MARKETING & PUBLICITY CONFERENCE 2018
BLINKIST EYES UP THE UK’S ‘HUGE POTENTIAL’
B
linkist, a tech start-up that boils down key ideas from non-fiction books into short-form text and audio for users—without publishers’
permission—is planning a UK expansion.
With more than 400,000 users in the UK and Ireland, the start-up says its mission is to empower its audience to “discover new titles, encounter new authors, uncover compelling concepts and forge out space for reading”, with the long-term aim of becoming “the leading destination for the lifelong learner”. Already it provides summaries of more than 2,500 bestselling non-fiction books, harvesting them into bite-sized “blinks” to be read or listened to in minutes.
The Berlin-based start-up has been active since 2012, and is “growing every day”. Initially it started in the German language, before switching to English a year later to help it to “scale globally”. Five years on, its audience has surpassed five million users worldwide; its podcast “Simplify” has also recently passed a million downloads. Blinkist’s biggest market is the US, but c.e.o. Holger Seim says he sees “huge potential in the UK”, currently the company’s second-biggest market. The firm is looking to hire a UK country manager and has an ambition to top a million UK-based users within the next 12 months. “Our plan for the next 12 months is to double in scale. The UK is one of our core markets and we will
probably want to grow more than that. A good ambition would be break through one million users in the next 12 months. We are hiring a national manager to get really specific about these plans,” says Seim.
“In the past year, we have grown Blinkist with a one-size- fits-all approach ... To make the move from a relevant but still fairly small brand into a mainstream brand—that is, for example, the size of Audible—we really need to speak the language. We can’t go into the UK with American messaging; we also need to feature more local authors and more local partners.”
Each non-fiction book is selected by Blinkist’s publishing and selections manager, who scours bestseller lists, book reviews, topical titles and user requests. Blinkist’s team of writers and editors then creates original short-form interpretations of “notable ideas”, in text and in audio. Centred on subjects in categories of personal growth, business, popular science, popular psychology and “accessible academia”, a monthly Blinkist subscription is £13.49 per month; an annual Blinkist subscription is £59.99. “We still have to do some convincing to show we can have an impact on book sales,” says Seim. However Blinkist does not ask for publishers’ permission before featuring their titles. “It’s a new
BLINKIST REVEALS HOW IT IS DISRUPTING
THE PUBLISHING INDISTRY TO MAKE BOOKS MORE ‘DISCOVERABLE’ - WITHOUT CANNIBALISING SALES.
model, and we simply can’t wait for everyone to ask their permission. We are doing this legally—we don’t infringe copyright, and we have got to move fast. If we don’t, someone else will,” Seim reasons.
Asked what publishers make of this, he comments: “They’re not opposed to it. The industry is
quite conservative, particularly when it comes to digital. I see a lot of publishers who are sceptics at first but when we meet them to explain what we’re about— it’s not about cannibalising books, it is about making books more discoverable in an age where people have new consumption patterns—they get it. They really like the model. Some like it and are happy to partner with us, some are standing on the sidelines, watching and waiting.”
Sarah Moriarty, Blinkist’s director of brand marketing, argues that the app opens authors and publishers up to “an entirely new audience of tech-savvy, digital- native, audio-focused lifelong learners” and bolsters publishers’ backlist sales. Other channels for promotion include its newsletter, digital magazine, podcast, and smart speaker apps for Amazon Alexa and Google Home. “This solves one of the most urgent problems publishers face: namely, how to maximise exposure of each of their titles and authors,” she says. “We find that if a reader or listener has really loved a ‘blink’, they’ll want to buy the full book.”
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