Use of the World Wide Web
by Merlyn Holmes
The February dinner meeting, "Use of the World Wide Web by Publishers," had all but one of the hallmarks of a good event. There was a
sizable turnout, a leisurely dinner in a pleasant atmosphere, decent food, and a friendly, entertaining speaker. The one thing lacking?
A presentation that fully addressed the issues we had come to learn about. "How are books successfully published on the Web?" was the teaser
on the flier that enticed me but was the topic least attended to during the course of the evening. The speaker, Stephen Herold, is the founder of
Books AtoZ, a World Wide Web publishing resource site that now hosts our Bookbuilders West Web site
(http://www.booksatoz.com/ bbwest.htm). Oddly, the Bookbuilders site development was never mentioned nor were most of the other
publishing sites that may have had substantial content or at least may have demonstrated how the Web is currently being used by publishers.
The focus of the lecture, instead, was primarily on the role Web production service companies (like Books AtoZ) could play in developing
Web sites for us publishers. And, Herold emphasized, as so many others are saying, it is a question of "when" and "how" we will get on line, not
"if." For a reasonable fee (of about $2,000) or an unreasonable fee if we're snookered (of up to $15,000 or $20,000, or even $400,000 in one
example cited), a production service (like Books AtoZ) can create a six- or seven-page cluster on the Web within four to five months.
Maintenance of the site can involve as little as five or six hours per week to keep it dynamic and, thus, attract users and cost about $100 per
month, with a twelve-month contract (with companies like Books AtoZ).
As for what should be the content of these sites, three other questions from the Bookbuilders flier were collapsed into a one-word answer.
"How is the Web used in business today? How does the Web relate to publishers and their respective suppliers? What marketing opportunities
are offered by the Web?" And the answer is, apparently, "Marketing." "The Web can open up areas that weren't available before," Herold said.
"It is good at projecting the self to an immense audience.... It's good at making contact and establishing a dialogue."
With 98 percent of the Web users having college degrees, and 100 percent of them being smart enough and wealthy enough to run and/or own
a computer, it may be that the Web offers a good marketing avenue for many publishers, one that can supplement their current efforts. Herold
highly recommends cross-pollinating the marketing materials, to be sure and include the Web site address on every piece of literature, and to
integrate the Web site with the rest of the marketing goals and strategies.
Herold's advice all seemed very well and good, but I left that February dinner meeting with a gnawing sense of uneasiness and a growing
number of questions. I had just experienced a pleasant evening on a subject I am keenly interested in and had come away pretty much with
reassurances that all is well in the state of Denmark, that we only need send a few marketing troops into this campaign. Somehow I suspect that
this is not all there is to it. The Internet offers a fairly profound communications tool and opens up the realm of individualized and interactive
publishing, areas that traditional book publishing has only touched on now and again. Now I wonder not only "How are books successfully
published on the Web?" but "Can they be?" and "What form will they take?"
Table of Contents: May/June Newsletter
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Last modified: 9/26/96