Competition Research *

 Story Machine

Story Machine is a company based in Norwich that specialises in producing and publishing books alongside aiding writers and artists with their creative visions. According to their website, they "[bring] books and artistic ambitions to life [by creating] immersive live experiences that grow from between the lines of books [and publishing] new fiction, poetry and non-fiction." I believe this quotes gives us the mission statement for the company, with that being "[to bring] books and artistic ambitions to life." I couldn't find anything on their website that looks like a vision statement, and I was generally unlucky when it comes to values as well. Despite this, a section of their website is dedicated to their "planet positive promise", indicating care for the environment as one of their values.

Their website offers three different primary services: books, productions and artist support. The books section of their website obviously goes into detail about the different kinds of books that they have published themselves alongside an online shop that allows customers to purchase the books to be delivered to their homes. Additionally, they work with authors to publish their books in this section of the website, offering submission guidelines for those interested in getting their books professionally published.

The productions portion of their website gives lots of information about the many different productions that Story Machine has produced in the past, giving info such as the people involved in creating the production, the general reception and reviews from audiences and critics, trailers and a small plot synopsis of each production. There's also a small about page giving details about the productions as a whole.

Finally, the artist support section of the website offers different kinds of support for upcoming writers, ranging from fundraising support, arts coaching or just general tips and tricks including the ability to ask authors for guidance.

In general, Story Machine is able to quite easily reach their customers due to their in-person productions that they put on. According to the website, Story Machine "shows tour widely online and in person". They add that they're currently only doing online shows due to the pandemic, but they "hope to get back to face-to-face touring again soon." This in-person touring obviously generates quite a bit of publicity for the company and can attract a great number of customers.

It's somewhat difficult to get a good comparison of Story Machine's pricing to my business, as I'm planning to run my business as a commission based business whereas Story Machine operates through book sales primarily. With this in mind, their pricing varies depending on the products. The short story "Deception Island" is priced at £10 whereas a single issue of their poetry journal 'Lighthouse' goes for £2.50 (compared to the price of a subscription to receive all the poetry which is £20.00). In general, however, most of their short stories (which is what I'm aiming to produce) go for anything from £5.00 to £12.00.

In terms of advantages for the company's structure, they offer a wide variety of different services that can attract a great number of different customers who may be interested in purchasing from them due to different needs. For example, Story Machine could attract people who simply want to read something new thanks to the books they publish whilst also being able to attract people who enjoy theatre and plays thanks to the productions they publicise. Another advantage for the company is that they offer guidance and tips for writers whilst also allowing writers to come to them with stories to be published under their name. This allows for them to create more business for themselves, as they can give writers the skills and confidence needed to write what they want to create. This circles back to the company with the writer potentially coming to them in order to get their finished story published.

A disadvantage of the company, on the other hand, is that the books that they offer are not personalised in any way shape or form, unlike the services I plan to offer. Interested customers will just have to browse the books available on their store and see if any of them catch their interest, rather than being able to have a story tailored to their desires and narrative ideas. This could alienate a large audience who isn't interested in the stories they offer, as I noticed a much higher amount of poetry compared to the amount of stories on offer on their online store. Another disadvantage would be their reliance on face-to-face events to get customers interested in their business. I wasn't able to find any social media links on their website, and therefore believe the majority of their marketing comes from interesting people with their shows and performances. By relying so heavily on these performances, they end up severely disadvantaged when put in a position where they can't put on these events, such as currently in the pandemic.

National Centre for Writing

The National Centre for Writing, as I've gone over multiple times already on the blog due to it being one of my case studies, is a non-profit organisation based in Norwich that focuses on providing writers with assistance and guidance through workshops, festivals and online courses. According to their website, their mission statement is "to support writers at all stages of their careers." Unlike Story Machine, I was able to find their vision statement, which I believe to be "to create a centre of national and international literary exchange in [Norwich]." While values aren't directly listed anywhere on their website, I can assume that monetary gain isn't a primary value or goal for the organisation due to their status as a registered charity. Additionally, a whole section of their website is dedicated to what they offer to young people specifically, leading me to believe they value aiding in the creativity and nurturing a love for writing in the younger generations.

