Everyone knows the big challenge of the digital world: how do you get financial return on your content, when your content goes digital, and on the web – and often for free, whether you want it free or not. That head-teaser will continue to puzzle us all.
Jeremy Ettinghausen at Penguin UK floats a trial balloon:
And as the debate about the value and price of digital content rages on, I’m testing out a new mantra on my suspicious colleagues; services not content. The idea, ill-formed as it is in my head, is that while we might continue find it a challenge to get consumers to pay for digital content, we might be able to use our skills, expertise and experience to create services that people will pay for. Services are what we do for writers, so perhaps there might be services we can create for readers. (note – I’m not the only person thinking along these lines – it’s worth having a look at Bookseer and Bkkeeper, both from James Bridle and HarperCollins’ BookArmy initiative).
Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and so I’m happy to be launching our first ’service’ – a suite of storymaking tools for children. At We Make Stories children (of all ages, though the site is aimed at 6-11 year olds) can create, print and share a variety of story forms. They can make pop-up stories, customise audiobooks, design their own comics, produce exciting treasure maps and develop a variety of entertaining adventures. [more...]
And check out We Make Stories (for children).
