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A few words from the CEO...
Following the hugely successful week at the London Book fair, I would like to thank all our existing and “potential” clients for such an enjoyable three days. I thought the venue and Fair was upbeat, busy and the glorious weather - and glass roof - really contributed to the atmosphere. It was great to have the legendary Brian May in the stand next to us, it certainly helped footfall!
I was reminded just what a fantastic industry publishing was when my ‘misplaced’ iPad was dutifully returned to me by Olympia security on Friday morning, (following a frantic scramble on the Find My iPad app on iOS…) The combined forces of honesty and technology working hand in hand! Many thanks to the kind soul who returned my iPad.
Thank you to all and look forward to seeing you at some point in 2015.
Darin Brockman, Founder
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Firsty Commentary
Time to mobilise
The internet has gone mobile. Surging sales of smartphones and tablets means that browsing while on the move is part of everyday life now. But new changes to Google’s search engine algorithms mean that optimizing websites for mobile devices is about to become even more important.
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Google announced its changes to the way it compiles search results in late February, and put them into action two days ago: Tuesday 21 April. It doesn’t give too much away about the details of its algorithms, which in any case are mind-bogglingly complex for all but the most dedicated SEO experts and website developers. But the main implication is simple: searches that are made from mobile devices will soon prioritise websites that are optimized for their devices. Web pages that are badly suited to reading on mobile devices will find themselves dropped significantly further down the list of results.
It is welcome news for consumers, who are often frustrated by websites that are clunky or fiddly to use on their mobile devices, and who will now be much more likely to be pointed towards ones that suit their smartphone or tablet. And given the massive trend towards mobile browsing, Google’s changes are in some ways overdue. Worldwide, four in five internet users now own a smartphone, and nearly half have a tablet. People’s use of mobile devices on the internet increased by two thirds last year, and as much as 44% of ecommerce in the UK is now done from a mobile. So while desktops remain the most popular place for using the web, that will not be the case for very much longer.
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University of Ottawa Press signed agreement
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Firsty Group is delighted to announce the signing of a new website development agreement with the University of Ottawa Press, Canada's oldest French language university press and the only bilingual university press in North America.
The new site is scheduled for launch over the summer, and will enable UOP to directly sell its growing list of academic print and eBook titles, with journals added further down the line.
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Firsty News
New John Blake Books site goes live!
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With all the noise and hullabaloo surrounding the London Book Fair last week, you could be forgiven for missing the main event: the launch of the new John Blake Publishing website. This customer-facing site, showcasing the rich John Blake list - covering biographies to travel to sport - arrived at a screen near you last Tuesday: fully responsive, with a mix of print and eBooks, and wonderfully contemporary, with the main leader banner highlighting the recently published ‘Blair Inc’...
We’d wholeheartedly recommend navigating your way to the John Blake domain - whether on smartphone, tablet or desktop - and picking up the classic biography ‘Conchita’, in preparation for the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest.
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What others are saying...
Google’s 'mobilegeddon' will shake up search results
Having a site that is friendly to mobile browsers on smartphones and tablets will be key from Tuesday as Google rolls out a new mobile-focused algorithm.
The update to the way Google ranks search results will take into account how mobile-friendly a website is. This means companies without a good mobile website will suffer, as searchers on mobile will see sites with good mobile experiences ranked higher than those with no mobile or poor mobile sites. Read more
Frankfurt Book Fair Unveils New Opener: Digital Spotlight 2015
Through countless discussions, experiments, challenges, and conferences, the digital transition has been front and center in the publishing industry for over a decade now. And, through it all, the industry has found its way forward. We no longer ask whether to invest in digital infrastructure, create online products, or if our customers want digital services. The key questions today are, what are the next business opportunities, and where can we find them?
This is why the Frankfurt Book Fair will debut a new flagship event to kick off the 2015 gathering: The Markets: Global Publishing Summit. Read more
How to survive in a digital economy where everything is free – Tech Weekly podcast
In this interview originally published in 2013, Nicholas Lovell discusses the way in which agile businesses in this disruptive digital era can turn super fans into a sustainable income. Read more
More thinking about how author and publisher marketing collaboration should change
Because of our Logical Marketing work and our interest in author websites (admittedly just a corner of the author-marketing world, even if we think it is a cornerstone), I did a couple of recent posts, the basic thrust of which was that publishers needed to rethink marketing and the author interaction around it. Read more
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