First, examine the marketing strategy of Blurb



: A Revolution in Publishing

Marketing 6525

Prof. Detlev Zwick

February 13, 2007

Rafal Mendyk 207054489

Chris Boerboom 207608953

Introduction

(‘Blurb’) is a site where anyone can become an author and have their book published. According to Blurb’s own description, it offers a “creative publishing service simple and smart enough to make anyone an author – every blogger, cook, photographer, parent, traveler, poet, pet owner, marketer, everyone” (Blurb – About Blurb).

Blurb has developed software called BookSmart which can be downloaded for free (a personal account has be set up with Blurb first, which is also free) and used to create a book which the company will then publish in either in soft or hard copy format. The company’s pricing and shipping information is posted on its website and it charges based on the number of pages and the format type. The more pages the book has the more expensive it is to publish and also hard copy books are more expensive than soft copies. There are also discounts for bulk orders, the more copies are ordered the cheaper the cost per book becomes. Blurb will then ship the books to the member via UPS anywhere in North America and to many countries world wide (the shipping coverage is constantly expanding).

Blurb also offers its members who have published a book the option of selling it online through its own bookstore. The member can sell the book for any price; if it’s higher than the cost of publishing then the member keeps all the profits (i.e. Blurb does not take a cut or make any profits from its bookstore).

The company creates a sense of community for its members by hosting the Blurberati Blog where authors, members and the Blurb staff can share experiences, ideas and exchange views on anything related to books.

The Publishing Industry: Overview

The publishing industry can be divided into three general segments: full service (traditional) publishing, vanity publishing and on-demand-publishing. Full service publishers offer services such as editorial guidance, editing, design, production, distribution and marketing. In order to get published by a full service publisher, an author has to send in a manuscript and the publisher must be interested enough and willing to publish it. The publisher then bears the cost of editing, designing, producing, distributing and marketing the book but also collects most of the profits. The author gets royalties in the form of a percentage of sales. This traditional form of publishing has advantages and disadvantages for the author. The main advantage is that the author does not have to bear the upfront cost of taking the book from manuscript stage to getting it on the bookstore shelves. The problem is that the publishers are very picky as to which books they decide to publish, and therefore some authors might have a very difficult time getting “picked-up” by the full service publishers.

Vanity press or vanity publisher, according to Wikipedia’s definition, is “a book printer which, while claiming to be a publisher, charges writers a fee in return for publishing their books or otherwise makes most of its money from the author rather than from the public….In its very simplest terms, while a commercial publisher's intended market is the general public, a vanity publisher's intended market are the authors themselves.” (Wikipedia – Vanity Press). Vanity presses do offer more independence for the author than the mainstream publishers; however, their fees are often higher than those normally charged for similar printing services, and sometimes restrictive contracts are required. Because vanity presses are not as selective, publication by a vanity press is typically not seen as conferring the same recognition or prestige as commercial publication.

The print-on-demand (or on-demand-publishing) publishing includes Blurb and its competitors discussed in this paper.

Marketing Strategy

Blurb’s current marketing strategy is directed towards the average Joe, not to professional writers. "Most of the Blurb users will never write a manuscript. They have stuff, pictures, recipes, stories, something they would like to compile into a book that looks beautiful," said Eileen Gittins, chief executive of Blurb. "We are democratizing publishing for every man." (). In addition to recipe books, vacation and wedding photos are popular book themes among Blurb users. These types of users are deliberately targeted by Blurb via the features of the BookSmart software, through the Blurberati Blog and with the help of word-of-mouth. As a result, people are using Blurb to create things like promotional brochures and other marketing materials. And family histories are huge. Although Blurb’s offering aims to appeal to anyone searching for a publisher, including book authors, its marketing strategy is aimed at anyone who needs a professional-looking book, from architects with plans to present to clients, to travelers looking to immortalize a trip.

Competitors

There are a number of competitors in the print-on-demand market. Most of them offer generally similar products and services but they also differ in certain key ways from one another.