When it comes to reaching customers, they hold a lot of in-person events at their base of operations, Dragon Hall in Norwich. These events could be anything from  meet and greets with knowledgeable people to workshops aiding guests in their knowledge of writing. These workshops can draw in a lot of people in the local area, as they advertise the events through their social media platforms (primarily Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube). Additionally, they have an online store where they sell resources, access to courses and more in order to aid writers as best as they can.

In terms of pricing, the National Centre for Writing doesn't have any kind of pricing for stories that I can compare to my own business, as their business doesn't operate around creating stories for people. I only consider them a competitor as people may use their courses and services to learn how to write themselves rather than using my services to get the story written for them (albeit my demographic is aimed at people without the time or patience to do this). The only things on their website that are priced is access to their online courses and tickets for their in-person events. The prices for the courses vary heavily depending on the course. For instance, a science fiction writing course costs £125 for three parts where as an overall fiction course supported by the UEA costs £475. The in-person events, on the other hand, are usually free for the smaller events with prices of around £35 for the live workshops (the outlier being a ten-week course that costs £225).

An advantage of the organisation would be the company's location in Norwich, which is listed as a UNESCO City of Literature. Due to this, quite a lot of the people living in Norwich are likely to have an interest in writing and literature as a whole, leading to lots of potential customers who may be interested in writing living in the local area. For another advantage, the National Centre for Writing has ongoing partnerships with a number of different influential organisations/government bodies that can aid them in numerous ways: the Arts Council of England, the Norwich City Council, the Norfolk County Council and even the UEA. These organisations and government bodies are able to provide the NCFW with resources that they may have difficulty obtaining on their own as a non-profit organisation, such as funding from the councils and superior teaching resources for their online courses thanks to the UEA. According to the Courses section of their website, their creative writing courses are "co-designed with the creative writing school at the University of East Anglia", meaning that they're able to have the expertise and knowledge of the intelligent writers of UEA to supplement the course, providing interested writers with even better learning material. This, therefore, would attract more interested customers after hearing of how successful the course is.

A big disadvantage for the organisation, if we're talking purely in terms of business profits, is that they are a registered charity and operate primarily as a non-profit. By not focusing on how they can make profits from writers, they are reducing the total amount of money they're able to earn. Of course, this isn't entirely a bad thing - operating as a charity is an incredibly good thing to do and can very easily boost an organisation's reputation. However, if we're talking purely in terms of how well a business can run, not focusing on where potential profits could be made (without the cost of morals/values) could hinder them. Another disadvantage for the National Centre for Writing is, in my opinion, the prices of their courses. Whilst the prices of their events and workshops are far more fair (at prices around £35 mentioned earlier), the prices of their tutored courses go far above this. According to the courses section of the website, a 12 week creative non-fiction course goes for around £475.  Even more expensive is the 24 week poetry course, which costs £945. While I believe the prices do make sense due to the length of the courses, I feel that they are still very high costs to pay for someone interested in learning to write - this could potentially push away a large number of customers who don't feel that they have the disposable income to spend on a hobby such as writing compared to more important things like bills and food.

Louise Harnby - Fiction Editor & Proofreader

Louise Harnby, according to her website, is "a fiction editor who'll help you prepare your book for market." Her website offers a number of different services, specialised in aiding both writers and editors with their work in order to get their writing and/or editing to the best quality it can be. Her website offers various free resources for both writers and editors that can help them in specific areas that they're lacking in, paid courses for more in-depth lessons in the skills that a writer or editor may need and, as the name of her business suggests, commissioned editing and proof-reading services for writers who need a second opinion on their stories. While there's nowhere on her website that specifically lists a mission statement, I believe the closest thing would be a quote that appears on the home page of her website, stating that her business aims "[to provide] fiction editing and proofreading for crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers", clearly showing that she aims to specifically provide her services for those interested in the darker areas of fiction such as crime novels or horror stories. There's nothing on her website that links to any kind of vision statement, and I had similar trouble locating values as well. There was a section of her website dedicated to her 'Code of Practice', with mentions of "good communication between client/employer [being] essential" as well as "ensuring editorial excellence". These two quotes lead me to believe that Harnby aims to communicate well with her clients whilst also providing the most excellent editing services that she can.

