We’re super proud of three new videos:

22 Oct 2013: This 8-min documentary on how and why Pelican Park High bought study materials through us is so affirming for us. It helps answer the doubts that can haunt you when you’re wondering whether you’re moving forward at all.

1 Nov 2013: Similarly, this 8-min documentary on how and why Minuteman Press sponsored books for Silverstream Secondary.

18 Nov 2013: We created a short 1-minute promo from the Pelikan park video on why schools should buy study materials through us.

But the real hjighlight event of the last few months has to be the launch event of the Paperight Young Writers Anthology on 7 September 2013. (See the blog post here and photos on Facebook.)

Back at the ranch, at the end of October we finally integrated our outlets map onto our product pages, to offer the ability to find outlets and compare prices of books at them per product.

This new product-page map explains the concept behind Paperight much better, too, which frees up other messaging space.

At the same time, we also created a range of new screencast videos for our help site (released 21 Oct 2013), produced on 4 Nov 2013 a new printable product catalogue, including improved CSV-based workflow to make future updates quick and easy, and made (on 13 Nov) some useful guides for schools and sponsors on how to work with us.

Marie and Nick have also been producing loads of Facebook posts about our books and outlets.

Out and about

• On 10 Oct 2013 I pitched at the Accenture Innovation Awards in Joburg, and won! More on that below.
• 9 to 13 October 2013: Tarryn, our COO, visited the Frankfurt Book Fair, and also won an award. More below.
• 24 Oct 2013: I spoke at the launch of market research company Yellowwood’s white paper on transformative innovation. Here’s text and video.

• 6 Nov 2013: “Tough Truths about Selling to Publishers”. I spoke at the inaugural Footnote Summit, a South African digital-publishing conference. I was worried I might offend some people, but my worries were unfounded: people really appreciated my honest, and my talk led directly to one important publisher signing up, and another giving us much better books.
• 11 Oct 2013: Nice PR opportunities off back of Accenture win, including this breakfast TV show (skip to 3:10 for me).

New supporters

We noticed on 4 Sep 2013 that local copy shop Top Copy had devoted their entire front facade to Paperight books. It’s great to see one of our champion copy shops devoting their prime ad space to our books.

We identified 46 separate media pieces about us, including these highlights:

• 1 Sep 2013, Foshini Tech Magazine feature on innovation and transparency.
• 1 Sep 2013, Bookmark (bookselling industry magazine), “Innovations that encourage a nation of readers”.
• 17 Sep 2013, SA Booksellers Association, “Innovations that encourage a nation of readers”
• 26 Sep 2013, George Herald, “Blitsdruk and Paperight help matrics”.
• 8 October 2013, Good E Reader, “Paperight Spreads Book Access by Reverting from Digital to Paper”
• 8 October 2013, Buchmesse Blog, “The Publisher as Start Up Incubator”
• 9 October 2013, BooksLIVE, “Paperight Wins the Inaugural CONTEC International Publishing Start-Up Showcase”
• 10 October 2013, Memeburn, “FNB, Paperight come out tops in SA innovation index”
• 11 October 2013, Business Day BDLive, “FNB named best large company innovator”
• 14 October 2013, Ventureburn, “Publishing startup Paperight claims two prestigious awards in one week”
• 18 October 2013, Cape Talk, interview with Arthur Attwell and Kieno Kammies
• 1 November 2013, Destiny Man magazine profile of Arthur Attwell in “40 Under 40” feature.
• 10 November 2013, Thad McIlroy: The Future of Publishing (blog), “Fixing Publishing is a Group Effort”
• 11 Nov 2013: Interview on Nedbank Business Accelerator, where presenter Pavlo Phitidis describes us generously as “the answer to every educational problem we’ve had with regard to the distribution of school books”
• 19 November 2013, Publishing Perspectives, “Ether for Authors: Is There an “Architecture of Collaboration” for Startups?”
• 28 November 2013, Business Day, “Index lays the foundation for benchmarking innovation”.
• 28 November 2013, Business Day, “Print-on-demand service does it by the book”.

Big wins

Five great wins in the last three months:

• 2 Sep 2013: Pearson South Africa finally signed with us (and we passed their infamous platform security audit with 8/10 and a special commendation for our social-DRM document watermarking)
• 6 Sep 2013: Getting Cambridge Univerity Press books on Paperight.
• 30 Sep 2013: Big sponsored book purchase for a needy school in Amanzimtoti (including PR for the sponsoring companies)
• 9 Oct 2013: Won the CONTEC Startup Showcase at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which was a very powerful endorsement among publishers and helped us sign up seveal local and international publishers.
• 10 Oct 2013: Won the Accenture Innovation Award for company under R40m turnover (FNB won large-company section).

Our roadmap for the next 3 months

October and November sales were very low, so for the next three months we’re shifting focus to our Feb/Mar 2014 universities promotional campaign, headlined #textbookrevolution, and emphasising the need for universities and publishers to move away from their traditional, bloated supply chain (where 70% of the retail price of a textbook goes to the supply chain alone), and towards Paperight.