What now for the paper tigers?

What does the Irish publishing industry hold for a new company hoping to make a name for itself in a sector that is undergoing the biggest challenges in its history?

IN AN episode of the cartoon Family Guy, the character Brian goes into a bar and tries to impress a young girl by telling her he’s just finished writing his first book. “Book,” she replies. “What’s that?”

“It’s like the internet, only made out of trees,” he tells her.

Online media may be good for tree lovers out there, but it has brought traditional publishing outlets to their knees. Anyone working in the industry will tell you things have changed dramatically in the past decade. The move to online and digital content has affected communications globally.

And while those under 25 can probably still identify a book, the online age has affected traditional publishing as much as it has the music and film industry.

“The consequences of the migration of content from traditional publications to online and social media are twofold: fragmentation of the mainstream media’s audience and the erosion of revenue streams,” says Patrick Kinsella of Dublin City University’s School of Communications.

“In other words, online advertising and more recently social media are eroding both the audience and the revenue possibilities for the mainstream media. The collapse of advertising revenues is also problematic, but presumably it is short-term and cyclical.”

So why would any self-respecting start-up want to get into it now?

Increasingly social media is how we get information of every sort, from news journalism to brand messages, says Hugh Linehan, online editor with The Irish Times. “Companies in every sector now know that their online presence is as important, if not more so, than their offline. But it’s a strange one. Social media is something that everybody knows is important, but they have trouble figuring out how it is important for them.

“All social media is necessary now and yet you still see people handing over business cards with a fax number on them and no Facebook address. When was the last time you sent or received a fax? Months if not years ago – and yet a lot of potential clients are on Facebook every single day.”

At the same time, Linehan is quick to warn against engaging in social media for the sake of it. “People and companies foolishly fill their own knowledge gap by pouring money into hiring media analysts and experts,” he says.

“Some people may be slow to catch up with the new reality, but there’s no point setting up a Twitter account without being clear about what you’re going to do with it,” he says. “You’ll need to commit well-needed resources to maintaining any social media.”

New companies offering expertise in social media will have some success in the short term assisting older companies trying to catch up. But there are more openings in online publishing than simply taking advantage of old fogies who want to keep with the times.

“The new landscape creates huge opportunities,” says Kinsella. “In any era when things are changing so fast, there are problems but also huge opportunities.”

Nowhere has this brave new world been better demonstrated than in news reporting. “The possibilities for journalism – to do things in new, interesting and socially valuable ways – are limitless,” says Linehan.

“We can now assimilate and impart data more efficiently, understand society better and break down barriers with our audience who can now participate in debate and shape the dissemination of news.”

In terms of the bottom line, the digital age also poses plenty of scope. “You can target ads much more easily online, for example in the way information can be captured by Google about a person and then appropriate ads that are likely to interest you are planted on your desktop,” says Kinsella. “Or Amazon, who know what books you like to buy, can tailor its advertisements towards you the next time you visit their site.

“A problem is emerging with this though. Despite online advertising generating revenue, most of that money is being hoovered up by global players. If you want to engage in online marketing or advertising, you’re going to advertise with Facebook or Google. This is a big problem: advertising spending online is growing. But it’s not benefiting Irish operators.”

There are also several anomalies in the advertising business, he adds. “For example, the sports pages of a newspaper are very popular, but rarely do you see any advertising on them. So there’s a big audience for sport but people don’t want to advertise on those pages.”

American businesses have never been afraid of wading into controversial societal issues if they feel it can help their brands

MAKING A CONNECTION: ‘THANKS TO TWITTER, EVERYONE IS IN PUBLISHING BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN THEY KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING’

Content Kings has set up shop at a time when global communications and publishing are changing dramatically. But if the company can do some housekeeping, the clients will keep coming.

Content Kings helps organisations to connect with their markets through “unique, high-quality content that engages an online audience”. It is a communications and marketing start-up that focuses primarily on the client’s online content. This includes search engine optimisation, web design, social media management, training and offline communications.

Before setting up the business in 2010, directors Brian O’Neill, Gavin Linehan and Derek Owens had all worked in the Irish publishing industry in various capacities: journalism, sales and business development. They crossed paths on a number of occasions through working for Ashville Media Group in Dublin.

“We had begun to realise that a lot of client copy was sub-standard and that many print publishers weren’t embracing digital formats fast enough for their publications,” says O’Neill. “Our focus is more on business clients rather than magazines, but our main aim is to get people to understand the importance of what they say and how they present themselves. Thanks to Twitter, social networking and blogs, everyone is in publishing but that doesn’t necessarily mean they know what they’re doing. Content Kings want to establish some parameters.”

The company is busy. “We have plenty of work to do,” says O’Neill. “We’ve got a lot of stuff on retainer that will see us till the end of the year. We’ve grown quickly in the last six months.”

The team has put in pitches for three major contracts over the summer. If even one of them is successful, they will be in a very good place. But success can bring its own set of problems, as their mentor, marketing expert Declan Bourke, points out. “They need to get a handle on their revenue stream, accounts, labour time etc,” says Burke. “They’re very busy, which is great, but they need to be clear on where their best profit margins are. This is common among start-ups. The normal day-to-day business and servicing of clients is always put ahead of getting your own shop in order. Having limited resources makes it that bit more difficult.”

The company has got a new software programme to help them with the housekeeping. “We experimented with a few software packages to organise our customer relationship management, finances, projections and profit and loss,” says O’Neill. “Now we’re inputting the data we collected over the past two years and looking at every aspect of the business and every client. We always knew we should be doing this, but it was just a question of finding the time.”

They started assessing the books at the beginning of this month and expect to sit down with Burke next month to get a clearer picture of the company’s success thus far. “For the first time, they’ll be able to look at particular revenue streams and assess their value based on the labour hours that have gone in,” says Burke. “It’s very basic stuff, but will give them a visibility they previously were without.”

One other, more difficult, area that Burke has been discussing with the company is what exactly it is they hope for Content Kings in the long run.

As it stands, the company is only as good as its members. So selling it on would not be an option unless their brand were to become established. In addition to this, one must also assess the requirement of each member. Wages are the highest cost in most businesses, so the last thing you want in a small business is someone surplus to requirements squeezing out cash from the system in wages without generating as much if not more in return.

“All companies, when they are starting out, should know what it is they want to become,” says Burke. “Content Kings must decide if theirs is a lifestyle business, where they can simply pay themselves good salaries or something bigger, because without the three directors, there is no business.”