist bookstore. It even hosts a book club of sorts, in its subscription service, which comes with access to a community forum. But unlike the websites of pre-existing feminist bookstores, which are strictly for commerce and tend to have a GeoCities feel, Emily is an exercise in feminist taste-making.

Emily Books is providing an innovative service necessary for the innovative ideas of the evolving feminist.

Women & Children First partnering with Kobo, a Canadian company that sells e-books and other digital paraphernalia, is the reason the company exists today. Kobo digitally stores many feminist texts; thus, Women & Children First becomes one of the go-to bookstore websites for searches dealing with feminism and queer or gender studies.

Women were once second-class citizens, and the effects of stereotypes and gender roles still exist. Because of the continuing effects, feminist books are more obtainable digitally through e-books, Kobo, and other electronic devices. According to The Rising Feminist Magazines You Need to Start Reading:

We are fortunate to have this category growing on our platform–especially with these incredibly talented women creating content that inspires and brings awareness to important issues like women’s empowerment. It is through that access that we can ensure awareness and manifest change.

Female writers have been able to build powerhouses due to their digital platform. Today, many female powerhouses exist, such as writers like J.K Rowling, Stephanie Meyer, Joyce Carol Oates, and Margaret Atwood. Women all over the world are finding it easier to be heard every day through digital publishing.

Feminist presses allow women to empower themselves, whether they are in the workplace, at home, or in their everyday lives. Their publications provide the ability to connect with their readers on a deeper level. Digital publishing brings together voices that speak on educational, health, and social justice issues for women all around the world.

Digital publishing has been one platform that feminists have been able to adapt to their needs. Today many female powerhouses exist, such as writers like Joyce Carol Oates and Margaret Atwood. Through Digital publishing, feminist books, essays, magazines, and articles are easily obtainable electronically. Feminism has made a profound mark with the help of digital publishing and they are here to stay.

Tasty Proves That You Can Have Your Cake and Eat It Too

Founded in 2015, Tasty is an online food blog with a global reach across the US, UK, and numerous European countries that is best known for its viral food videos of trendy, unique, and easy-to-follow recipes.

Buzzfeed, one of the leading digital media companies specializing in news and entertainment, originally published Tasty as an effort to expand its digitized content strategies to resonate with its millennial audience. Buzzfeed quickly learned that the fastest way to its online audience’s loyalty was through their stomachs. Within fifteen months of its creation, Tasty collected a staggering 1.7 billion views from its recipe videos and became the leading revenue generator for Buzzfeed.

Tasty’s success in the food blogging industry relies on making seemingly complex recipes simple and available to the average person. Itsfun and creative dishes continue to wet the appetite of an increasing number of millennial readers, providing them with a sense of culinary success previously offered only by professional chefs.

Ashley McCollum, Tasty’s former general manager and vice president, explained the reasons behind the company’s popular digital presence:

Our point of view is that 99% of food media is made by food professionals, but 99% of food is made by amateurs. So what is the [difference] between food media and real food? We think that massive gap between media and reality is what we’re filling. I think that’s why we’ve been so successful and why we have a lead in this emerging space.

By focusing on audience desires to be creative in the kitchen, Tasty continually expands the recipe index for its readers.

Some of the top Tasty recipes include Churro Ice Cream Bowls, Mozzarella-stuffed Slow Cooker Meatballs, and a Cinnamon Roll French Toast Bake. All of Tasty’s recipes come with a 60 second video, allowing the reader to fully immerse in the culinary side of digital content. Sliders Four Ways, its most popular recipe to date, has amassed over 200 million views on Facebook.

This unique approach to food blogging has positioned the brand ahead of its competitors as it consistently innovates its content to fit its consumer’s needs. McCollum told the New York Times :

Really what we’re seeing is how to make a business out of massive intellectual property that was built digital-first. It’s the same model as old-media networks—you make a movie that people love, and then you build a theme park and extend that to products and everything else.

Through this method, the brand has even established a leading position among the top 10 food pages on Facebook.

The brand’s proven success of folding in a standard recipe blog with a video has enabled it to expand past its original digital platform. Tasty took the unique step of reverse-publishing and expanded from digital content only to traditional print via cookbooks.

