What Publishers Can Do to Increase Learning in Digital Textbooks

Focus, comprehension, and critical thinking are shallower when one is reading on a digital device rather than on paper. An Insider article with Patricia Alexander and Lauren Singer showed that reading is faster on a device than on paper. Most people tend to skim through the text in order to find the “answer” rather than closely reading the text.

Despite the overwhelming evidence in favor of print books, we live in a digital age. Many students use free, or even illegal sites to get their textbooks because of the rising costs of education. While e-textbooks are significantly cheaper, that price cut simply cannot compare to a free resource when the student is getting the same experience. Digital textbooks must go beyond simply offering the text and give students an immersive and intuitive approach to learning that has adapted to the digital world.

Limit amount of text on a page

One of the biggest obstacles to close reading in a digital format is text overload, especially when it is formatted as a big block of text. Something that gives digital textbooks an edge over sites like Project Gutenberg is the ability to break up text. Project Gutenberg is popular among students for its free and legal access to many required readings; however, the site is clunky and the HTML format means that the student is forced to read through a wall of text.

Scrolling

Scrolling is one of the worst things a student can do when trying to read online. Even if the student has put away their phone, scrolling through their required reading is one of the biggest distractions for a student. In a study done by Pablo Delgado, Cristina Vargas, Rakefet Ackerman, and Ladislao Salmeron, “scrolling may add a cognitive load to the reading task by making spatial orientation to the text more difficult for readers than learning from printed text.” The mind diverts attention that could be used for comprehension to tracking the text as the reader scrolls, telling the finger to scroll, and when to stop scrolling.

Length

If scrolling is bad, how do publishers fit all the information on the page? Well, they don’t. The best way to help a reader digest information is to limit the amount of information on the page. According to Laura Singer, any more than 500 words on a digital “page” will overload the reader and impact comprehension. You eliminate text overload by fitting a section to a page. This also carries the added benefit of geospatial recognition that is similar to print books.

Headings

The physicality of print books is something that has been increasingly hard to replicate on the digital scale. The geographical place of text within a codex is a key point in how students remember details and it is extremely difficult to digitally replicate. This is where headings come in. Headings and subheadings help to position the reader in the text and break up the text into easier-to-digest sections.

Remove Distractions

The biggest edge that print books have over digital books is their lack of distractions. Many digital textbooks must be accessed online, which requires the student to navigate to a search engine, type in the name of the publisher, log in, and access the textbook. Not only does this limit study time to times where the student has access to the internet, but there are so many opportunities for students to get distracted. It would be easier for students to access their text through an app that allows offline access.

The use of flashy colors and animations can succeed at grabbing a student’s focus, but they can also steal attention away from the material. This is the same concept as scrolling. When the brain has to take in any kind of movement and read a text, comprehension is going to be compromised.

Offer Customizations

The largest benefit over both print books and free websites is customization. The ability to customize the textual space goes beyond aesthetics. Accessibility is easiest in the digital format, where one can quickly change between fonts, colors, and text size. A student with dyslexia can change to a font that better supports reading. A visually challenged student, or a student that learns better through auditory input, can use a text-to-speech feature.

The ability to take notes in the margins is an important part of gaining a deeper understanding of the text; however digital textbooks are unable to provide comparable in-text note taking features. The options are so abysmal that the UNC Learning Center suggests creating a word document for each individual chapter, or writing notes out on a separate sheet of paper. These options take away valuable time and focus from comprehending the text. Furthermore, these options will quickly become bloated and confusing. Publishers must develop an in-text note taking and annotation system in order to have an edge over print books and free resources.

There are benefits and drawbacks to every type of textbook, but the purpose behind every one of them is the same: To help students learn. Education is rapidly moving towards a digital model and students demand textbooks that can keep up.

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.

Content Wars: Rise of the Podcast

People prefer to receive their daily news in different ways. From radio to television, print to Facebook, news stories fill almost every platform. More and more traditional sources are turning to podcasts, the most recent trend in digital news publishing.

