Chris Webb Executive Editor, Wiley Publishing and Wrox asked a couple intriguing questions this morning:

Should book publishers be involved in social media, or just concentrate on publishing books?

More intriguing because of where he asked the question: Twitter. Now don’t sigh, some decent questions and conversations do appear there from time to time. Being among his group of 280 friends/followers prompted me to write: “@chriswebb aren’t you doing that here and now? Maybe you should be telling us why you should be engaged in social media? Not asking “if.”

Chris repilied:

@TDavid here @chriswebb is just me - Chris Webb, Editor. I’m thinking of ways to get my huge 200 year-old company more involved gobally.

And then his follow-up response to his own question (emphasis mine):

Thanks for the responses. Let me try asking it slightly differently. How should book publishers be engaged in social media?

I try to avoid marketing buzzwords, so I’ll forgive Chris for using the slippery term “social media.” People love to buy, but don’t like to be sold. If only every salesperson would understand that, they’d move a lot more product.

Let’s peel back the onion and look at what I think Chris really wants to know: how can book publishers stay relevant? If Chris doesn’t want to know this answer, his “200 year-old company” probably does. Book publishers want to sell more books, period. Authors want to have a publisher that helps promote the book and becomes a partner of sorts. Readers want books which scratch an itch (entertainment) or solve a need (how-to, reference, self-help, etc.)

In this day where anybody can publish a book on Lulu and other services veteran publishers need to focus on their weaknesses and accentuate their strengths. Here are some ideas how book publishers can stay relevant:

1. More interactive, wired and wireless editors. Get them involved like Chris is doing. The fact that he has his own blog (ckwebb.com) and is working Twitter shows he is at least trying to be plugged in. For the venerable editors who stubbornly refuse to get connected? Encourage them to focus more on the details of the book process and get more web-savvy and friendly editors to be the conduit to the web. A good publishing house needs highly skilled editors, and the longer somebody does something they will have skills that newer less experienced editors don’t have, so don’t try to push for a younger, more trendy crowd of editors. Instead, try to analyze and focus how your talent pool is used and add where necessary.

Now what could editors like Chris do to help show the company the value of being more connected? What books are currently being edited? Where is the inside juice on books with authors? How about podcasts by each editor with the author during the publishing process?

2. Promote and reward reader interaction. Look at what Hollywood does with movies. We’ve been hearing about Iron Man for ages. Books need a similar promotional path that uses the web and current technologies. O’Reilly had a good idea with Rough Cuts but they charged instead of discounted people for getting involved. Big mistake. You want promotions that reward not punish interaction and effort from others.

3. Start opening up the publishing process as early as possible, share early pieces of early drafts and have some open dialog. Have countdown widgets (cross OS and especially new devices like Chumby) made for the book launch date or key intervals in a project. Allow those interested to have input and interaction during the process of publishing the book and give them something that they can’t receive by simply buying the book once published. Go reality book publishing style. That means some of the projects will fail. I remember a message from Chris that one of the books they were working on got canceled. Stories are there for publishers brave enough to share them.

4. Sell ebooks in open format. If ebooks are to succeed it will be because they are open and easy to share as physical books. Treating customers like thieves has never been a successful business strategy, just ask the RIAA. Instead, publishers should spend their energy and promotion on providing as many different ways for people to read the books and in formats that they like.

The signpost ahead: courage this way
There is a real danger that the music publishers are facing now because they didn’t realize what music fans wanted soon enough. Book readers have their own set of desires and needs. Fulfill them.

I would offer one final piece of advice to book publishers: don’t be afraid to experiment and fail. Traditional book publishers tend to be extremely conservative and some or maybe even all the ideas I mentioned above might sound radical. How will you ever know if something works if you don’t try?

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