Opportunities for Publishers in Second Life

Publishers are clearly struggling to find some meaning in the popularity of Second Life. Does this virtual world contain real marketing potential for publishers? Some publishers have decided that it does. Random House and Penguin has followed Starbucks and Toyota (among other well known corporations) and are spending the money to build and maintain spaces in Second Life. Random House has developed a book shop/café space in which the books on the shelves link to the company’s website. There are also videos promoting the new titles for residents to watch. All this is very thrilling giving the tendency of publishers to shun the net.

However, spend a few minutes in there and you quickly realize the faults of this strategy. Random House has decided to limit its venture in Second Life to promotional events and marketing. If a resident wants to browse a book, he or she must leave Second Life to get it. That sort of defeats the purpose of being in there in the first place. This is different from what other companies are doing. With Toyota, you can test drive a virtual Prius if you like. You do not have to leave the virtual world to do so. More importantly you can buy and keep it. Toyota gets its publicity, as well as free market testing for designs. Can publishers do the same? It is unlikely that they want to find out. Unlike cars, books are susceptible to piracy, particularly if the book is in audio format. It therefore makes sense that those publishers willing to venture into the virtual world would want to stick to marketing for the meantime.

Most Canadian publishers will probably take the cautious route and wait to see how things go for Random House before they jump aboard that bandwagon. At a quick glance, caution may seem a sensible strategy for small publishers. For one thing, they cannot afford the costs that will come with virtual online marketing. There are land prices and use fees to consider. To own land you must sign up for the $9.95 per month Premium membership. Once you have that, you'll be able to purchase a 512 square meter plot of land before any land maintenance fees kick-in (Linden Labs, 2007) (http://secondlife.com/whatis/landpricing.php) There are also the costs of hiring someone to build and maintain your virtual space in Second Life. No costs are listed, but by the number of developers out there, it is clearly a lucrative business and likely to cost a lot more than most Canadian publishers can afford. (http://secondlife.com/developers/directory.php)

A better strategy might be to observe what the gaming industry is doing in that space. Why? Well, anyone who has spent more than a few hours in Second Life knows that for all the flying and mingling, it can get dull very fast in there. Sure, meeting new people can be fun, but only for so long. This is not really the fault of Linden Labs. The company has placed the onus of developing the environment on the residents. So far, they have embraced the responsibility by creating lots of interesting social spaces on private islands. The problem with these user-generated spaces though, is that they are not interactive in themselves. They require other avatars to be present for anything close to a thrilling experience. In this sense, Second Life is like a big chat room. If it is empty, being there is pointless…unless you are hiding from someone.

Online gaming (http://thinkubator.ccsp.sfu.ca/OnlineGaming) may be the answer to this weakness and the key to publishing fortunes in Second Life. Gaming companies have the financial clout as well as the technical knowledge to develop forms of entertainment that residents will find both thrilling and not dependent on the presence of other avatars. The Publishers have the content to develop interesting gaming plots and can be spared the costs of developing their own spaces in Second Life. The vast number of online gaming blogs and the dedicated community of gamers would provide the ideal platform for publicity and marketing. Not only would the publishers gain the publicity for the plots and characters, they are likely to find that that publicity translates into real world sales, as well as interest from the movie industry if the game is successful. The same is true to the sale of gaming titles.

The relationship between gaming companies and book publishers has existed for some time now. Indeed, one need only look to titles such as Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter to recognize the potential that collaboration holds. Second Life represents an opportunity to take the relationship between book publishers and the gaming industry to a new level.

Linden Labs is aware of this potential and has been working to develop game development contests. One of the games showing potential is Dark Life. Dark Life is a Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game built inside Second Life. Adventurers will be able to explore a forest and caves while fighting off monsters (Linden Labs, 2007). It may not be much, but it is a start, and residents are prepared to pay for the experience.

Now granted, we are not talking Booker Prize winning stuff. We are however talking about developing a new revenue stream, and one that can support less lucrative publishing ventures in the real world. Canadian publishers should be able to recognize the value in that.

References:

Wikipedia, Second Life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_life

Second Life, 2006 Game Dev Contest - Arcadia http://secondlife.com/developers/2006_contest.php

Other Thinkubator articles on Second Life

• Launch your book in Second Life
• Opportunities for Publishers in Second Life
• Publishers and Second Life
• Second Life's Second Life

Merchandising? --jmax, Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:14:28 -0700 reply

Can I generalize some, and suggest that what your argument really points to is that publishers should be working on merchandising strategies to find new revenue streams and to cross-promote books? And that SL is, in effect, a merchandising channel, through avatars, MMORPGs?, and virtual swag? In which case, couldn't publishers acheive the same sort of things by hiring actors to appear in character at select RL locations for promotional purposes? And, more generally, to sell rights: to movie producers, and perhaps to SL/VR producers as well?

Is that where this is headed? Or do I misread you?

In response --paschal, Tue, 17 Apr 2007 12:05:09 -0700 reply

Thanks for the feedback and redirect.

While i agree that SL is a merchandising channel, i do not think publishers are technologically or finally in a good position to exploit that opportunity. Moreover, I think that the merchandising presents the same problem i have tried to highlight in this essay about opportunities IN SL: it will bring additional costs for small publishers to create swag or hire actors. The bigger publishing houses are already in SL and are already hiring actors and selling rights to movie producers. What i am trying to get at is how small publishers can indirectly exploit the merchandising opportunities in SL without having to foot the bill for creating virtual spaces and swag. Should they try to imitate Random House? I think that would be a poor use of resources. Samll publishers can exploit SL without having to step away from what they have proven they can do well, which is selling rights to produce gaming titles. Selling rights to movie producers is, i believe, a fairly common practice. What of gaming?

The gaming industry has the technical knowledge and resources, as well as the background in marketing virtual experiences. So why are there no collaborations between book publishers and gaming companies in SL? Not once were we asked, during the book project, whether any of our titles could be sold into the gaming industry. Why not? Was there no potential? Before you say no, think of "Sergent Stella".

The major hurdle, as far i can see, is this: Do small publishers tend to purchase the gaming rights to the books they publish, and secondly, is the process of selling these rights to gaming companies going to bring them enough revenue in royalties to make the processs worthwhile, or would the majority of that income go directly to the author?

Hope that clarifies my position.