Podcasts: New or Old?

Though David Winer developed the medium, and Adam Curry popularized it, Ben Hammersley coined the actual term “podcast” in 2004. In an article for The Guardian, Hammersley “rattled off possible names for this booming new medium, the ‘pod‘ of podcast is borrowed from Apple’s ‘iPod‘ digital media player; and the ‘cast‘ portion of podcast is taken from Radio’s ‘broadcast‘ term.” The name and the concept took off.

According to International Podcast Day, a site dedicated to the celebration of podcasts,

“A ‘podcast’ is sort of difficult to explain because there really isn’t anything else like it — but rather, many things that are kind of like it. A good starting point, is to think of a podcast as ‘Internet Radio On-Demand.’ It’s similar in that you can usually listen to it on your computer — but it’s more than that. [However, and not to confuse the issue, podcasting isn’t confined to just audio but can be video as well].”

While podcasting shares many similarities with traditional radio broadcasting, two media’s differences allow podcasts to pave their own way in the digital media world. Contrary to conventional radio, podcasts offer on-demand content that users can access any place, any time. They also have the advantage of being “narrowcast” based on individual, specified content for an identifiable audience.

The New York Times and Podcasting

The New York Times, a newspaper founded in 1851, is known worldwide for its readership and prestige. With over 150 years in the field of journalism, the Times attributes its continued success to its ability to meet readers in their everyday lives. I cover more of the changes it has undergone in “Changing with the Times.”

With the emergence of podcasts, writers at the Times saw a chance to reach readers in a new and more individualized way. According to Ken Doctor, when the Times released its first podcast in 2006, “only 11 percent of U.S. adults listened to any podcast and only 22 percent had even heard the term.”

The New York Times uses the advantage of the medium’s niche nature to its advantage, and its shows branch into topics that may not have made it to print before. With series varying from book reviews to pop culture, even love and sex, the Times has truly embraced the culture of podcasts.

“The Daily,” one of the most popular series in the Times’ repertoire, touts the motto “this is how the news should sound. Twenty minutes a day, five days a week.” Hosted by political journalist Michael Barbaro, “The Daily” began in early 2017 and became a hit within a few short months.

“The Daily” had reached over 100 million downloads by October of the same year. Sam Dolnick, Barbaro’s assistant, says, “we’ve built a flexible enough frame that I think lots and lots of different things can fit inside of it.”

The New Yorker, a fellow New York-based news company, sent its praises to “The Daily” in an article dedicated to the success of the podcast series. New Yorker journalist Rebecca Mead writes that, through “The Daily,” The New York Times “becomes conversational and intimate, instead of inky and cumbersome. It’s a twenty-minute update murmured in your ear by a well-informed, sensitive, funny, modest friend.”

As of 2018, “The Daily” continued to receive over 1.1 million downloads each weekday. Advertisements pay for the episodes, so listeners get access to the show for free, with new podcasts released every weekday.

The New York Times has another major podcast success under its belt: “Caliphate” the company’s series “following Rukmini Callimachi as she reports on the Islamic State and the fall of Mosul.” Its first narrative nonfiction podcast, “Caliphate” takes a look at the War on Terror and asks, “who are we really fighting?” Listeners can find the podcast, along with its transcripts, on the Times’ site.

The Podcast Craze

The Times isn’t the only one impressed with podcasts: Hannah King describes the attraction of podcasting in the Trojan Digital Review. Versatility defines the beauty of podcasts; anyone can make one anywhere. In her article “Have We Hit Peak Podcast?” New York Times journalist Jennifer Miller addresses the idea easy entrance to the medium might be what leads to its ultimate downfall.

“Like the blogs of yore, podcasts — with their combination of sleek high tech and cozy, retro low — are today’s de rigueur medium, seemingly adopted by every entrepreneur, freelancer, self-proclaimed marketing guru and even corporation,” Miller writes. She quotes host Jordan Harbinger of “The Jordan Harbinger Show” saying, “I love podcasting, and the more shows in the mix the better, as long as they’re done by someone who actually cares and isn’t just trying to get a piece of pie.”

