Interview with Publisher's Weekly

I was interviewed for the PW Daily at LBF this week:

What has surprised you about the digital landscape in 2014? Can you give us an example of the kinds issues you see for publishers, looking forward?

Perhaps the thing that surprises me most is the we haven’t seen the erosion of foreign rights as quickly as I might have thought, given how digital distribution is no longer dependent on needing a local distribution node. I think that’s doubly odd, given the precipitous decline in physical retail options in places like Australia and New Zealand and to a similar extent in the U.K. and other English-language markets. Perhaps part of the reason is that print may be a little more resilient than we give it credit for.

I think one of the increasing concerns we work with is around reporting and how to interpret the vast amount of data that can be—and often is—collected through publishers’ platforms and their content. While we produce a raft of standard reports for our publishers, understanding and interpreting data is a significant gap in capability, and I think one of our added-value services could be to help publishers better understand and act on the information contained in these reports. There is also a lack of standardization across reporting formats and methodology that can make comparisons between sites and providers very difficult. Understanding these issues can make the marketing and sales staffs smarter about how they allocate resources, and I think we will see a lot more emphasis placed in these areas in the years to come.

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