A couple of months ago I spoke with Dan Franklin, Digital Publisher at Random House. Here he gives an honest appraisal of the state of digital publishing and book retail.

Neil Ayres: Dan, to start off with, do you want to comment on what you think some of the most significant moves by authors (as brands) have been in digital, and whether you see any of these as transferable generally to other writers?

Dan Franklin: The obvious one is Pottermore.com, but I've always felt it's an exception that proves the rule and not as ground-breaking as some of the coverage has made it out to be (the DRM-free thing is partially a red herring if you're buying via a retailer). There's no doubt that the site taps into a rabid enthusiasm for the storyworld of Harry Potter and is executed well, and it's an example of an author creating a community around their digital presence. But, and it's a big but, as a publisher I see it standing on the shoulders of the work done by the teams at Bloomsbury that did so much to create that phenomenon, who are (for whatever reasons to do with them not being granted digital rights) excluded at this stage as if the site's initial success was not hugely dependent on the platform that the publisher had helped build for the author. But a web presence around an author brand, or a publishing brand like Harry Potter, is going to be hard to achieve for anyone but the bigger authors.

NA: Sure, but what's the alternative for less successful authors?

DF: I think audiences will be harnessed around genre (verticals), author clusters/gangs and publishing brands. Conversely, look at what Hugh Howey achieved initially self-publishing Wool, and what Ryan North has achieved on Kickstarter and you're starting to see authors who understand the internet, create huge amounts of goodwill, have talent, and reap the benefits.

NA: More power to them. How about fiction being used for commercial purposes (read: advertising and product marketing)? Do you think this is something that the explosion in tablets and ereaders makes more likely? The film and TV industry makes hard cash off of things like product placement and in-film advertising. Do you think that there's a space for publishersto look to do the same?

DF: This kind of collaboration has already happened. BMW commissioned authors to write short stories featuring the car brand, one of which was 'The Debt' by Simon Kernick, originally available as an audio download from the BMW site. BBC books published a digital short of a fake book featured in an episode of Doctor Who: The Angel's Kiss by Melody Malone. Look what's working now in the marketplace: huge story brands like Game Of Thrones and The Hunger Games, where there is an interplay between the published books and the TV/film series as it unfolds. How a viewer experiences the episodes is informed by their prior reading of the books, and their experience of the books vice-versa: this is far from a new thing, and film novelisations have been around for ages. It's really dependent on the author, and sites like smalldemons.com make that brand awareness much more readily available, and the cultural orientation of characters: Patrick Bateman's musical obsessions, or Rebus's taste in whisky…

NA: The BMW example is an interesting one, but it does strike me as a brand dipping its toe in the water. It'll be interesting to see what kind of impact Small Demons will have, but I do think there's the potential for something much bigger to happen. Anyway, moving on to one of your other areas of expertise, honestly, do you think 'enhanced ebooks' have any merits for a reader, and if so, what are they and can you give any examples of what you think works?

DF: Absolutely, I think the perceived failure of enhanced ebooks is less to do with the notion of them, and more to do with the nascent marketplace and some uninspiring examples. We've just created something for Alan Rusbridger (editor in chief of the Guardian) as a digital accompaniment to a book he's just published called Play It Again. The premise of that book is that in 2010 he decided to play the piano again and to try and master one of the most difficult pieces in the repertoire, Chopin's Ballade No.1. The subsequent months saw Wikileaks, phone hacking, Leveson, and really the most extraordinary period in modern journalism. All the time he's snatching 20 minutes a day to practice and the struggles with the piece are mimetic of the professional struggles he's going through but also respite from them. 

DF: We've produced an edited down version of his diary called Know The Score [screen crop shown above], a 10,000 word ebook built with Apple's iBooks Author software that contains a multi-touch score with expert commentary and most importantly the ability to tap fractures of the score and listen to the piece being played. If you're unfamiliar with it, it's incredibly *useful* and immersive and a handy accompaniment to the main book. We've thrown in a six-minute mini-documentary as well. It's niche, but points to a good example of using the tech to a reader's advantage. That's just one example.

NA: That answer more than qualifies. Thanks. Interesting – though unsurprising – how iBooks Author is changing things for publishers. There are a lot of developers out there who are being cut out of the loop by it.

DF: I'm not going to give any more e.g.s so that lacklustre competitors can read this for ideas! They can work it out themselves, or give up on it, which many have already done. With apps and enhanced ebooks I often compare the form to a baby learning to walk: just because it falls over doesn't mean it's a lost cause. Nurture the medium!

NA: And finally, that old chestnut: What do you see the future is for traditional print publishing, ebooks and the industry as a whole?

DF: I'm at Random House staring down the barrel of a merger (in a positive way) so the big players will consolidate in response, music industry-style; the independents will make noises about how they're a great innovative alternative as they should, but I'm dubious about for many reasons I won't get into here; so from a publisher's perspective I hope to see new kinds of digitally-focused, and very streamlined companies being formed from old hands and new heads - that's something to really look forward to; the high street is so fucked right now, I am very concerned about retail and therefore discovery; the physical book market will shrink and digital will struggle to compensate, but I personally think there's way too much being published and we could do with following the example of labels like XL records - 10 albums a year, and one of them is Adele! Print will survive of course, digital will continue to grow...I hope the merger achieves some other things but I can't say largely because I don't know how it will play out. Whatever happens, I'm going to keep sharpening my blade and doing my best to push things forward.

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