Harbinger goes on to say that the world of podcasting needs “a real conversation that will benefit the audience, not the host.” Through this logic, the Times’ position in podcasting culture will not fizzle out anytime soon. The New York Times has a great tradition of journalistic excellence, and through branching out into the realm of podcasting, it once again secured its spot among the most read, and now listened to, news companies in the world.

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.

The Economist gets “Snappy”

Since 1843, The Economist has released weekly print editions of their magazine-style newspaper. In October of 2016, the publication took a leap towards rejuvenation and began publishing on Snapchat, one of the most popular apps in the world.

The Economist has been on Snapchat’s Discover page for three years and has paved a new way for print publications to reach the “tap generation.” The Snapchat Discover page is “all about keeping you up-to-date on current events, pop culture, and more.”

Snapchat Discover is where users can find stories- short videos or pictures- from their friends, other Snapchat users, TV shows, and publishers. Publisher stories “are Discover content that is from publishers and other media partners that partner with Snapchat.” Some companies that can be found on the Discover page are The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, The Washington Post, and The Economist.

When The Economist made its Snapchat debut in 2016, reaching out to an audience via Snapchat wasn’t common for such an established and respectable news company. When Lucy Rohr, the Snapchat editor for The Economist, was met with some questioning from her colleagues, she responded:

How does a 173-year-old publication, known for its global analysis and read by every American president since JFK, fit on a messaging app whose unique selling point is bite-sized, disappearing videos? But think about it for a moment. Snapchat Discover’s audience is forward-looking, globally curious and highly engaged with liberal causes. So The Economist is actually pretty well aligned.

So how does a roughly 80-page news magazine convert its material to fit this new medium? To Rohr the answer is quite simple: it doesn’t. The goal for the Snapchat extension of The Economist was not to put out another digital form of what they’ve already written. Instead, the idea was to hit a themed subject with each new weekly release.

“Themed editions are an ideal way for us to serve up our analysis in a fun and concise package that’s easy to consume anywhere. It’s what The Economist is known for, and we think this sits well on Snapchat Discover,” Rohr says.

Snapchat is an app that relies heavily on the visual aspect of its content, so Rohr and her team work to create a harmony between the youthful and interactive nature of the app and the professionalism of The Economist’s brand. According to Rohr, the perfect blend is achieved through “crisp, clean layouts, a couple of specific fonts.”

The Snapchat editions of The Economist are formed from a script, which is broken down into a minimum of 14 snaps, or 10 second looping videos or animations, and the visuals for each snap are then planned accordingly. Each individual snap is predominantly an image with highlighted text over it. The text often plays as a teaser, which gives the reader enough information to understand what is being addressed, but leaves them wanting more.

The interactive feature is brought into play when links to find more information pertaining to a particular snap are added through the “swipe up” feature. Then on the final product, users can swipe up on a snap to follow links that will lead to articles that give readers an in-depth analysis that the teasers hinted at.

According to Rohr:

The design team really nailed it. They came up with a visual treatment that really brings our journalism to life, and brings levity to some of the heavier stuff we’re covering. As much as I want our journalism to set us apart, I think our design does too.

Rohr knows that the task of producing Snapchat editions is not an easy one. “Plenty of what we do can’t be readily translated into a ‘Snappy’ format. We have to take the time to really think about each edition and each snap and how to do it best,” she says. An example of what Discover stories from The Economist look like is on their YouTube channel.

When The Economist made the leap into the world of Snapchat, consumers were concerned that it would be detrimental to the prestige of the company. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, “78% of American internet users between the ages of 18 and 24 used Snapchat in 2018.” The statistics of active Snapchat users in the UK are similar to those in America. The age demographic is rarely a concern of The Economist.

Having a young audience does not worry The Economist’s Snapchat team, though. At the Digital Innovators Summit, Rohr addressed the new demographic saying:

We had to translate our very specific editorial voice to the platform, but we did not ‘dumb ourselves down’ – we realised that to underestimate the intellect of the younger audience, and their discernment, is a real mistake.

