E-Book, Englisch, 105 Seiten
ISBN: 978-84-944284-6-3
Verlag: Dosdoce
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Wasserzeichen (»Systemvoraussetzungen)
Dosdoce.com is a website dedicated to the analysis of new technologies in the book world. Since its launch in 2004, Dosdoce.com's aim has been to encourage publishers, booksellers, libraries, museums, foundations, etc. to incorporate all kinds of technology and to better understand the implications and benefits that using technology may have for their organizations.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Weitere Infos & Material
0. INTRODUCTION
TRANSVERSAL TENDENCIES THAT SHAPE BUSINESS MODELS
BEYOND SINGLE-UNIT SALES: NEW BUSINESS MODELS
1. DIGITAL BUSINESS MODELS
1.1. MICROPAYMENTS: FRAGMENTED CONTENT
1.2. PAY-PER-USE: STREAMING & PAY-PER-VIEW
1.3. SUBSCRIPTION
1.4. MEMBERSHIP
1.5. FREEMIUM/PREMIUM
1.6. EMBEDDED ADVERTISING
1.7. OPEN ACCESS
1.8. P2P-MOOCs
2. NEW MODELS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN EXPERIMENTATION AND RATIONALIZATION
2.1. PAY WHAT YOU WANT
2.2. BUNDLING
2.3. CROWDFUNDING
2.4. GAMIFICATION
2.5. DIRECT SELLING
2.6. SELF-PUBLISHING
2.7. LIBRARY eLENDING
TYPES OF LICENSES: PERMANENT, PERPETUAL ACCESS, SUBSCRIPTION, PAY WHAT YOU READ, ETC.
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERNATIONAL PLATFORMS
KEY POINTS TO CONSIDER WHEN STARTING AN eLENDING PROJECT
2.8. RIGHTS LICENSING PLATFORMS
3. THE CURRENT STATE OF eCOMMERCE AND THE EVOLUTION OF PAYMENT MODELS
3.1. FROM RETAIL TO eCOMMERCE
3.2. BIG DATA. THE KEY TO DIGITAL BUSINESS MODELS
3.3. FROM FREE TO DIVERSIFICATION: MOVING TOWARDS A BLENDED MODEL
3.4. DIGITAL EVOLUTION AND TRENDS IN LATIN AMERICA
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
4. CONCLUSIONS
2. New Models.
Somewhere Between Experimentation and Rationalization
2.1. Pay What You Want
The pay-what-you-want model continues to generate spirited debate in the cultural sector. For many industry professionals, this model is nothing more than a clever marketing strategy used to launch a certain cultural product, like what author Paulo Coelho did. Others, however, feel that it is truly a new model to keep in mind, one in which consumers become the driving force behind the monetary value of certain goods, something that OpenBooks.com knows about. Rooted in the law of supply and demand, the pay-what-you-want model, or PWYW, takes dynamic pricing policies to the extreme. In this model, customers can choose between paying the price suggested by the company or paying the minimum, which is often a symbolic amount. In some extreme cases, customers can even opt to pay nothing at all, though these are often just publicity stunts. An offline example in the United States comes from Panera Bread, a restaurant chain that let its customers pay what they wanted for each item on their menu. It should be noted, however, that this particular chain is a very active participant in hunger awareness campaigns and helps those in need. Panera Bread later decided to set a suggested price of $5.89. The PWYW model was first used in the music sector when, back in 2007, the band Radiohead decided to let its fans pay what they wanted for its new album In Rainbows, even if they did not want to pay anything at all. In the end, only about 38% of the band's fans decided to pay; the others chose to download the album for free. The average price paid in the United States was $8.05 per album, or $3.23 when the free downloads were factored in. In the publishing sector in 2007, Paste, a mostly music and culture magazine, offered its readers a year's subscription using the pay-what-you-want model in a two-week campaign. Having a deadline was crucial to motivate its fans to take the plunge and accept the magazine's reasonable offer to become new subscribers. Paste's efforts paid off, to the tune of $275,000 and 30,000 new subscribers, or roughly $9 per subscription. Many companies decided to advertise in the magazine because of the buzz created by the campaign, which also allowed Paste to raise its advertising rates. Another unique example of a platform that decided to give the PWYW model a try was Gumroad. Gumroad is an eCommerce platform on which authors can sell their works directly to readers at very low prices. One day, an author who had put his book up for sale for $3 but was not earning much money decided to sell it for whatever the users of the platform wanted to pay, from $0 to a little over $1. In a few weeks, sales increased dramatically and his book was selling for an average of $5 a copy, increasing his earnings by 60%. The shock effect, coupled with the stir it caused, actually encouraged people pay a fair price, at least in this case76. Much of the success of the abovementioned examples was due in large part to their marketing campaigns which gave the undecided a reason to buy. When the price barrier is removed, customers are compelled to spend what they consider to be a fair price, although for many sellers, this is only a way to attract attention and not a sustainable system in the long run. Online banking has also used the pay-what-you-want model. Confronted with the economic crisis, some ethical banks have come up with a number of initiatives to offer better and more reliable services than their conventional counterparts, which have now become the targets of angry clients after they learned of their practices. GoBank is perhaps the most prominent example of how to attract clients using the pay-what-you-want model. This bank lets its clients set their own monthly account service fee which can