Its first cookbook, Tasty Latest and Greatest: Everything You Want to Cook Right Now , sold more than 100,000 copies in the first month of publication. Due to its outstanding success, Tasty soon dished out two additional cookbooks, as well as a Tasty-branded line of cookware at Walmart and a snazzy new seasonal subscription service with LG Electronics called LG Tasty Cookie Club.

The LG Tasty Cookie Club subscription service provides readers who have a sweet tooth with seasonal boxes of cookie baking kits. Each box contains pre-measured ingredients and baking tools that allow customers to easily recreate their favorite online recipes from the comfort of their own home. The box for the fall season includes The Pumpkin Spice & Everything Nice Cookie Kit, followed by The Ultimate Mini Gingerbread House Cookie Kit, which will roll into subscriber’s kitchens just in time for the holidays.

Tasty has also launched more niche-focused content in its foreign versions, including Proper Tasty for its British audience, and Tasty Miam for the French readers. Recipes include Hash Brown Benedict and Risotto Pissaladière. By incorporating foreign cuisine on its blog, Tasty adds a personal touch to its marketing strategies. As Buzzfeed’s CEO Jonah Peretti said, “We’re always thinking about not just generating traffic but reaching [our audience] in a real way.”

Tasty has raked in a lot of dough from this authentic approach, earning nearly $3 million in revenue from its viral recipes alone in 2018. Frank Cooper, Buzzfeed’s former chief marketing officer, talked about the success that comes from Tasty’s unique content, saying, “It taps into a simple truth: People love tasty foods and the kind of foods that remind them of their childhood, comfort food, or food that reminds them of an experience.”

Tasty’s digital strategy of combining traditional blogs with media content delivery has spiced up the digital publishing market focused on food. The brand provides its 500 million monthly viewers with virtually unlimited access to easy recipes, thanks to its multiple digital platforms.

Four short years ago, Buzzfeed launched Tasty as an online experiment, not realizing that it would rise to the top of revenue generation for its company. Since then, Tasty has certainly satisfied the internet’s insatiable appetite for food content by making simple and creative recipes available to online users everywhere.

Wattpad: From Digital Publishing to Print

Wattpad connects “a global community of over 80 million monthly readers.” This community is based around a free website where readers, devoted franchise fans, and aspiring authors alike form a community where they can read or create online material.

Wattpad targets a different audience than companies like Smashwords and Kobo. Where those are services designed to help authors publish and sell their work, Wattpad is meant as a creative outlet for users. While Wattpad does encourage authors to “establish a global fan base as [their] story gains readership and momentum” and “connect with other like-minded writers through storytelling,” they leave the marketing to the author’s discretion.

For the Writers

Wattpad allows freedom for its writers. It leaves the creative rights to the author who is in complete control of every aspect of the story. For example, Wattpad authors have no publishing time constraints. According to The Writer’s Circle, “you could post a short draft and get immediate feedback from readers.” Writers are free to post new chapters of their books whenever they are ready.

With its emphasis on freedom, Wattpad is very lax when it comes to their content guidelines. The terms of service for anyone considering the use of Wattpad as a creative platform can be found here.

Again, Wattpad is not a company that openly seeks to sell creator’s content to larger publishing platforms. However, Wattpad does offer tips to content creators for getting their stories to a broad audience.

For the Readers

Wattpad is unique in its ability to form a bridge between content creators and their readers. For example, they allow readers to create reading lists for easy access. Users may vote for the stories they like the most, thus pushing reader-preferred content closer to the front of the site.

Readers can share their favorite stories on social media increasing the potential reach for any story. Users also have unparalleled access to the authors and other Wattpad users who are reading the same things. Feedback for authors and discussion about the stories is readily available as a result.

Wattpad Books

With over 80 million users worldwide, Wattpad has decided to take digital publishing to the presses. According to Ashleigh Gardner, Deputy General Manager at Wattpad Studios Publishing:

We bring something completely unique to publishing: an engaged global community, the most diverse set of writers on the planet, and the technology to find every type of hit imaginable. Wattpad Books is more than a new division for us, it’s a validation and celebration of the creativity, interests, and world-building that happens on Wattpad every day.

Wattpad Books is the company’s first direct publishing division. It “takes the stories people have obsessed over, and gives them a platform so their creators can be heard.”

