When someone changes their skype profile, as you probably know, you get a flag on your skype directory list that alerts you that there is a message. You click on it and it shows you the changed profile message – some people change their profile message often, some never.

I noticed the other day that Mike Walsh had put into his profile a url: www.futuretainment.com. So clicked on it to see what it was all about. It turned out to be a pretty slick web site to help Mike market his services and a new book that he has written (which by the way, from the description on the site, seems to be pretty good). One of the links prompts you to make a purchase. It takes you to Amazon. I presume that Mike is getting a referral percentage for sending traffic to Amazon, otherwise he might want to consider sending people to Booko.

Booko, which I have blogged about before is a Web 2.0 service that looks up a books title and provides a comparative price list of places online to purchase a book, the relative shipping costs that are added in to the purchase price and translates the local currency into Aussie dollars so that the consumer can shop for the best price.

Here is what it showed up for Mike's new book – which by the way is not yet at the shops.

Its kind of ironic, isn't it, that an old style technology such as a book is called Futuretainment. But aside from that, look at the comparative prices….  The Book Depository in the UK, which I have purchased books from before, and had great service from is the best price and the worst at more than double the price is from Melbourne Uni Bookshop. And Buy Australian, which should stock a book by an Australian author, you would think, doesn't even have it in stock. Even Chaos, the top Australian listing, is way over the Book Depository price. Amazon has the best price, but once you put shipping into the equation, the price isn't so good.

So what does this mean? Is this because the Australian publishers have higher basic costs of manufacturing and therefore don't have the margin available to discount to the online bookstores that clearly must be there in the UK. Or is it because the Aussie dollar is so strong currently? Of course this issue is at the heart of the recent inquiry into book prices and the moves by the major supermarket chains to allow bulk importation of books. That is problematic because it opens the flood gates to dumping of print overruns from overseas into Australia.

I don't have an answer to this question. But if I were Mike I think that I would take out the link to Amazon and instead insert a link to Booko.

Nothing defines the challenges for Futuretainment as well as the option for the customer to determine the price that he or she is willing to pay for content. And because it is a competitive world out there and Free is still the optimum price to pay, I would suggest that a chapter on line as a free download (or more if the publisher will countenance it) would be a really good way to get more attention.

As Mike so aptly says in the book – or appears to from his Flickr material…

I couldn't agree more!

This entry was posted on October 25, 2009 at 7:24 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Main Page by Chris Gilbey No Comments Yet