Rather than fitting their journalism to the demographic, Rohr and her team prep the demographic for their journalism. Rohr referred to Snapchat editions as “the ultimate cheat sheet ” to being able to comprehensibly read full length articles from The Economist. One of the goals is to provide readers with the vocabulary, context, and “toolkit” needed to understand the company’s specific style of journalism.

As of 2017, The Economist had an average of 7.1 million users visiting their Snapchat stories. Deputy editor and head of digital strategy, Tom Standage, claimed the addition of Snapchat to their repertoire was “the biggest step-change in the audience of The Economist since 1843.”

The Reality of Royalties

Royalty Fees and Writers

As an aspiring writer in the world of digital publishing, you may be wondering how royalty fees relate to your livelihood. Simple: royalties are how you get paid. According to The Bindery article “Royalties: How Do Publishers Pay Authors (Links to an external site.),” there are different types of royalties, the primary type being royalties known as a “list royalty” or a “retail royalty.”

Most publishers in general categories, especially New York publishers, pay authors royalties as a percentage of the retail price of the book, which is an example of list and retail royalties. However, there are many publishers who pay authors “royalties on net sales,” which means that they pay authors their royalty percentage after the discounts the publishers give to retail stores are figured in.

Side note: publishers sell books to bookstores for a range of discounts, sometimes up to half off the cover price or more.

What is a “Royalty”?

A royalty is defined by Investopedia as (Links to an external site.) “a legally-binding payment made to an individual, for the ongoing use of his or her originally-created assets, including copyrighted works, franchises, and natural resources.”

Royalties are written into contracts for musicians, artists, writers, and any other creator whose work is used by another source as a way of compensating the artist for their work.

Royalty payments comprise “a percentage of the gross or net revenues obtained from using the owner’s property.” In order to decide on these payments, a third party and a creator will lay out a “license agreement,” along with the limitations of the royalty, “such as its geographic limitations, the duration of the agreement, and the type of products with particular royalty cuts.”

According to The Balance Small Business (Links to an external site.),

There are a number of ways that franchisors establish what their ongoing royalty fee will be. The most common is a percentage of the Gross Sales that the franchisee earns. Typically this ranges from between five and nine percent. So, essentially, the franchisee is taking in 91-95% of their gross sales with the rest going to the franchisor.

This means that royalty fees are completely up to the franchisor’s discretion, depending on how high or low they wish to make it (although, typically, it’s less than 10%). To summarize, whenever a creator’s work is being used by the franchisors, like a song playing in the background of a commercial, the creator will be paid a set percentage of the income the franchisor makes from said advertisement (decided upon in a license agreement).

The payment of a royalty comes in the form of a “royalty check” – a check a creator gets for the use of their work. As RSG Media (Links to an external site.) states,

When you write a book, royalty check is the royalties earned from sale of every copy. When you compose a song, royalty is when someone performs it professionally or purchases your CD. You can also earn royalty from your land or property, if someone purchases your mineral rights. The amount of gas or oil produced will provide you a royalty. You can earn royalty checks annually, half-yearly or quarterly, depending upon the royalty agreement.

Royalty vs. License

Here’s where the importance of reading your contract comes into play as some confusion can occur concerning the difference between royalties and licenses. A license is defined by RSG Media (Links to an external site.) as “an agreement between two parties for using someone’s property without paying any money for it.” Whereas a royalty insinuates a payment for the use of the creator’s work, a license allows the third party to use the work without having to actually pay anything for it.

Licenses have what’s known as a licensing fee, which is “an amount of money paid by an individual or business to the licensor, which is mostly government, for enjoying the privilege of being licensed to use someone else property” for a set period of time.

The Licensor receives a perpetual/time bound payment as a percentage of sales in regards for using the intellectual property. You can take for example – an earning from copyright, patent on new products, and consumer product licensing more.
Royalties and licenses are members of same family; these terms are just two faces of same coin.