Publishing famous Wattpad stories has been a trend for a while. According to Michael Kozlowski, “To date, nearly one thousand Wattpad stories have been turned into books and adapted for TV, film, and digital projects.”

While Wattpad stories have previously been published by separate companies, “Wattpad Books will be its own direct division.” In North America, Wattpad has partnered with Macmillan Publishers, Anvil Publishing, and Raincoast Books. Recently, Wattpad Books has announced that they will be partnering with Penguin Random House UK, the UK branch of the world’s leading trade publisher, to publish Wattpad Books in the United Kingdom.

Wattpad Books uses a special sort of artificial intelligence (AI) to determine what books they will publish. This AI is known as Story DNA Machine Learning. According to Gardner, by combining “machine learning, deep learning, and recurrent neural network,” Story DNA will break down the statistics of the over 400 million stories available on Wattpad.

The AI goes beyond the statistics of shares, comments, and views that a story has and “deconstructs stories into their elemental features, such as sentence structure, word use, and grammar.” This data is then compared to other stories on Wattpad as well as books in the public domain. Resulting data comparison is done in hopes of finding quality content comparable in structure and style to what has already been published.

Once the Story DNA Machine Learning has gathered the content, the stories are sent to a team of Wattpad staff who determine what will be published. Gardner says, “Wattpad Books is equal parts art and science, and our human content and editorial experts are just as important for everything we do at Wattpad Books.”

Success

In 2014, Wattpad author Anna Todd’s One Direction themed fanfiction was published as a multi-part series in both print and e-book form. The After series has recently developed into a film adaptation released in April of 2019. Todd, who is now a New York Times bestselling author, is one of Wattpad’s greatest success stories to date.

With the new Wattpad Books approach to publishing stories made famous through digital writing, books chosen by the Wattpad AI system and staff members will be published as paperbacks, e-books, and even hardback copies.

According to Wattpad Books’ website, they are “poised to disrupt traditional publishing by harnessing data to unleash the most groundbreaking stories from Wattpad directly onto bookshelves.” That is what they intend to do with their Fall 2019 List. The list of the six titles being published through Wattpad Books throughout Fall of 2019 can be found here.

Though Wattpad Books gives aspiring authors a chance to have their works published through paper and ink, Gardner says it “is more than a new division for us, it’s a validation and celebration of the creativity, interests, and world-building that happens on Wattpad every day.”

Wattpad and Wattpad Books are proof that success in digital publishing can be the stepping-stone many need to reach success in the wider world of publishing.

Using Tags in Digital Content

With the continued expansion of digital publishing, it is of the utmost importance to be proactive with online content.

Tags are used as a navigation tool to locate and specify content on a website. For example, a specific word such as “kayak” can be used to shortcut or direct a person’s web search toward a focused group of websites. To optimize a website’s visibility and enable traffic growth on a larger scale, its best to use SEO (search engine optimization) tags. Using the example, “kayak”, the SEO tag would return to a website where the content surrounds watercraft and outdoor activities.

According to Statista.com (Links to an external site.), “digital publishing revenue grew to nearly 18 billion U.S. dollars in the United States in 2018.” Could the use of tags have played a part behind this exponential growth?

Digital publishing continues to expand across many platforms. Implementing the use of tags helps to compact and organize information on a more manageable level.

Creating Tags

Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a tool that enables users to manage and create personalized marketing tags for their websites. Digital publishers can use this tool to customize the analytic data they are producing and gain more traffic for their website. Depending on how many tags are used, websites will also load faster and track scrolling from the audience.

One of the major benefits of GTM is that it frees users of the complications of setting up the technical sides of their websites. Its user-friendly interface can be attributed for this. Digital publishers using GTM can create marketing content through tagging without having to get involved with the source code of their websites.

These tags are crucial for companies using digital publishing because they help search engines identify content specific to the companies’ web pages. Keeping tags short and relevant will also distinguish them among repetitive titles. Identifying and creating the right tags will increase the probability for people searching for a topic to be directed to the tagged and targeted article.

