Reader Letters; iSyndicate?; Business Books Online; FinancialContent.com

(((((((((( From MarketingSherpa.com
ContentBiz May 3, 2001 Vol II, Issue 17
((((((((((
Free subscriptions at http://www.contentbiz.com
Please forward *without* cutting. Thanks!

NEWS:
- Free $99 Ticket Drawing: Publishers & Sites in NYC Area Only
- iSyndicate: Dead or Alive?
- Sales Rising Steadily in Paid Online Content Field
- FinancialContent.com Undercuts the Big Guys By Up to 80%

CASE STUDY:
Books24x7 Sells 200,000 Subscriptions to an Online Database of
Content From Hundreds of Business Books

READER LETTERS:
Your Responses to Our Intellectual Property & Email Forwarding
Conundrum

Sponsor:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Archiver(tm) from Bell & Howell Information and Learning.
Your archives will be up and running before you know it,
and we do all the work. Selling your content online is
easier than ever. See for yourself at
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

((((((
NEWS
((((((

NOTE: As we emailed you earlier this week, we only have 20
tickets left for the "ContentBiz Seminar on Selling Subscriptions
to Internet Content." Unfortunately one of the links we gave you
in that email was incorrect (our company policy is to limit typos
to the really critical stuff.) Here's the correct link to learn
more about this event and buy either tickets or audiotapes:
http://www.marketingsherpa1.com/seminar


* Free $99 Ticket Drawing: Publishers & Sites in NYC Area Only

Would you like to attend the May 16th seminar "Best Practices in
Email Relationship Management for Publishers" at New York's Yale
Club? McGraw Hill, Hachette Filipacchi New Media,
Entrepreneur.com and Sunset Magazine will be presenting.

Organizers ERM Seminars have given us 25 $99 tickets to hand out
to our readers who are publishers in the NYC area. Breakfast and
lunch are included. To submit your name to win one of these 25
tickets, go to:
http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?6Y6D97K8PQ65CM7STNGTFSBB

To learn more about the event itself, go to:
http://www.ermseminars.com


* iSyndicate: Dead or Alive?

Heavy rumors are circulating in all the usual places online (read
F---dCompany.com, et al.) that iSyndicate has gone under for
good. In fact on May 1st, ContentBiz received an email from
content distributor COMTEX's PR person saying "Despite recent
news of fellow syndicator iSyndicate's demise…." However, nobody
at iSyndicate has been able to confirm or deny this "news."

Last month iSyndicate laid off 50% of its staff (sparking the now
infamous ex-employee email to publisher partners), and just last
week the Company was reportedly angling to get acquired by rival
ScreamingMedia for under $10 million. Although iSyndicate's site
is still up, it appears that nobody has been answering the phones
in PR, sales or reception for the past 48 hours.

Our advice to publishers: the deathwatch is on so don't waste
your time on trying to get a deal, or on trying to get paid.
http://www.isyndicate.com


* Sales Rising Steadily in Paid Online Content Field

After almost five years in business, INFOCON AMERICA, a provider
of tech to publishers selling content on their sites, finally hit
profitability last December. Jim Power, VP Sales, told us many
of the Company's 100+ clients (such as Mealey Publications and
IOMA) have seen "nice boosts in their online content sales over
the last few months." Some clients have even doubled sales.

Power attributes this rise to the fact that there's less free
content online these days, and that publishers are getting better
at Web marketing. Power says content for lawyers and narrowly
focused content for the high-tech industry is the easiest to
sell. Publishers with multiple, related publications are also
likeliest to be more profitable, due to cross-selling
opportunities, than publishers with just 1-3 titles.

What's not selling online? Power says some healthcare industry
publishers are having a hard time because doctors are used to
getting free, high quality information that's subsidized by
pharmaceutical companies.

Power also notes, "Content prices are going up online!" Some of
his clients have begun charging a higher price for online
subscriptions to reflect the fact that searchable archives and
useful hotlinks make electronic more valuable than print. We
find this trend fascinating -- especially since it was only a few
years ago that publishers thought they should lower electronic
version prices to reflect lowered print and postage costs.

If you'd like to meet Powers, he'll be speaking at NEPA's NYC
lunch on Tuesday May 8th. For a reservation, email
beldencom@aol.com. You can also meet him at ContentBiz's Seminar
on Selling Subscriptions Online in Washington DC on May 18th
which he'll be attending (although not speaking at.)
http://www.infoconamerica.com
http://www.marketingsherpa1.com/seminar


* FinancialContent Undercuts the Big Guys By Up to 80%

"When I registered this domain name a year ago, I was amazed it
was still available," says FinancialContent President Greg Fidan.
Now his company is amazing the big financial content distributors
such as Stockpoint, by undercutting their prices by as much as
80%.

