SharedBook: On Demand

A book by any other name ........

It occurred to me after a nostalgic trip though our past blog posts that there's one subject we've not yet touched on. Yes, we conduct our business on The Net behind the veil of our client brands. We're a fast moving, forward thinking technology company with a robust application framework that deals in all things content - just read the posts on this blog for a primer.

But in short, we build things. We manufacture books from the digital content of our clients and their online communities. Each book produced through our application framework is as unique as the customer placing the order. That's right, quantity of one, no two alike. 80% of our orders are manufactured in under 4 days, under go QA, and are packaged and shipped to their destination using one of several customer selectable shipping options we provide. When you think about it, it's a pretty incredible feat !

One of my responsibilities here at SharedBook is manufacturing and I can tell you our capabilities are at the forefront of the print on demand industry.

We produce a variety of book binds:

• Laminate case bound books which are not unlike your traditional hard cover college texts

• Suede, leather and cloth case bound books with or without die cut windows. You likely won't find these in the book store. These are a higher-end custom bound product suitable for display on the coffee table.

• Library cloth case bound books with dust jackets which bare some similarity to a hardcover novel you might pick up in Border's.

• Coil or what we call O-wire binds which are nothing new but are preferable in applications where the book pages are best read laying completely flat.

• And last but not least soft cover books which we call perfect bind.

All are available in four color, full bleed (that's color to the edge of the page) on a wide range of papers, substrates and trim sizes (the dimension of the book).

Just to sum this up, we're talking about a finely finished piece of bound printed matter.

We have a number of great new products queued up ... but at present I'm not talking !

Welcome to Allrecipes.com!

First we applied the Reverse Publishing concept to commemorative books with Legacy.com and social networking sites like CarePages.com. Then we added travel to the mix by employing our open API with our partner, Regent Seven Seas Cruises. Skeptics have questioned what other categories of content might be applicable and, while we think all content is relevant for Reverse Publishing, we clearly need to prove it, category by category.

Today, we are excited to announce SharedBook's first Reverse Publishing partnership in the food category, with Allrecipes.com. If you have ever tried to use your computer in the kitchen, you'll be able to appreciate the practicality and fun of having your personal and most used recipes in one place in a professionally printed cookbook. Allrecipes' 'Create-A'Cookbook' is a one-click way to self-publish cookbooks from your favorite online and personal recipes. But, like everything else at SharedBook, it doesn't stop there. As with all of SharedBook's products, users can choose to preview and purchase their books immediately or to personalize them further. They can edit the content, upload additional information and photos, and invite family and friends into their personal book making space. SharedBook and Allrecipes together allow the user to simulate the common act of tearsheeting recipes plus have the personalization and collaboration tools of Web 2.0 to be able to add additional content. We welcome Allrecipes to the SharedBook platform and look forward to a great partnership.

Marketing Myopia: Does the Song Remain the Same?

When I was studying Marketing in college (long before there was anything called the Internet and Personal Computers were something only the Jetsons had in TV land) we were assigned to research an area of marketing that was of interest, and prepare a paper on how it applied to today’s market. My project was on Marketing Myopia, based on a paper written by Theodore Levitt. This paper was published in the Harvard Business Review, a journal of which he was an editor. What’s amazing to me is that the paper was written in 1960, but it continues to apply to business today.

Basically the paper discusses how businesses are too restricted in their thinking and continuously miss opportunities by not “thinking out of the box.” Hence, why I also used the theme song from one of my favorite bands Led Zeppelin. I know I bring up the music business often in my posts. I just can’t think of another industry that could be so narrow in their thinking that by the time the Internet was adopted by over 50% of homes in the U.S., it was too late for them to adopt a new distribution strategy and fully recover. And that was almost 40 years after Levitt’s paper was published. Often I wonder how many corporate decision makers I will encounter that will fall into the same predicament.

Our charter in business development for SharedBook is to work with progressive companies that have a strong online presence with good content that can be utilized offline in book form. Our job is to convey how our software can monetize online assets that otherwise would lay dormant, as well as extend brands. The good news is that a lot of businesses understand the importance of adopting new Web 2.0 strategies. We have some terrific marketing partners here at SharedBook and I am sure there will be many more to come. However, as influential as Levitt’s work was, does the song remain the same? Stay tuned!

Thank You for a Job Well Done

I am a great believer in the power of good teamwork. Great people working well together is an unbeatable formula for achieving anything.

This week we had another good example of this. As Peter already mentioned last week in his post: The Holiday Stork Cometh?  we were just preparing to launch one of our newest features of expedited shipping. It turned out to be a rather complex project, involving all aspects of our application. This is where great team effort came into play …

And I would like to take the opportunity today, to thank this team. Naor who was the project leader, and navigated beautifully through all the obstacles in his way, exhibiting unique problem solving skills. Ilanit worked closely with him and showed great creativity with special attention to the finest details of the product. And Shirley who performed diligent QA on this feature, staying well into the night, to ensure as smooth a launch as possible.

Guys, thanks for a job well done!