Know Your Contract

With any kind of contract, there is room for suspicious activity. When one party ignores the contract and goes outside the bounds of the licensing agreement, it’s up to the other party to decide whether to stay with the agreement and risk another breach of contract or terminate the license agreement altogether.

One such case involving a breach of a license agreement involves a toy creator and a line of baby toys. According to Markowitz Herbold PC (Links to an external site.),

A toy inventor sold his entire line of baby toy products to a large toy company in exchange for royalties on the future sales of his products. The royalty agreement, which spanned many years, contained separate royalty rates for different categories of toys, including a rate for toys that had already been commercialized by the inventor (“original toys”), and another rate for toys that were “derived from” these original toys.

Though the company paid royalty fees for the sales of a multitude of toys, the toy maker stated that it “misclassified toys” to keep from paying more fees. The toy maker then had to decide whether to sue for the previous grievances or terminate the contract entirely and try to get payment for the remainder of the agreement.

In the end, the toy maker ended the license agreement and “sued to recover the future royalties that he would have earned under the royalty agreement if the toy company had not breached the agreement.”

It is always important to understand the terms of ending a licensing agreement.

If the terminating party revokes the licensee’s right to use its intellectual property, the licensee may have to pull products off shelves. If the licensor’s initial termination was not justified, the licensor may be held responsible for the licensee’s damages. In the inventor’s case, the toy company counter-sued for breach of contract, in part based on what it claimed was the inventor’s improper termination of the contract.

The result of early termination is usually laid out in the license agreement as a “royalty agreement’s termination provision standards.”

As a new writer, it can be intimidating trying to understand contracts saturated in unfamiliar legal jargon, especially when your focus is sharing your work with the world. However, understanding the contract is of the highest importance when making sure you are getting your full rights as a creator.

The biggest lesson a writer can gain from this article is to find a good editor/manager to help and ALWAYS READ YOUR CONTRACT. Then, maybe you can one day watch Jon Snow quote your poem in a car commercial or hear your song playing in the aisles of Target as you buy caramel popcorn.

With a proper understanding of your contract and the ability to write something worth selling, the world is at your fingertips and the royalties will be in your pocket.

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

The Digital Rights Tragedy of Microsoft’s E-Book Market

Microsoft’s discontinuation of their e-bookstore means that consumers will no longer be able to access and view Microsoft’s e-books. Customers who purchased the right to view the e-books within the past two years from the company are now unable to read them.

Microsoft updated their Edge browser to support e-book consumption in March of 2017 and began to sell e-books through the Windows 10 Storeapp. Microsoft then ceased selling e-books in April of 2019, resulting in the revocation of each consumer’s purchased right to view the e-books.

Consequently, buyers have been robbed of the transaction experience: I give you money and you provide me with the product.

Microsoft has shattered the trust given by consumers in a supposedly fair transaction. The e-books are simply gone with the wind “because company executives have decided it’s no longer worth keeping the store running.”

Companies are setting a precedent of making their products obsolete. Dave Lee writes about how there is no concrete equivalent that mimics the loss of ownership that is possible because of Digital Rights Management; physical bookstores are unable to take a customer’s material, purchased books away from them.

Digital Rights Management and Microsoft

DRM (digital rights management) is a systematic attempt to prevent the piracy of e-books. Microsoft utilized DRM and then had the issue of revoking every consumer’s right to view Microsoft’s e-books. Cory Doctorow writes that “this puts the difference between DRM-locked media and unencumbered media into sharp contrast.” Doctorow still owns e-books and MP3’s from organizations that are long gone, but Microsoft is forced to reimburse consumers because the company’s e-books cannot be viewed outside of Microsoft Edge.

Similarly, Josh Axelrod and Lulu Garcia-Navarro write about how cars and various smart home appliances are under DRM-lock as well. The permanence of cars, much like Microsoft’s e-books, are no longer guaranteed. If Tesla were to go under, a smart car can lose everything that makes it a Tesla. People paid for the car but not the ownership of the software.

