Weaknesses: Our eBook can only be used on one device and customers might want to move it to others but can only do so by going through a long process of “cancelling” the other device, getting a new code to the new device, and synchronizing it with their current library. Authors may not want to publish their book in a digital format because they have never done it before. Publishing companies might refuse for authors to do this; because it cuts into their profits, so we can only target independent authors at the moment. We may have some problems with copyright laws if we cannot verify the author's identity, and the person submits someone else's work and claims it as their own in order to gain a profit. Public Domain work (work, stories, writings where the copy rights have expired), will be marketed heavily by entrepreneurs who will want to try and cash in on this opportunity and it might be deceptive to customers.
Weaknesses are currently being looked into. We’re hoping to make alliances with publishing companies, so they can sell their stuff on our website as well. We’re currently creating a system where authors must verify themselves before being able to post works, and we’re looking into a program to help stop piracy of eBooks on file sharing programs.
WePublish Inc. is willing to take any risk necessary for success, but first it must be thought through carefully and thoroughly, to have a maximum positive impact on the company. There will be lots of risky steps taken to make a company successful, but it is how the company handles risk is how it succeeds. WePublish Inc. will always take a calculated risk approach, looking at all sides of the risk being taken, taking into account all potential problems and benefits. If the risk seems like a viable option to take, then it will be taken.
WePublish Inc. will be run by a CEO (Gene Ang), CTO, and CMO (Hanson So). The primary role of our Chief Marketing Officer is to oversee methods of promotions, and negotiate contracts with book publishers and authors in order to secure contracts for our company. He will be a valuable resource when we try to raise awareness of our company through online marketing. Other tasks include making sure that our advertisements receive high response rates and working with the advertising department to ensure that our ads demand attention and generate a high click through rate. Our CEO is responsible for making sure that our company is heading in the right direction by holding board meetings and identifying areas of weakness. He will also guide us with the vision of the company and coordinate the different departments to ensure that we are working to achieve success. When a contract is drawn up by the CMO, it is the CEO’s responsibility to approve it. Our CTO is responsible for solving problems that may arise relating to hosting, bandwidth, technology, hiring firms to write the code, and speaking with anti-piracy groups.
In order to ensure the vital beginning of our company and due to the fact that as founders of the company we lack extensive experience in the marketing for online eBooks, we have assembled a board of three advisors to guide us. One of our advisors, Ram Shriram, was named number four on the top tech dealmakers in tech by Forbes. His ability to help us make the right product choice and adapting our business model to changing market conditions will help us secure early customer wins and generate international growth. Our next advisor Ann Mather, executive vice president and Chief Financial officer at Pixar, has years in financial and investors relations. She will help promote the growth of our business by advising on the co-operation issue with book publishers and royalty fees. Finally we request the aid of Omid Koredestani, who has over 20 years of experience of high technology consumer and enterprise experience. Helping Google and Netscape become very profitable in a short period of time, he will aid us in the branding and marketing of our company to ensure we become the number one site for eBooks.
B. Research Design
We have fully researched our niche to ensure the guarantee of success and the possibility that we may have uncovered new niches that haven’t been explored. New ventures aren’t always a guarantee of success but by doing our research in advance, we will be able to notice areas of concern before they occur and we can address them immediately.
By having our business be solely online, we will be able to offer our customers a wider variety of books and according to industry average, we will be able to carry about 19 times more books than conventional brick and motor retail stores. This graph depicts the current music industry. We plan to target the long tail, which means we plan to target people with specific needs.
Since we are selling ebooks, our profits stay the same. There are no additional costs for each additional ebook distributed. The only cost would be the transaction fee to the credit card merchant accounts, which will be negotiated in advance for the large volume of sales.
According to Jupiter’s Research Surveys, we have conducted some analysis to determine potential problems with our business:
We have addressed all these issues. Most of our customers are users with electronic gadgets already, so they will have no problem using our programs and websites. WePublish also, does not need ebook-related equipment. It will work on most phones and mp3 players. Readibility may be a problem, but screens for devices are getting bigger every time a new one comes out, and it will all pay out in the long run.
Our customers will be able to annotate and bookmark and highlight passages in the text that they need to remember through our special program. They will also be able to print certain passages that they need to be remembered through Bluetooth and a peripheral device.
It will take us about 3-4 months in order to generate buzz and interest. Once we have a good supply of authors who are willing to have their work turned into digital format and a good amount of customers who are interested, then we can start selling.
We generate revenue based on the Author’s brand image and using an automatic newsletter feed, we can automatically notify customers who are interested in the Author’s work of newly produced books in digital format. It has been proven by Jupiters Survey that offering an incentive will increase the readership rate and percentage of users who will opt in. By sending out offers only when the author has a new book in digital format, we can be sure that the user won’t receive irrelevant messages. Markets are proven to sell more with a newsletter subscribers list, and we can further monetize all prospects that don’t purchase by offering books from brick and motor shops. We have joint ventures which will allow us to market their paper back or hardcover copies in exchange for a commission generated on sales, and a fixed fee for the insertion of the advertisements.
This survey shows the significant amount of people who consider eBooks to be a useful tool when they want to search and find something in them. Our program provides an easy to use interface to find what they are looking for by using algorithms to generate potential relevancy and display them in order to the reader.
All in all, the eBooks that WePublish will be selling will be available on all types of mediums. Most of the statistics say that they want books to be accessible on the computer and laptop, and WePublish provides that; but as the market grows for PDA style phones and multimedia players, WePublish will have formats and software for those too. There will be no more use for the eReader when eBooks can be used on many other types of devices that people already have, but for the next couple of years, WePublish will be compatible with all eReaders as well.
From 2004 to 2010 the market for feature phones is estimated to double and smartphones will have a huge increase in sales. These devices would be a perfect place to store multitudes of books instead of shelves. When advertised customers will realize how convenient it is when reading on the go. WePublish will allow users to input the books onto most devices, and in the near future, WePublish will be common name, because of targeting the right people at the right time.