Categories vs. Tags

Categories group content and are primarily used in blog posts. They enable authors to neatly organize their posts while maintaining a professional look for their websites. Pete McPherson at Do You Even Blog explains the importance that SEO categories play in site structure and suggests that users, “[o]ptimize the category titles and descriptions” in order that their sites efficiently show up in search engines.

However, McPherson warns against using duplicate tags in individual posts, saying , “Under no circumstances should you have duplicate category names, OR have the same category and tag names for any piece of content.” These duplications confuse search engines on which tags need to be prioritized, thus minimizing the meaning of website’s intended information.

One of the biggest differences between categories and tags is how they are used. Categories are used as a generalization of the information provided, while tags are used to indicate the individual subject matter of a post.

Food bloggers may have categories relating to meal prep and recipes. The author would then use tags to specify food resources and ingredients. Using these distinct tags creates pertinent information that sets this data apart from other digital media.

Content Relevancy

Keeping tags relevant to the content will strengthen articles. However, overusing tags can diminish their value. With so much information being uploaded regularly, tags create relevant searches and alert these search engines to provide concise and valuable recommendations to readers.

The New York Times uses tags to provide related content for their news readers. The Times’ Open Team works to collect data on a more efficient level and build digital products for the company. Their goal is to promote website growth from an organic reach across multiple online platforms. Tags serve as the building blocks behind many of the teams’ digital inventions.

According to the Times’ Open Team :

“We built our own tag management system because we needed to have easy access to our back-end data — data regarding website visitors and data from our content management system — and there weren’t any commercially available systems that provided that level of access.”

In 2015, The Times’ Research & Development group created the prototype called Editor , which would automatically tag relevant content in future news articles. The R&D group describes Editor as an “editing interface that explores how collaboration between machine learning systems and journalists could afford fine-grained annotation and tagging of news articles.” By using tags, this prototype allowed the Times to publish and communicate online content across multiple.

Audience Engagement

Distinguishing content from the plethora of internet data proves to be a difficult task for readers and content creators alike. Thus, taking one step further to categorize digital media using tags ensures individuality and guaranteed website tracking. Tagging is not only beneficial to news platforms and online blogs, but also to social media users. These users have integrated the use of hashtags to better market their content.

Lauren Aston encouraged her readers to “[t]hink outside of the box and do your research to find the best and more appropriate tags for your posts.” Putting more thought and research into tags will ensure a user’s posts are seen and more likely to reach their intended audiences. By using these tactics, these tags will also bring higher engagement levels.

However, content creators must avoid haphazardly using tags. On Instagram, there is a rumored shadow ban for those who overuse hashtags. Their posts are removed from search engines and hidden from fellow users to weed out spam profiles.

Stronger Strategy

While adding new tags with every post may be tempting, using existing tags will eliminate excessive variations and links and will organize content in a more productive way. This method essentially groups content together, making it easier to find and evaluate. The more traffic these existing tags bring to a website, the more they will increase the relevance of the published content.

The Yoast blog says the following:

Structuring your website is crucial for both its usability and findability. Many sites lack a sound structure to guide visitors to the information they’re looking for. Having a clear site structure also leads to a better understanding of your site by Google, so it’s incredibly important for your SEO.

Tags are keywords that tidy up websites and make content easier to find. They make up the taxonomy of most web pages and boost users ahead of competitors, while adding value to their digital media. Tags cut across various categories and keep audiences engaged and on the websites longer.

Using tags consistently will enhance website performance. It displays publisher’s content at a higher rank within search engines, optimizing the opportunity for revenues from digital platforms

Changing with the Times

Changing with the Times

“You find the future in the past if you look hard enough,” says Mark Thompson, Chief Executive Officer and president of The New York Times. It is a common belief that newspapers’ going out of print is a direct effect of changing times. In many ways, this is true. However, the reasoning for lessening print publications is rooted in the same basic marketing strategies that the media have always followed.

Traditional print newspapers have always thrived upon meeting the reader in their daily lives. After all, without the readers there would be no reason to share the news. Writers and producers of the news know that, often, consumers do not seek out the news themselves. Therefore, in order to stay afloat, these news sources must find a way to come to the consumer.

While many print publications are struggling to keep up with consumers, the Times is managing to not only stay afloat, but also thrive in a world of mass digital news consumption.