In the U.S., is one of the better known self-publishing sites. Lulu offers similar services/products to Blurb’s, like it allows people to publish books, print on demand and set their own price. However, unlike Blurb, Lulu takes a commission on books sold. In addition, Lulu offers distribution services that make published books available for sale globally. This will allow authors to sell their book at their local bookstores or through online retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Another main difference, as described in the New York Times article by Peter Wayner, is that “Lulu works from a PDF file, an approach that forces users to rely on basic word processors or professional design packages. If this is too complex, Lulu offers a marketplace where book designers offer their services. Lulu does offer a special cover design package that will create a book’s cover from an image and handle the specialized calculations that compute the size of the spine from the number of pages and the weight of the paper.” ().

Another popular print-on-demand site is . Xlibris is more of a traditional publisher in that it charges a fee, pays royalties and provides copyediting and marketing services. The author provides Xlibris with a manuscript and the company helps to format it and to design the cover. This publisher, similarly to Lulu, also charges royalties and offers to sell the book through and .

There are many more print-on-demand publishers that offer online book publishing services in the US, – specializing in art books, , and to name a few. In Canada, there is , targeting more traditional books like poetry, novels and memoirs. Trafford offers an extensive book distribution network through its alliances with Amazon/BookSurge, Ingram/Lightning Source and Libri/BoD. Other Canadian self-publishers include , selfpublishing.ca/ and firstchoicebooks.ca.

Blurb’s Competitive Advantages

BookSmart software

It appears that Blurb has been able to find a niche in the print-on-demand market that none of its competitors have been able to exploit successfully. Blurb has recognized the value in targeting the average person who wants to publish some sort of a personal collection of “stuff”, be that stories, recipes or pictures. In doing so, the company has developed the BookSmart software, with specific templates, that is designed for use by an inexperienced user. There are templates that give the user a “Jumpstart” on their book design like Cookbook, Photo Book and Blog Book. There are FreeStyle templates:Portfolio and Text and Pictures. And there are Readymade templates comprise Dog Book, Cat Book and Baby Book (Appendix A).

BookSmart is most likely Blurb’s biggest competitive advantage over its rivals. No other online print-on-demand competitor offers anything as simple and easy to use. Peter Wayner of New York Times describes BookSmart as software which “enables people without design experience to easily lay out the pages, choose background colors and fonts and edit photos. The design templates were created by book design experts.” (). Most of the bloggers agree, “By far the most impressive element of their offering is their technology. The Booksmart system for creating a book is so deceptively simple. And they have upgraded this piece of software. I would heartily encourage people to download and play with this little Gizmo.” ().

Fast service/turnaround time

Blurb, with the help of its BookSmart software, is able to achieve very fast turnaround times. If someone needed to put together a book intended as a gift, for example, they could do so in a few hours and Blurb would print it and ship it within days. Customers have been amazed that often the turnaround times is less than one week. One customer enthused that she uploaded her book on Sunday, Blurb shipped it out on Wednesday and she got it on Thursday, ready for a birthday party on Saturday.

No commissions

The company gives its customers the ability to set their own price for their books and sell them through the Blurb bookstore. Blurb handles all shipping and sales transactions and each month sends all profits on the book to the creator (see Appendix B for pricing and shipping details). Blurb charges no commissions on book sales, unlike virtually all of its print-on-demand rivals. In traditional publishing, writers receive only a fraction of the profit. If one were to go the vanity press route, one would need to make a large up-front outlay of cash.

Inviting the customer to participate in “the Blurb” experience

Part of the appeal of becoming a member of Blurb is that the company has created a unique sense of community via the Blurberati Blog. Members can exchange views and experiences with each other and interact with the Blurberati staff (the Blurb staff responsible for the blog). This brings customers closer to the company, which likely increases customer loyalty and repeat business. Blurb also finds new ways to promote the company with the help of its members. The company recently announced a program where they will “give you 15% of revenue on sales of books created by customers referred from your Web site or blog. Make money from your referred authors’ book sales, forever. Well, for as long as you’re an affiliate, at least.” ().

