The iPad marks the emergence of a new business model for Publishing Houses, are you ready to use this opportunity to move into the digital age?

iPad is likely to be a great medium for publishing houses, who have drastically been hit with fast falling revenues (in reference to the year 2009). Newspapers have seen significant decline in print advertising revenues, online versions did not provide many options to monetize. However iPad and mobile apps may have slated to change all these.

Why iPad and Mobile Platforms for Publishing Companies?

 Why choose iPad and Mobile platforms instead of Web, the major problem with digital content on the web are that people expect it to be free. As this is one of the greatest strengths of the web, while free is great for consumers and the World, it does not create any revenue for publishers.

The iPad provides an opportunity to change all that. We’ve already become accustomed to paying for iPhone applications, it seems natural to pay for iPad magazines, books, and news papers provided the experience is significantly better than the dead-tree versions.

Several hundred thousand iPads have been pre-ordered. Analysts expect Apple to sell around 5 million units in 2010. A survey executed by the analysts of comScore indicated that 34 percent of iPad buyers will use it to read newspapers and magazines. 68% of young consumers indicated a willingness to pay for news and magazines specially formatted for e-readers.

The US Audit Bureau of Circulations already revised the definition of digital magazines. Publishers may now report items as E-reader distribution averages, mobile app purchases, etc. in order to reflect the new audience.

The article quoted Chris Anderson of Wired at TED 2010 stating that the iPad “[is] an opportunity to reset the economics,” of digital publishing. “For the first time, people may value this experience so much they’ll pay for it.”

Many Companies adapting to the World of Mobile and iPad World:

Many prominent Publishing houses like McGraw Hill, Houghton Mifflin, Kaplan, USA Today, New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BBC News, the Associated Press, Time magazine and many more are looking at iPad apps as a very strategic initiative on a subscription mode. USA Today has been downloaded 175,000.

Statistical details on the applications being downloaded on the “Apple iTunes store” –source O’Reilly Research

We could see from the figure one that 30% of downloads are from the books and rest applications comprise to 70%, as many publishing companies have started publishing multiple titles on the emergence of the iPad.

In reference to the fig 2: Application Downloads

Obviously, a game developer won’t be able to churn out new applications at the same rate as an eBook publisher. Game developers have, on average, 2.3 apps in the store (looking at data from the last week), while a typical eBook vendor is selling almost 18 apps right now.

Books are also currently the fastest growing category in the App Store (285% in the last three months), mostly because vendors can simply pack different texts into separate applications. Compared to other categories, productivity apps are only growing slowly, though the number of apps in this category still grew 58% over the last 12 weeks.

Statistics on the Downloads

Books Applications Approximately 35,000
New Applications Approximately 40 new books daily

Different kinds of eBook application on iPad and iPhone

iPad around 30,000 applications
iPhone around 5,000 applications

Average prices in Top-100 under the category “Books”:

Within all top-100 app $ 2.61
Top 1 to 10 app $ 1.89
Top 51 to 100 app $ 2.69

Distribution of prices in Top-100 under the category “Books”:

Minimum Price $ 0.99
Maximum Price $ 14.99

Portfolio characteristics of the most successful publishers from Top-100 “Books”:

Fig 3: Content uniqueness:


Fig 4: By content

  • Portfolio of the average successful publisher from Top-100(“Books”) has approximately 60 applications.
  • Moreover, there’s one publisher holding 25% of all content of the section “Books”.

Effective models for selling the books:

  • Free Application with free books and In App purchase of books
  • Portfolio of books with SEO of high quality both in iTunes and through search engines (Google etc)

Conclusion:

  • Publishing companies should work on releasing interactive books which started promptly developing last month, especially in light of iPad release (even though the cost for producing such books is much higher as compared with normal books);
  • The segment of medical books has some perspectives (most probably it is also related to iPad release, which allows to operate easier with the graphics etc) and making the students or the readers to have a very good usability.
  • Interactive books for children and comics, which is one of the most stable and quick-growing segments.

Why Techjini?

  • More than 25 iPhone applications in the Apple-app store.
  • Global Consulting Company: We apply innovation into every aspect of application development, be it Project management or Lifecycle Management.
  • Individual and personalized focus on each client of ours.
  • Competitive pricing  for iPad application development services
  • Professional support and maintenance for iPad projects.

For more details or a free quote kindly contact shiv@techjini.com