FinancialContent functions on an ASP model -- Web sites wishing
to carry investor content such as stock quotes, public company
news and portfolio managers can go to FinancialContent's site to
select what they want and integrate it seamlessly into their own
site with a minimum of technical effort or know-how. Fidan, who
is bootstrapping the company without substantial outside
investors, says most of his employees come from investment sites
where they were previously frustrated by how expensive and hard-
to-integrate this type of content was.

FinancialContent launched a free beta test to about 100 clients
late last year. Then it launched its paid service March 6th. So
far approximately 70 paying clients have signed on -- all of whom
came from word of mouth. The big surprise: although Fidan
expected his customers would be small entrepreneurial sites, it
turns out his real market may be with big sites that are sick of
paying big prices.

How can FinancialContent keep its prices so low? (Monthly
minimums now run at $750.) VP Sales Stephen Malaster explains,
"Our technology allows me to personally handle 40 clients easily.
The big guys average two clients to every sales rep." Fidan adds
that the prices of the raw data feeds, that his company pretties
up into useful content, have "come down drastically since the
market downturn."
http://www.financialcontent.com


(((((
CASE STUDY: Books24x7 Sells 200,000 Subscriptions to an Online
Database of Content From Hundreds of Business Books
(((((

Sponsor: eContentFinder
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Publishers -- Want to Syndicate Your Content More Easily?


eContentFinder is a new online storefront for your content
created by OSKAR Consulting who've been helping publishers
syndicate and distribute content since 1992! To learn more,
go to:

http://www.econtentfinder.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Business book and research publishers will want to check out the
notes at the end of this Case Study to learn how they can connect
with Books24x7. And everyone who's ever tried to sell a content
feed or database into the corporate marketplace - will be
interested in this Company's sales tactics. Read on….

CHALLENGE
Is it possible to make real money by selling
electronic copies of business books? Books24x7 created an easy-
to-search database by aggregating content from hundreds of the
top technical and business books. Then, they just had to figure
out how to get people to buy subscriptions to it. Pamela Boiros,
Director of Publisher Relations, told us how the Company
survived, while competitors went under.

CAMPAIGN
Rather than trying to be all things to all
businesspeople, Books24x7's management team decided to limit
their scope to a single topic -- IT-related books -- and to a
single type of customer -- very, very large American companies.

Next, they carefully positioned their first product, ITPro, in a
manner that would appeal to this market. Boiros explains, "We
are a corporate productivity tool. We're selling to corporate
training managers. They have these huge elearning initiatives.
Traditional trainers are struggling with the explosion of
offerings in this space -- the offerings all sound alike to them.
We are not courseware; we are not software; we are referenceware.
You get access to 950 books on the site, you can bookmark them,
you can share bookmarks with colleagues, you can use the site in
tandem with a course, or use the site to freshen up after a
course."

With this strategy in mind, Books24x7 hired a strong tech team so
they could offer integration services as part of the package.
Boiros says, "If you're going to play with the global 2000, they
expect that you'll adhere to their technical requirements. You
really need to be a technology company. Customers are looking
for a platform that also includes their own documentation and
other content feeds -- so when a user enters a search, it would
search all the resources they have access to."

The ITPro subscription service launched September '99 with 200
titles for $199 annual fee per user. It's since grown to 950
titles for $299 per user. These prices slide down to a lower
rate per user when you sign up thousands at a time -- exactly the
kind of account Books24x7 goes for. Boiros says, "Our sweet spot
is a company with at least 1,000 seats."

Product demos are critical in this marketplace. Boiros says,
"Once we walk people through a demo you can see the lights go
on."

At first, potential customers could access a free 30-day trial at
Books24x7 Web site. Worried about the potential for abuse, the
Company cut this back to a seven day trial using randomly
generated masking technology so visitors see the content, but
they can't read everything. (For example, every few paragraphs
will be blanked out.) When prospects sign up at the site for a
sample trial, their company names are routed to the sales team
who immediately allow the most highly qualified candidates a
full-text trial. Boiros explains, "We want the serious prospect
to have full access, but not just somebody who walks in off the
street."

Aside from converting leads generated by the site, the sales team
cold calls training managers at appropriate companies, and
exhibits at top training trade shows.

RESULTS
So far Books24x7 has sold 200,000 subscriptions to 800
companies. The Company also generates some ancillary revenues
from single, individual subscription sales on its site, and from
commissions on hard copy sales. (Each book on the site is linked
to a hard copy bookseller -- either Fatbrain or Amazon.)

