Fwd: Microsoft
FYI
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Begin forwarded message:
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Key Information:
- Sender: Blacked out
- Date: April 29, 2013, 12:13:30 PM PDT
- Recipients: Blacked out (includes "Debra Black", "Black, Benjamin", and "Alexander Black")
- Subject: Microsoft
Hi there
I would love some input on this one...
Microsoft have invited us to be one of 5 - 7 premium publishers to participate on a new App pre-loaded on to all new Windows 8 smart phones and tablets.
They have 60m users worldwide and growing.
Currently they offer 5 pre-loaded apps on their devices - news, weather, travel etc - and now want to add two more, including food / drink.
They are interested in including nine of our cookery titles - including Silver Spoon, What To Cook and Flow To Cook It - in this App and want to know how we would like to proceed.
Ideally they want us to give them all of the recipes and images in each title and allow their users to use this content for free in a recipes database in the App.
They will also build a Phaidon section in the App where we can present our brand. And they will allow us to put links in each recipe to click through to purchase the book.
They are prepared to pay a licence fee for the content, quarterly for five years. They understand any deal would need to include them building these apps for us.
There are several hurdles to get over - can they adapt our content from inDesign files successfully, can they design it to our satisfaction, etc - but assuming we want to do this, then we need to propose a deal. It seems sensible to be cautious about how many books people will click through to buy so the main question is how much to charge for the licence which in turn partially depends on how much content we give them.
The more recipes we give them then the more visible our recipes will be in their database. How substitutional is this going to be for selling books - will it reduce our book sales, or will the extra profile increase sales? Or will the licence money be simply incremental with no impact on book sales? Is it in our interest to give them as many recipes as possible to increase our visibility and raise awareness of our brand or should we be tight and just allow enough to keep Microsoft engaged? What does it mean for our brand if our content is free?
EFTA00704418
These are questions we haven't answered before and nor does it seem have Microsoft. None of their content partnerships to date - WSJ, NY Times etc - feature selling physical product like we do.
Thoughts, observations, gratefully received!
David
EFTA00704419