• What do researchers want from publishers?
• The difference between a frustrating customer experience and a great one is ... microcopy
• 8 tips for promoting your book – love this author guide from Wiley
• On The Marketability Grapevine on Facebook
• Tip of the week: Excellent advice from Richard Feynman

What do researchers want from publishers?

Thanks to Alice Meadows and The Scholarly Kitchen for this latest interview, this one with Dr Milka Kostic who is both a researcher and an ex-publisher.

As ever, the interview highlights both the similarities and the differences between publishing’s and research’s interpretations of the publication process. There’s an assumption that publishers are realising handsome profits and a plea to understand the pressures facing academics which strongly suggests that the latter’s understanding of publishing could do with a reality check too.

Highly recommended, including the comments that follow the article.

Read ‘What do researchers want from publishers?’ at The Scholarly Kitchen.

To market effectively to the university sector we need an appreciation of the real issues that academics face and care about, something that our Academic Marketing Workshop is designed to give you.

 

The difference between a frustrating customer experience and a great one is ... microcopy

When we think of copywriting most of us think of product descriptions, or email or social media campaigns. We need to grab attention by standing out, being bold, relevant and different.

Microcopy requires a different approach. This is the brief messaging online that guides readers around a site, working in conjunction with navigation. At its best it’s often so subtle that it can go un-noticed – quietly keeping the reader engaged by walking through the process alongside them.

Here’s a classic example of what happens without it. You’re registering on a site in order to buy something or access content. A form asks for a password. The one you give is rejected because it doesn’t comply with criteria that you haven’t been told. Your mood goes from relaxed to angry in about 30 seconds. (There is a very funny joke on this theme which is too rude to share here, but you’ll find it if you google ‘password boiled cabbage’.)

A bit of well-judged microcopy entirely removes this problem. To write it well we need only think of ourselves interacting online, and all of the things that irritate or frustrate us. Those subtle little bits of copy have the power to turn the same page into a positive customer experience. And for any copywriter, that’s a satisfying challenge.

I recently came across Econsultancy’s blog post ‘15 marvellous microcopy examples’, and it makes great reading.

Read our earlier article on microcopy, which included 8 tips for how to approach it.

And guess what? Our Copywriting Workshop covers this.

 

8 tips for promoting your book – love this author guide from Wiley

The Wiley Network is the publisher’s website for authors and researchers and features some really useful content. Here’s a lovely example, an infographic with genuinely useful and very easy tips.

We might just be mentioning this on our new Author Partnerships course which is being developed right now and which will be premiered to members of CANIEM, the Mexican Publishers Association, on 10 December.

See the infographic on The Wiley Network

If you’re reading this in Mexico, here’s the link to the workshop in Mexico City.

 

On The Marketability Grapevine on Facebook

• Our last eBulletin featured Singapore Airlines’ current in-flight safety video, one of a number going to great lengths to win our attention by entertaining us. Here’s another, the distinctly wacky Tolkien-themed epic from Air New Zealand.
• Read something that hit the spot in this eBulletin? Click through and like the item or add a comment on Facebook
• Watch the Wall for postings of new jobs, or feel free to add to them.

Visit The Marketability Grapevine.

 

Tip of the week: Excellent advice from Richard Feynman

The US physicist famously said: ‘You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it right, it is obvious that it is right.’

The tip is to resist over-complicating things. If there’s a quick and simple way to say something, take it and be happy.