The Bookstore is also a place that adds to the community feel of the site. It shows a featured book as well as most recently published books on the first page and it can be browsed by categories.

Marketing for the Entrepreneur

Blurb’s strategic position is currently aimed at non-entrepreneurs, and by ‘entrepreneurs’ we mean professional authors. The average person who wants to publish a book with some family stories or a picture book from the last vacation is not an entrepreneur but is using Blurb as an enabler to replace the old photo album. These users are not usually interested in marketing their product because they usually order enough books to give away or sell to those that have already expressed interest in their work, although they have to option to market their books through the Bookstore.

However, the simplicity and the niche application of BookSmart is attracting the attention of entrepreneurs in various categories other than book writing per se, like photography, cooking or instructional books. These entrepreneurs use Blurb to publish things that they need for their business. For example, if one has a travel business, one could publish very professional travel brochures or architects could publish construction plans. In other words, Blurb is being used as a business tool much like third party software, which helps the entrepreneur market their business to their customers.

Despite the fact that Blurb is not targeting authors of novels, fiction and non-fiction, its product and service can be used effectively to publish such works. The only problem for the authors would the limited distribution and marketing opportunity via the bookstore. However if an author could arrange some kind of a wider distribution network, he/she could still publish their book with Blurb. We think that the company will eventually become more appealing to aspiring authors in the future by becoming more and more popular and possibly by adding more distribution options.

As mentioned earlier, Blurb, through the community it created via the online bookstore and , also provides an opportunity for authors to not only promote and sell their books but to communicate, collaborate and exchange ideas. This helps to create “the buzz” and fuels the word-of-mouth.

So, what role does Blurb play for the individual author as entrepreneur in terms of marketing? Marketing is the creation, promotion and delivery of a good or service to consumers (Kotler, Marketing Management), with the traditional parameters being product, place, price and promotion. The big differentiator that Blurb has over traditional publishers, vanity press or indeed, its print-on-demand rivals, is in the creation of the product.

1. Product – Blurb provides authors with control over the design and content of their product that is far greater than traditional commercial publishers and somewhat greater than vanity publishers. The simplicity of use of BookSmart, the selection of many popular niche book templates and the resulting quality of the final product is what sets Blurb apart from competition.

2. Place – Blurb also provides a virtual space for connecting with likeminded individuals (both staff and other authors) to exchange ideas and promote their work via the Blurberati Blog, as well as the online bookstore on which they can sell their product. This is, in fact, more than either vanity publishers or commercial publishers provide in terms of direct channel sales. Commercial publishers will provide promotional support to get a book into channels such as book stores and other retailers, but they are usually not responsible for the actual distribution.

3. Price – Because the company does not collect royalties or commissions on books sold through its bookstore, unlike any of its rivals (that we researched), this distribution channel differentiates the company in terms of the potential profits that the entrepreneur can make (i.e. it’s cheaper to sell through Blurb than other websites because the company does not take a cut from the earnings). Blurb provides the enabling software for free, only charging for the production costs once the author decides to print. Print on demand allows the author to completely control costs by only printing what is needed or what has sold.

4. Promotion – this is the area where commercial publishers can exert more power in the traditional distribution channels. Most large scale distributors – such as major bookstores and libraries – want a product that has been published by respectable, known publishers. While Blurb does have the online capacity to self-promote, it is limited to users of Blurb.

Value Creation, Consumption and Branding

There are a number of ways that Blurb has changed the way value is created in the publishing business. Blurb is like many other enabler websites in that it has used technology to disintermediate its industry, much the same way that has changed the travel agency industry. But it has also served to introduce a whole other segment of the market to ‘publishing’ that would not have thought of producing the product in this way. Blurb is essentially serving several different markets – those who want to publish a small quantity of books for themselves, friends or family; those who want to publish niche books and sell them to a target market; and those who use it as a service (such as an advertising agency) by publishing books and brochures more effectively and efficiently to promote their own business. So, Blurb is creating value for a number of different consumer groups with differing needs:

1. For the friends and family category, Blurb is creating value by providing an enhanced product to people that would have previously created photo albums, blogs or diaries manually. For them, this is an entirely new way of doing things.