In the past, life was centered around the daily papers. If you wanted to find a job, you looked to the paper. If you needed look for a new apartment, you looked in the paper. Now, all those things and more are done online. According to Thompson, “ads once brought in as much as $235 million with very little overhead costs, but that figure slid to just $6 or $7 million in revenue in recent years.”

This decrease in ad sales was a major push towards a digital way of thinking for the Times. Executives knew that, in order to keep up with consumers, they would need to reevaluate and reconnect with the modern consumer’s lifestyle.

“It’s all about the user experience and it’s all about engagement,” says Thompson. In 2015, the company set out to make $800 million in digital revenue by 2020 and they are already on track to blow that goal out of the water. As of the end of 2018, the Times made $709 million in digital revenue. With a total of $1.748 billion at the end of the fiscal year in 2018, this shows that digital revenue “accounted for just over 40% of the total.”

With such great numbers coming in from the financial side, Thompson set a goal to reach 10 million subscribers by 2025. This goal seems to be in reach for the company as its number of digital subscribers has grown to 3.3 million as of 2018. This number is up 27% from 2017. The Times now has over 4.3 million subscribers, which is an all-time high for the company.

Another record breaker for the Times happened in the fourth quarter of 2018 when digital advertisement made more than print advertisement. Digital advertising sales jumped 23% to $103 million while print advertising dropped 10% to $88 million.

Thompson says that these gains in revenue will be put back into newsroom operations. At a time when many news companies are being forced to make cuts due to lack of funding, the Times take the opposite approach.

Our appeal to subscribers — and to the world’s leading advertisers — depends more than anything on the quality of our journalism. That is why we have increased, rather than cut back, our investment in our newsroom and opinion departments. We want to accelerate our digital growth further, so in 2019, we will direct fresh investment into journalism, product and marketing.

Thompson also believes that the Times’ legacy has played a hand in its success in the shift towards primarily digital platform. “An intense news cycle has always sold newspapers and made TV news ratings shoot up,” Thompson says. In this world where every news company is racing to get the most recent information out first, it pays to be a credible company that consumers trust.

Another possible reason for the Times’ continued success is the diverse material that they offer consumers. Recently, over half of Times’ subscriptions came from the cooking and crosswords. According to journalist Tyler Bishop, one of the highest priorities for digital publishers coming into 2019 was growing their audiences. According to Bishop, the main focus for many digital publishers was “traffic, but more specifically, quality visitors.”

The Times is a legacy company, and their diverse offerings of news, opinion pieces, crosswords, and more make them more appealing to consumers. According to Thompson, these subscribers are “the kind of person who is our kind of person.” While other news companies and digital publishers are struggling to get the audience they are reaching for, the Times has the advantage of having a solid, diverse, consumer base to work and grow with.

According to the New York Times’ 2020 group:

While the past two years have been a time of significant innovation, the pace must accelerate. Too often, digital progress has been accomplished through workarounds; now we must tear apart the barriers. We must differentiate between mission and tradition: what we do because it’s essential to our values and what we do because we’ve always done it.

This team of journalists at the Times take deep pride in their work and understand that the same qualities that brought print subscribers will “lead people to devote valuable space on their smartphone’s homescreen to our app, to seek us out on social media amid the cacophony and to subscribe to our newsletters and briefings.”

In the world of publication, many companies see themselves as either print-first or digital first. The New York Times, however, sees themselves as a “subscription-first business .” The company does not want to get lost in a battle to “maximize clicks” or “win a pageviews arms race.” Rather, they are focused on producing the same strong journalism that they have for over 150 years. This business plan has secured them a front-runner in print journalism for many years, and the same business plan is what they hope will keep them a front-runner during this time of digital change.

Glamour Goes Digital-First

To stay ahead of the proverbial curve, many traditional print magazines have moved to a digital-first approach to publishing. Glamour magazine is one such publication that took the right steps in order to meet their customers’ desires.

Digital-first has become one of the critical decision points impacting print publications across industries. The fashion industry has been significantly impacted by target markets choosing digital alternatives to printed publications. With the advent of high-speed internet and devices that provide instant access to information, the fashion industry has struggled to maintain a leading mind-share position on trends in style with their readers.

