With the introduction and wide acceptance of e-Reader platforms, your Naval Institute team is particularly focused on the astonishing pace of change in how content is collected, handled, and presented to users. This month, we introduce our new Naval Institute App. Many publishers have rushed out a generation of apps to consumers, and most are not very good. You can’t select a story to read from almost any publisher without a prompt to “Download Our App!” Current studies show that increasing numbers of readers are saying “no thank you” because the user experience often does not live up to expectations.
In developing our app, we identified the best experience in each business segment and learned from it. To introduce and sell new books, we asked ourselves, “How would Amazon do this?” We created a user experience that is inspired by the pioneering work of Flipboard, and significant feedback from junior-officer Members. The Naval Institute App reflects what we learned from best practices in the industry. In recognition of the special demands of our Members, we designed it to allow you to take Proceedings, Naval History, News.usni.org, and the Blog with you anywhere . . . including to sea! The content stays with your device even when you are not connected to the Internet and refreshes when you reconnect. Your Naval Institute App will be available on iPad, iPhone, and all Android tablets and phones. I encourage you to try these and, as usual, we welcome your feedback.
Although the number of mammoth brick-and-mortar retail bookseller chains has dwindled to one, we are rapidly expanding our electronic publishing program in order to meet the demands of the evolving marketplace. In this new age of information consumption, print books will not disappear. We recognize, however, the ascending influence of eBooks and are taking measures to ensure USNI is positioned to capitalize on our rich publishing history.
Operating from a position of strength and working well across department lines in the Naval Institute, the Press is tackling this challenge aggressively. We will revise our annual forecast and redefine how we describe the Press publicly. It’s not enough to say we publish “80 books per year and have an eBook program” when in reality, print and electronic titles are inextricably linked, driving a publishing program that is more robust than ever. Audiobooks have always been popular, and the MP3 revolution is driving a healthy resurgence. The Press recently partnered with audible.com, an Amazon company with more than 100,000 titles available. Together they are now producing The Aden Effect, a new Naval Institute Press book by Claude Berube, available this fall. The book will be distributed worldwide, and audio.com wants to prospect our list for additional titles immediately.
In some ways the “franchise” of the Institute is the incredible body of work—139 years of content—that helps preserve our nation’s naval heritage. We intend to take advantage of every technological advancement that lets us repurpose, repackage, and make our back-list of books, back issues of Proceedings, photos, and oral histories come to life as primary resources for historians, scholars, and students in future generations. All this material can be remixed, reconstituted, and produced in customized ways to satisfy specific requirements.
In this new world, terms like “print-on-demand (POD),” “short-print-run (SPR),” and “self-publishing,” will become part of our everyday vocabulary. Stay tuned for further updates on all these initiatives, because your Institute is fully engaged in these and more.
We posted the draft revisions to the Naval Institute Constitution and Bylaws on our website in late July. Our Member-comment period will continue until mid-September. Be sure to look at these and provide us your feedback. The goal is for whatever goes on the ballot for a Member vote next spring to have been thoroughly reviewed and vetted in advance.
The Board of Directors has filled two vacant appointed positions on the Board. Looking at the make-up of the elected Board, it was clear we needed Marine Corps and Coast Guard representation. I am happy to announce that Lieutenant General Chip Gregson, USMC (Ret.) and retired Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard Vince Patton were appointed and have now joined the Board. Their biographies are posted on the website. We welcome them both!