2. For the entrepreneurial author, Blurb creates value by providing a more cost effective and faster publishing, particularly for those who perhaps had a product that was far too niche to warrant the cost of vanity publishing or could not afford the up front cost. In addition, it is giving the customer full control over design, content, the desired quantity and cost. It is taking full advantage of the long tail by allowing individuals to produce small quantities of niche products at a low cost.

3. For those who use it as a ‘business’ service, Blurb is similar to the first category in that it is creating value by enabling groups to ‘insource’ services that they would have previously outsourced or not done at all. Examples include brochures or books promoting a business, group or upcoming event. This would be similar to other enabling software such as Tax software for small businesses versus outsourcing to accountants.

Blurb is also joining the ranks of and in providing a forum for the creation of individualized and customized products. They, like Blurb, are products that satisfy the needs of niche markets, yet appeal to the masses. It is building on the idea that the customer can actually help to fully create the end product and share it instantly with millions of people.

With Blurb, branding of the individual author is much more difficult and relies on peer reviews and word of mouth. Authors using Blurb to self-publish a book with the intention of gaining mass distribution will have a much more difficult time than those who use commercial publishers that will put resources into promotion. However, for those using the service as tool to build a different business (such as a small business creating a brochure rather than the entrepreneur as an author) the service can be of substantial benefit in terms of providing a consistent and professional looking brand image.

Conclusion

Would we invest in this company? Blurb has put in a great deal of effort to build a product/service targeted at the ‘average Joe’ that has several competitive advantages. The company has a very experienced management team comprising members with backgrounds in various types of business including publishing, technology and finance. It’s strategy to go after the average Joe seems to be paying off; Blurb has been growing very fast since it started. “The idea is spreading fast through word of mouth. Blurb is growing at 40 percent week over week in terms of units and revenue”, according to Gittins, Blubr’s CEO and founder (). That said, in order to sustain the competitive advantage and grow the business, it must consider avenues for growth, such as:

• Enable and encourage mass collaboration on books, allowing people around the world to collaborate on projects. Blurb is expanding its software to let a community build a book. Soon, it plans to introduce a tool that would allow group projects, like a Junior League recipe book, to be created through Blurb’s Web site. The project leader would send out an e-mail message inviting people to visit the site and add their contributions to customized templates, which would then be converted into book pages. “Books are breaking wide open,” Ms. Gittins said. “Books are becoming vehicles that aren’t static things.” ()

• Establish access to a larger distribution channel such as or . At this time, some of Blurb’s competitors are better at this, but if they can build up enough critical mass they will be better able to enter into distribution agreements with these large online distributors.

• Offer peer and/or professional reviewing and copyediting services to move upstream and attract professional writers and compete with vanity publishers or commercial publishers. Peer reviewing (similar to peer reviews on websites for other mediums such as ) would provide word of mouth promotion and force authors to focus their attention on quality of the product, if they want their book to be promoted. This could also become some sort of ‘author’ rating system similar to eBay. A copyediting service (similar to that offered by ) could be either internally provided by Blurb or outsourced to a common and reputable company that specializes in editing.

We would invest in this company based on the unique competitive advantages and early success it has had in the short time it has been in operation. This would be based on the assumptions that their financial position is solid and would allow for the type of growth discussed about.

In essence, “Blurb is an outgrowth of the open-source movement and the related trend of "life caching," or using digital technology to capture passing ideas, events, and memories” (). In this respect, Blurb has caught on to the power of the individual as a creator of their own customized product, and with the right growth strategy could be able to set the standard in a new era of print publishing.

References



















Kotler, Philip and Cunningham, Peggy. Marketing Management. Pearson, Prentice Hall, Toronto, 2004. p. 5



Appendix A: A Blurb book template

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Appendix B: Pricing and shipping

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