be anywhere from $0 to $9. GoBank is unique in that it was designed exclusively for mobile users. All of GoBank's features and services can be managed through mobile devices, including person-to-person transfers. Regardless of which bank the recipient of the transfer uses, the service is free. In their book Smart Pricing (2010), Raju and Zhang from Wharton School suggest several key criteria77 to consider when choosing to implement this apparently risky business model: ? Start with a product with a low marginal cost. ? Choose a reasonable target audience. One that is mature. One that has a certain level of income and money to spend, otherwise the minimum price or the free option will be chosen. ? Choose a product that can realistically be sold at a wide range of prices. ? Make sure there is a strong connection between buyer and seller. Consider brand loyalty, affinity, or emotional bonds. An extreme case of PWYW, or more correctly pay-what-you-CAN, comes from the performing arts. Debbie Wilson, a choreographer by trade, decided to present a working draft of her new show at the Winchester Street Theatre in Toronto78. Wilson hired dancers from a nearby dance academy and asked the audience to "pay what they could." In return, Wilson only asked them to bring their mobile phones with them so that during the show they could share their thoughts on the performance called The Eyes of Helios using the hashtag #helios. In addition to the added publicity this initiative brought the performance, it also allowed the choreographer to see how the audience's attention varied throughout the show. The model Wilson used was actually a mix between pay-what-you-want and a reward for audience involvement, which is now beginning to gain popularity on social media sites. Though closer to a marketing ploy than a clear-cut business (and revenue) model, Wilson's stunt is worth mentioning in this report because it is an example of what is an interesting trend to watch and one which may even make its way into similar initiatives in the future. Possibly one of the most relevant cases of PWYW in the publishing sector, apart from Gumroad's much less well-known eCommerce platform, was when Stephen King let his readers pay what they wanted for stories from his serial novel The Plant back in 2000. The author later revealed that the experiment earned him $463,832. Clearly, though, King is an author who has a great deal of followers with whom he has a certain connection, as has been confirmed by both sides. In June 2015, best-selling author Paulo Coelho allowed two of his books (one in Portuguese and another in English) to be downloaded on his blog. Readers could pay whatever they wanted if they liked what they read. According to his blog, Coelho wanted to show the publishing industry that PWYW could in fact be a viable model. Within this same sector, Onlylndie, a bookstore that specialized in new and independent authors, also wanted to experiment with the pay-what-you-want model. Every eBook it sold started out at 0€ a copy. Only after the first 15 downloads did the platform begin to charge for their eBooks. Little by little, cent by cent, the eBooks reached a fixed sales price that ranged between 2€ and 8€. Onlylndie has since closed its doors because, even though it had its own niche market and such attractive prices, it was unable to compete with the likes of Amazon. Much more recently, leedona, a Chilean platform that presents itself as a place where readers and writers from all over the world can share their works, read, and discuss their ideas, was created, leedona's primary function is to provide online self-publishing services for authors to publish their eBooks without having to pay any upfront costs. leedona offers its registered authors all of the tools and services necessary to digitally publish their works, whatever the content or genre may be, from novels to theses to essays and tutorials. Authors can upload as many of their works as they want in any kind of format and, once done, they can then convert them into other formats. It is quick and easy and, after authors have provided a few necessary details and decided on a cover image, leedona's publishers review the book and it is released online, ready to be downloaded. A tried and true system. However, the novelty of leedona's system, which no one else has imitated yet though there are similar systems out there, is in its direct donation-based business model. Readers cannot download a second book until they have donated the amount of their choice, from 1€ to whatever they want, to the author. The platform encourages readers to be as generous as they can in order to cover costs and not just donate the 1€ minimum. From the donations received, leedona keeps 30%, which it uses to defray expenses such as PayPal fees, taxes, and legal costs. Though perhaps the least known of the bunch, Istoria Books, an independent publisher of mystery stories, was actually the first to adopt this model. In fact, they were the ones that registered the slogan "pay what you want." Their readers can purchase eBooks for less than $5 a copy. Istoria Books pays its authors a flat rate for their short stories, instead of paying advances, and also takes care of the cover design, the ISBN, and promoting and distributing these authors' works on platforms like Amazon, Smashwords, etc. In 2015, Brooklyn Arts Press, an independent American publisher, decided to experiment with new alternative business models, namely the PWYW model. It started off with a book of poems written by Noah Eli Gordon. According to the...