Microsoft’s Downfall

A major issue for Microsoft was the lack of users for their Edge browser. Ed Bott states that “in the first three months of 2018, Microsoft Edge accounted for a paltry 8 percent of the 1.2 billion visits to government websites from consumer and business PCs and Macs.”

The minimal impact of Edge users combined with a system that was not built for convenience was too much for Microsoft.

In contrast, Amazon’s Kindle exemplifies e-book convenience. Amazon provides an inexhaustible source of e-books along with a portable device for reading them, and a free Kindle app which may be used when not connected to the internet.

For the few people using Edge the medium was ill-fitted for e-book consumption. Edge requires that the consumers view the e-book through the browser rather than allowing users to download the book. Having to view the e-book through Edge limits many users to only being able to view the e-book on a PC. Further, this exclusivity did not allow for e-book compatibility with Apple devices.

While exclusive compatibility is not without precedent, Microsoft lacked the fan-base that allowed for the complete alienation of competitor’s operating systems.

Further, Microsoft Edge users must be connected to the internet to view the e-books. Connectivity issues, lack of compatibility, and the requirement that the e-book be viewed in-browser stifle the appeal of Microsoft’s e-books.

What Microsoft Has to Say

Microsoft has not given many statements about why they are ceasing the sale of e-books. The first mention came in June when they posted on their website about the closure of their e-book store and eventual refunds for customers.

The FAQ mentions giving an additional $25 credit to individuals who annotated in their e-book. Microsoft is essentially paying for the consumer’s intellectual property which will be lost along with the rights to view the e-books.

The consumer reimbursements and Edge’s lack of traffic imply that Microsoft did not have many e-book sales in the first place.

Microsoft also recently indicated that e-books are not their focus, but rather that their app store is their priority when Microsoft stated that the company is “streamlining [its] focus’ on the store.”

The Future for Microsoft in E-Books

Microsoft’s foray into e-book sales utilizing Edge was not their first attempt at entering the market and it will likely not be their last. Microsoft invested $300 million in Barnes and Noble to create a separate Nook Media company in 2011, but this venture was terminated in 2014.

David Grossman writes that “MS Reader tried to sell books for LCD screens” in 2011. However, this project fell through in the same year due to a lack of usage and routine updates.

Whether or not Microsoft has given up on e-books, the company’s blunder has made evident the possibility for massive loss of content for consumers when dealing with DRM-locked content. Consumer trust will be difficult for Microsoft to earn back if they decide to wrestle with e-book sales again.

Whatever the future holds, hopefully Microsoft has learned from their past mistakes to avoid any future losses of this caliber in the e-book game.

Libraries Enter the Digital Age with Overdrive

Libraries are moving into the modern age with Overdrive, a “a free service offered by your library or school that lets you borrow digital content (like e-books and audiobooks) anytime, anywhere.” Through Overdrive, libraries have their own digital collection based on their personal needs, making each an individual unit with a specialized collection.

The Process of Creating Digital Collections

According to Amanda Jackson, director of the Chesapeake Public Library, in order to join Overdrive libraries must provide a “SIPII (Standard Interchange Protocol, Version 2) connection to allow Overdrive, or any other third party vendor, to access their ILS (Integrated Library System- the system that checks out books and keeps up with library cards) to access their data and patron records.” Libraries then enter into an annual contract to continue providing the digital collection services.

Overdrive’s system is also simple to use for consumers – sign up with your library card or student ID, find your library’s digital collection, and borrow as many titles as you want. The e-books can be read online or downloaded, making it easy for the consumer to read at home or listen to their loans while on the go. Some libraries even have the option to offer video streaming services that are available via the mobile app.

Once the checkout time is up, the book is returned to the library’s digital catalog, available for other customers to checkout or for the previous reader to renew. Unfortunately, there are limited copies per e-book or audiobook, so readers may have to wait for the book they want – a difficult task in the age of instant streaming.