The Company's success with ITPro led it to launch a second
product, Office Essentials, in April 2000. This features about
50 reference books on desktop applications for non-tech users
(such as "Word for Dummies".) Its third product, BusinessPro,
featuring general business skills books launched April 3rd 2001.

PUBLISHER PARTNER NOTES: Boiros decides which books to contract
by frequently reviewing her Company's Web logs to find out what
types of information users are searching for. Currently she's
interested in adding to her collection in three areas:

1. General business books on topics like management skills.

2. IT and computer-user journals and newsletter content
(Books24x7 already carries content from Element K.)

3. Professional research reports.

She definitely does not want calls from freelance writers and
authors. She's also not interested in what she calls "teaser
content" such as sample chapters that are designed to market
products.

Publishers can contact her at: pboiros@books24x7.com or call
781.440.9355.

http://books24x7.com

Also, check out this Case Study on Books24x7's competitor
GetAbstract:
http://www.contentbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=1632

NEXT WEEK: We're featuring a new Case Study on legal information
distributor Mondaq who dramatically changed their pricing model
this January. Want to hear how their new model is working?
Subscribe today at http://www.contentbiz.com

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READER LETTERS
(((((

Last week we asked readers to send in their advice and comments
on the subject of intellectual property and email forwarding. To
recap the topic:

Like many Web publishers, we encourage readers to forward our
newsletter issues (and links to articles on our site) to their
colleagues so we can grow through this "viral marketing."

However, we feel the all-too-common practice of "cutting and
passing", whereby readers only forward a bit of our content to
friends, is hurting our company. Why? Because when readers cut
and pass, they usually don't include ads or subscription
information -- and these are the two things that put bread on the
table.

Loads of readers responded to our call for input. We've copied
some (although not all) below with proper attribution. Your
answers generally fell into a four categories:

1. Folks who feel cutting and passing isn't all that bad:

"I don't think you have the right to be pissed. You're not in
the print world.

We're in the process of making changes on this for ePrairie and
eMileHigh right now. We're making it a heck of a lot easier to
email each article around, and also to forward our email
newsletters to friends. Hopefully, we'll make it easy enough for
these folks to use our site, and not copy and paste it on their
own."
Rick Stratton, General Manager, eMileHigh & ePrairie
http://www.eprairie.com


"I don't agree with this. When you are sending an ezine to your
subscribers, your sponsors had already paid for the service based
on the number of your current subscribers. So whether or not a
subscriber is cutting and passing along just an article from your
ezine, he/she is not hurting anyone. Better yet, it's benefiting
you by word of mouth.

I prefer passing on something that I think my receivers would
appreciate rather than a long ezine with all the garbages and
ads. I don't want to upset and spam my friends. If my friends
like the content that I have forwarded, they would come back to
me and ask for more information, then I would forward them the
whole ezine so they could subscribe themselves.

Usually, I don't bother to pass anything along to any of my
friends, family and associates. Just because I don't want to be
accused of stealing your so-called intellectual property. This
would actually hurt you more--why? Because you are gaining
nothing by word of mouth. Why should I bother and waste my time
to spam my friends, family and associates just for your benefits?
Publishers & writers, please loosen-up. "

"Don't hate me, it just my opinion."
JLac
http://www.pariswoman.com
for women living and networking in Paris, France


2. Folks who sympathized with us:

"Ah yes, this has happened to me several times. I do state that
it is okay to pass on the ENTIRE issue, but never cut and paste
to forward to someone else. A few months ago, I published one of
my own humorous pieces on writing and received wonderful feedback
on it. However, one person wrote asking if she could pass it on
to her friends. I explained to her that she could pass the whole
issue on, but not the article alone. "But I would give you
credit," she said in reply. Sure, credit ... great. That is,
until the next person forwards it on and on and on ... and then
one day I receive this really funny joke in my e-mail and low and
behold, it will be mine. No thanks. I again explained that if
she didn't want to pass on the whole issue, she could pass the
URL on instead. Never heard back. I frequently search for this
one piece just because I fear if she thought it was okay, I'm
sure others did, too. After all, all these forwards and urban
legends started somewhere with a REAL author before someone
forwarded it on.

How to protect yourself? I am still trying to figure that one
out."

Angela Giles Klocke, Publisher
http://www.klockepresents.com


3. Folks with practical suggestions to help us allow forwarding
(but didn't address the cutting problem):

"When I published a free print newsletter, I once replaced the
usual "Send us your news!" on the back page with this warning:
"We are updating our mailing list. Please mail in this page with
your current name and address if you wish to continue receiving
this newsletter."