Glamour, founded in 1939, is a women’s magazine with divisions across the US, UK, and various European countries. The magazine is published by Condé Nast , one of the largest fashion publishing groups with a global reach of over one billion consumers across digital media outlets.

Prior to 2016, management at Glamour recognized that the shift towards a digital market would require a change on their end. The UK branch of Glamour first took steps toward a stronger online presence back in 2017, when they began cutting back on printed issues in order “to become a digital first, beauty-first brand. ”

As a leading fashion and beauty magazine, Glamour currently holds a strong position across online platforms, boasting more than 11 million online users and a social media following of over 14 million. Thus making the permanent shift toward a digital-first platform a sensible decision for the company’s future growth.

In an interview with the Jewish Chronicle , Deborah Joseph , an editor for Glamour UK, said:

“For me the exciting thing was: how do you take a brand like Glamour that’s been built over 17 years as one of the most successful and well-known women’s brands across the UK, from a print title of 12 times a year and grow it across multi platforms — social, experiential and, obviously, online?”

The move for Glamour to cease their printed issues was hinted at when the magazine’s editor in chief, Cindie Leive , stepped down after 16 years. Samantha Barry was then hired in January 2018 to lead and accomplish this change in Glamour’s approach to its readers. Barry recognized the demand to secure a strong digital presence for the publication, and her role as editor in chief has allowed Glamour to transform their brand in the expanding world of digital media.

Upon Barry’s arrival, the plan to relaunch the US branch of Glamour on a digital platform was officially set in motion. In an interview for The New York Times , Barry said, “It’s where the audiences are, and it’s where our growth is. That monthly schedule, for a Glamour audience, doesn’t make sense anymore.”

In October 2016, In Style UK made the decision to close their print editions permanently as a result of falling circulation patterns. Marie Claire UK reacted to market pressure in the same manner. The magazine announced in September 2019 that they plan to cease print publication after November. A spokesperson from Marie Claire UK told BBC News , “A strategy focusing on Marie Claire UK’s digital business will give the brand the best opportunity to secure a profitable and sustainable future.”

While these two popular UK magazines made the switch to digital in order to stay afloat, this was not necessary Glamour at the time.Unlike In Style UK and Marie Claire UK, Glamour’s print publication was highly successful when they announced their digital shift. What this seems to indicate is a keen sense of market movement and the corresponding flexibility to accomplish a significant change in business direction.

Camilla Newman, Glamour’s publishing director, spoke about the magazine’s decision at the PPA (Professional Publishers Association) festival in May 2018 saying, “It’s really important to point out that the print circulation of Glamour was really healthy when we were looking at changing the format to a digital-first brand.” In fact, the company’s 2018 market value was ‎€15.5 million, or $17 million, with an estimated growth forecast up 21.1% over the next five years.

At the time of their decision, Glamour indicated a revenue growth model for the next twenty quarters. However, it’s not apparent whether the marketing impact that drove other publications into digital publishing to avoid significant loss was a part of their consideration.

With the success in printed editions and, at the time, no downward move in print revenue, the shift toward a solely digital platform was both a bold and proactive choice for the company. Not many publicly-traded companies have a management team with the fortitude to make decisions that could negatively impact revenue and stock-holder dividends. However, with the strong positive growth across all digital media outlets, it seems Glamour timed their move well.

Even with the digital-first approach, Glamour hasn’t forgotten about their consumers that prefer print. The magazine produces a “biannual, collectible, glossy ” edition that celebrates diversity among women, while at the same time, reaching their audience with the nostalgia of a physical issue. This decision to blend the “old with the new”, shows the sensitivity of Glamour management to their customers. Further, these special editions hold the potential of becoming collectibles which will contribute to cementing Glamour as one of the leading fashion brands since 1939.

While Glamour isn’t the only magazine to make the digital-first transition, they are one of the few companies to take a proactive approach in the world of digital publishing. Since Barry’s rise to editor in chief, Glamour’s online views “have risen 12 per cent, to 6.3 million.” “Glamour is a brand – it’s not just a magazine ,” Barry says, and this approach has truly transformed the iconic publication while still managing to maintain the integrity it held before a digital shift.