On how libraries add books to their digital collection, Jackson stated “in the contract and payment, libraries are given a budget for materials. They can add additional funds to this budget if necessary. From here, they access a catalog, similar to Amazon or Barnes and Noble, which would list available titles and costs. They put them in an online cart and order books to be placed on their Overdrive website.”

If consumers are looking for a specific book that is not in their library’s digital catalog, they can suggest to their library the book they want added. However, some books can cost as much as $100, so Jackson states whether the book is ordered depends primarily on how many people are requesting it.

“If multiple people suggest it or it’s part of series that the library didn’t realize was missing a volume, we may order it,” Jackson said. “Each library has its own collection development policy on ordering.”

Once a book is in the digital catalog, the amount of times that book can be checked out depends on the contract between the book distributor/publisher and the vendor.

“Some allow unlimited check outs,” Jackson said. “Some allow as few as 20, using the assumption that a physical book would have to be replaced after about 20 check outs due to wear and tear, thus keeping their revenues the same.”

However, book distributors can cause issues for libraries attempting to add certain books to their databases. According to Jenny McGrath in her article “Why You May Have to Wait Longer to Check Out an E-book from Your Local Library,” when Nora Roberts published the long-awaited third book in her Chronicles of The One series, fans were forced to wait in long e-lines for the book due to Macmillan’s restrictions on how many copies libraries could purchase.

The articles state that “Macmillan, which publishes the series, is only allowing library systems around the country to purchase a single e-book of newly published titles for all their branches. Eight weeks after new books launch, libraries will be able to buy more.”

The article then expands on the Macmillan decision, stating:

CEO John Sargent outlined the changes in response to “growing fears that library lending was cannibalizing sales.” On September 11 (2019), the American Library Association (ALA) started circulating a petition in hopes of pressuring Macmillan to not go through with its plan, which is scheduled to go into effect in November. “To treat libraries as an inferior consumer to the general population, it’s the wrong thing to do,” said Alan Inouye, director of the Office for Information Technology Policy at the ALA. “Libraries are generally held as amongst the highest esteemed institutions in the community.”

These disputes over book lending seem redundant as library’s would be able to purchase as many physical copies of the books as they like, so the decision to refuse selling more digital copies appears inconsistent as physical libraries still retain precedence. And, despite the growing use of Overdrive and its immediate checkout and download availability, Jackson stated that the number of patrons still going to physical libraries to find their books has not been surpassed by online users.

“There are still more books via in-person visits,” Jackson said. “I think that’s because so many people don’t realize libraries offer that service or they are used to getting their e-books from a different method, i.e. Amazon.

“But the number continues to grow as libraries do more marketing to that audience. Our (The Chesapeake Public Library) e-book check outs doubled in the first six months of this year from their numbers in 2018.”

The Future of Digital Collections

Overdrive has moved even further in its efforts to offer free digital media to consumers through the creation of its new app, Libby. According to the Washington County Cooperative Library Services, Libby “has the same collection of titles as the OverDrive app – it’s just a different way to access the same digital library collection. Libby is a fast and attractive digital browsing experience.”

For those unsure of which app to use, the WCCLS answers that question as well.

“If you use one iOS or Android device to browse, download, and read or listen to digital books, we recommend trying Libby. It’s a great one-device experience. If you like to read books on many devices, or prefer to browse for new titles on your computer, stick with the OverDrive app for now. Also, if you make use of accessibility features in the OverDrive app, you’ll need to stick with that until more accessibility features get added to Libby.”

According to Jackson, libraries use the same system for adding books to both the Overdrive and Libby collections.

“All database vendors pretty much work the same,” Jackson said. “It’s very similar to online shopping through other stores. The look may be a little different but the process is mostly the same.”

Libraries are taking progressive steps into the digital age using Overdrive’s digital collections, creating a more immediate and efficient way for patrons to check out and download their books on the go. While this service has not surpassed visits to physical libraries, establishments such as the Chesapeake Public Library have experienced a growth in online visitors as marketing for Overdrive increases.

Overall, busy patrons looking to have a more immediate access to e-books and audiobooks should be overjoyed about Overdrive.