My circulation tripled. People had evidently been passing the
newsletter around in their offices, or photocopying it. I got
back lots of photocopied pages with names I'd never seen before.

So perhaps you could put in a note such as "Know anybody else
who'd like to receive these articles? If you send us their email
address, we'll offer them a free subscription." Or ask people to
forward the whole newsletter. If you already have such notices
but readers are missing them, the publication may be too
cluttered or too long."

Stephanie Siegel
http://www.CONTENTagogo.com


"The ability to cut, paste and e-mail our content -- to multiple
recipients at once -- is the equivalent of a Xerox machine on
steroids.

It is a challenge to all of us as publishers, but we contribute
to it when we disseminate information for free. Where information
is free, its perceived dollar value (as distinct from its
perceived utility) is diminished, and the perception of copyright
violation is reduced. The recipient's mind rationalizes
it: "If you sent it free to me, why shouldn't I send it free to
someone else? I'm doing you a favor."

This behavior is being further encouraged by the Web sites of
publications, even those that are being supported by advertising.
The Washington Post, for example, invites readers to "e-mail this
article to a friend."

I suspect that, as a practical matter, that is the only route
open to you. Accept that people will want to pass along specific
articles, and give them a way to do so that serves your own
purposes as well.

Of course, those people who routinely copy your entire
publication and, in effect, republish it (particularly if they
pass its contents off as their own), may be worth tracking down
and threatening. But individuals who pass along individual
articles will continue to do so, and no amount of hectoring from
us (short of cutting off their access) is going to stop it. After
all -- when you send someone a clip from the Post, or even from
freely distributed pubs like the City Paper, do you make sure to
send along all the advertising, too?

Bill Feldman, Publisher
FCN Publishing http://www.crcpress.com


4. Folks with ideas about how we can stop the "cutting" problem:

"Unfortunately this happens all the time. Instead of explaining
those very valid issues you mentioned, I also have certain
distribution rights with my authors that one permit reprints in a
certain fashion. I could go into how it is against the lay to
photocopy magazine articles then give them to your friends, or
point them to the "Content Use" policy on my website.
http://www.hittpansophism.com/aboutus/copyright.html

Instead I thank them for their complements, recommend they
forward the message in it's entirety and suggest that other
subscribe to get their own copy. I also post "Rights granted
to forward, via electronic medium, this document in whole as
long as the subscription and copyright portions remain intact."
at the end of each newsletter.

It does not guarantee subscribers don't clip the articles, but it
at least gives me some grounds should someone decide to republish
the materials on their own list (or their office list.) Granted
I have a whole file cabinet of articles I have ripped out of a
magazine, leaving the advertisers for the recycle bin. Cut and
paste just doesn't do it unless you get the entire document."

Justin Hitt, Publisher
http://www.hittpansophism.com/newsletter/


"You can't GUARANTEE that nobody will "rip you off" as you call
it. But you could put in a simple message stating what your
expectation of fair use is.

For example: "If you see an article here that you'd like to share
with a friend, please do so by forwarding the ENTIRE MESSAGE"
If I were to forward the whole message, I could put a comment at
the top like "hey Joe, look at the article on Affiliate Marketing
in the message below. It's great stuff."

This is like some software licenses that state that you can
distribute the software freely AS LONG AS you keep the package,
with all copyright info, intact. After all, you want your ideas
to spread, and if people forward the whole message with the ads
and the hyperlink to sign up, then the recipient has gotten a
free sample, at no cost to you. The advertiser gets more
impressions, and maybe you get a subscription. You just don't
want the articles taken out of context, and that's what should be
made clear."
Thomas L. Arnold, Managing Partner
http://www.summitmediapartners.com

"I would suggest running an editor's note (or your own "ad")
letting readers know that you happily encourage them to pass your
newsletters on to their friends, colleagues and co-workers, but
to be respectful of intellectual property rights and to pass it
on in its entirety. As another suggestion, why not add a line
about this when a person is subscribing. You could even add a
check box saying that they have read and will comply with this
statement, along with the check boxes for the different news
letters. I would use the check box/statement as a selling point
to advertisers."

Jenni Collins, Marketing Manager
http://www.erc.org


"I have one suggestion -- provide "email this to a friend" links
in the newsletter which would include the sponsor ads and
whatever else you want to keep intact.

I usually forward the whole email, but a lot of my friends just
delete it rather than looking for the topic I mention. There's a
lot of text there (I'm not complaining, believe me ;+), so I can
see why that woman would cut and paste. Links like that would
save everyone time and you money."

BJ


Thanks everybody! -- editor@contentbiz.com

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
CONTENTBIZ INFO
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