Smashwords

Smashwords, a platform created in 2007, publishes and distributes ebooks for self-publishing authors. Mark Coker founded the company after numerous publishing companies turned down the novel Boob Tube, which he and his wife Lesleyann wrote together. Coker knew their book was ready for the public, but novels in that genre did not do as well as the companies wanted, so publishers continued to turn them away.

Coker knew the novel would attract a specific audience, but the large publishing companies would not give them a chance. “They’re unable to take a risk on every author. They acquire books based on perceived commercial potential, but ultimately they don’t know which books will sell well.” Coker explains that he wanted to bypass the obstacles of traditional publishing to “give every author the freedom, tools and distribution they needed.” The company aims to give authors a chance to publish when other companies might not.

They accomplish this as a free publishing and distribution platform; Smashwords allows authors full control over how their book is priced, published, sampled, and sold for free. Yes, free. This fact might cause some eyebrow-raising. This dedication to attainable self-publishing forms the foundation of Smashwords. Coker’s answer to whether Smashwords will help authors sell large quantities of books: “probably not.” Instead, publishing through Smashwords’ should get an author’s work out efficiently and accessibly, rather than helping the author get rich quick.

What Authors Need to Know

According to Coker, “Smashwords authors and publishers earn 85% or more of the net proceeds from the sale of their works.” The client receives three-quarters of the net profit, and in exchange, the company distributes the books to major retailers such as Barnes & Noble and indie retailers as well. The math breaks down to mean authors make $8 for every $10 book on Smashwords. These royalty rates are some of the highest in the world of publishing.

Net Proceeds (to author) = Sales Price – Processing Fees * .85

On top of high royalties, Smashwords also handles much of the leg work that comes with publishing. Afterward, the company will also send your work to other publishers and ebook retailers. Smashwords provides authors with free marketing, metadata analysis, and distribution and sales report tools. The company also pays authors monthly rather than quarterly.

Compared to its major competitors, Draft2Digital and PublishDrive, Smashwords has the longest list of affiliated publishing companies. While this large platform can be a great selling point for writers, it doesn’t promise more sales. Smashwords also has a detailed protocol for authors who want their work sent to specific companies. Additionally, the company doesn’t handle formatting of the ebook, which can create a significant setback for its clients.

Authors submitting to Smashwords also must format their work to meet the company’s standards. To ease the pressure on writers, Smashwords published an ebook with instructions for submitting in their format. While this formatting may seem tedious, Smashwords says that it is well worth the hassle:

Our Meatgrinder technology will automatically convert your .doc file into nine different ebook formats, plus a tenth, custom version of EPUB required by Sony. In the years since we launched Smashwords, we have continuously enhanced our Meatgrinder conversion technology. Meatgrinder-produced books often rival or surpass the quality of expensive, custom-designed ebook files. Smashwords ebooks support reflowable narrative, images, linked Tables of Contents, hyperlinks and advanced styling.

What Readers Need to Know

The authors publishing through Smashwords would be nowhere if it weren’t for those reading their books. Registration is free and once registered, members have access to over 80,000 free ebooks and 500,000 low-cost ebooks. The platform also allows members to read samples of books before purchasing; the sample sizes may vary depending on the author’s selection.

Smashwords produces DRM-free ebooks, a real perk for readers. DRM stands for Digital Restrictions Management which puts constraints on how the reader may use the text. Without DRM, readers can essentially share the book however they choose after purchase which can be a drawback for authors as it leaves the work open to piracy and could cut back on sales.

Readers also benefit from the company’s multi-format ebooks. Smashwords provides a platform that works with many different e-reader devices. Other content-selling companies often restrict the device or file that can be used. Smashwords boasts a user-friendly interface that allows their readers to create a virtual library of ebooks, establish “favorite” authors, and sign up for notifications when a particular author publishes new work.

Coker says the company has no intention of getting involved in print publishing.

I don’t see us ever getting into the business of selling or fulfilling POD versions or otherwise. This was a decision I made early on when I started working on the Smashwords business plan in 2005 and 2006. There were already a bunch of companies doing great work on the print side, and I knew we wouldn’t have the resources to do it better.

With the growing popularity of ebooks and the never-ending struggle to get published motivating Coker, Smashwords entered the market and became one of the largest “distributors of independent and self-published ebooks.” Created with both author and reader in mind, Smashwords continues to dominate the world of ebooks.