In terms of getting her business under the noses of her customers, Harnby operates with several different methods of spreading her business out. First of all, she obviously utilises an online store to manage the sale of her bespoke services - her proofreading and her editing services specifically. In addition to these services is the ability to purchase PDF forms of several different books she has written straight from her website. In addition to the various methods of E-Commerce used by Harnby to interest customers, she also sells her books on Amazon, therefore providing herself with a route to market via a retailer (albeit an online retailer). Notably, Harnby seems to have little presence that isn't online - she has various social media accounts that she can utilise to promote herself, but nothing on her website indicates that she aims to provide in-person events like the previous two businesses (most likely due to the freelance nature of this business compared to the larger scale of the others).

The pricing of Harnby's services on her website is effectively impossible to tell, as I believe she operates via a case-by-case system. When looking at the editing services available on her website, she makes no mention of a price and simply includes a button to allow customers to "discuss a project" after giving them all of the different details about her service. Apart from her specifically commissioned services, however, we are able to find prices for the various books she sells on her online store. The vast majority of the books she sells go for £8.99 with the only exception being a book titled "Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business" which she is pricing at £17.99 (I can only assume this is due to the book being longer in length, although I haven't seen anything to confirm this). None of these prices really translate well to my own business in terms of comparison, although I will obviously be considering the fact that Harnby varies her prices for her editing/proof-reading services on a case-by-case basis - something that I was aiming to replicate myself.

An advantage of Harnby's business would be how laser-focused the business is in what it aims to do - by focusing specifically on crime, thriller and suspense literature, Harnby is able to better focus her efforts where she know she is skilled. This therefore would result in a higher quality product as she's already got a lot of confidence in the area of these genres. This is in direct comparison to a business like mine where I would be writing in a variety of different genres depending on the wishes of my clients - I might have to dip into subject areas I'm not as familiar with, resulting in potentially lower quality work. This, however, is also a disadvantage. By limiting herself only to crime, thriller and suspense novels, she is pushing away a huge number of potential customers who may need editing/proof-reading help with their own novels that don't fall into these genres. By ignoring these potential customers, Harnby is missing out on potential profit with the upside of having a more focused and therefore more skilled business.

Another advantage for Harnby's business is the fact that she is an offical Amazon partner, and therefore is able to sell a lot of her books on Amazon. This is an advantage for her as this circumvents one of the biggest issues with running an online store - gaining the trust of customers. A lot of customers won't feel safe purchasing things from most online stores as they'll be afraid of fraud or scams. However, purchasing from a much larger company like Amazon will give them more confidence in what they're purchasing, leading to more potential customers buying her books on Amazon compared to her own website. On the other hand, another disadvantage for the business is the amount of free content and guidance that she is offering on the same website as her bespoke editing/proofreading services and book sales. As mentioned earlier, her website gives visitors access to a bunch of free learning resources, with a variety geared to both writers and editors. By offering all of these free resources alongside her paid services, she is potentially reducing the amount of profits she could receive from the business, as some potential customers will be able to get enough guidance and help from the free resources alone, resulting in no need for them to purchase her services. Additionally, she promotes checking out the free resources first herself on the 'By Appointment' page of her website, where she says "most editors use my freebies or buy my books and courses. That's the most affordable way of accessing my advice". By promoting the free resources so heavily, she is losing potential sales from people who required her services initially but were able to learn themselves due to the resources promoted on her website.

Conclusion

To conclude, there are a lot of ways that I can exploit the different gaps that have been left in the market by the disadvantages explained within this essay. Due to the lack of personalisation and social media marketing from Story Machine, I can take the customers that are interested in a story that's more personalised to their exact desires whilst simultaneously attracting a wider audience through social media whether or not a pandemic forces face-to-face business to close. Additionally, the high prices for workshops from the National Centre for Writing allows me to price my services at a far more reasonable price, attracting the people who don't have the money to spend on extremely expensive writing workshops compared to the lower prices I intend to market my services at. Finally, I can steal customers from Louise Harnby's business due to her laser focus on thriller, crime and mystery genres. By widening my range of genres that I will write in, I can attract customers that would be turned away by Harnby's business due to the few genres she does. With this in mind, however, the customer overlap between my business and Harnby's business is far less than the other two competitors listed in this essay due to her business focusing on proof-reading whereas my business focuses on commissioned writing.