Recently in The Future of Publishing Category

I hadn't planned this post on trends but ended-up creating a list for a colleague who was helping a client, and I was definitely overdue to post something. These are in no particular order, and there is a lot more to say about each of them. There are other trends of course, but these are especially relevant to our coverage of content technologies and to Outsell/Gilbane clients.

• Marketing and IT continue to learn how to work together as marketing assumes a bigger role in control of digital technology for all customer engagement.
• Content strategy gets more respect.
• Mobile confusion reigns - which platforms, which formats, apps vs. mobile web and which apps make sense, what workflows, etc. 
• "Extreme multi-channel" publishing reality hits. You thought web plus print was a challenge?
• Enterprise applications start including mobile and don't look back.
• "Apps" approach to software distribution expands beyond mobile.
• The line between pads and notebooks blurs in both user interface and function.
• Spending on digital channels continues to grow ahead of curve.
• Enterprise social platform growth stagnates, consumer social platforms continue to grow, but with little direct application to enterprise beyond feature or UI ideas.
• Business model experimentation accelerates in content businesses.

David Guenette has some cautionary thoughts for the publisher who--quite naturally--will be intrigued by Apple's new services for publishers being brought to market by Jouve and Innodata-Isogen.

Yesterday, it was announced that another CMS poster child of the late 90’s is to be acquired as Adobe Systems Incorporated and Day Software Holding AG announced the two companies have entered into a definitive agreement for Adobe to acquire all of the publicly held registered shares of Day Software in a transaction worth approximates US$240 million.

This follows Adobe’s acquisition of Omniture late last year and clearly demonstrates their intent in entering the web experience management (WEM) market place that we cover with interest here at Gilbane - as we anticipate they bring together the audience insight gained through the web analytics of Omniture and Day’s CRX content platform.  

This will presumably add momentum to Day’s own move into the WEM space with their recent product marketing strategy, as they have reinvented themselves to be closer to the marketer with recent attention paid to functionality such as personalization, analytics, variant testing and messaging around using their repository for marketing campaigns and asset management.   We await with interest firm integration plans. 

In addition Day are a longtime advocate of CMS repository standards (JCR and CMIS), something that is also close to our heart at Gilbane. This announcement has also sent tremors through the Open Source community, as they wonder about Adobe’s commitment to the Apache projects like Sling and Jackrabbit that Day have been so supportive of.    

Whilst Adobe and Day have been very quick to state that they will maintain Day’s commitment to these community projects, it’s hard not think that this commitment inside Day is cultural and we wonder whether this can realistically be maintained as the acquisition matures and Day is brought into the fold. 

The acquisition also raises questions about what this means for Alfresco’s two year relationship with Adobe that runs pretty deep with OEM integration to Adobe LiveCycle – and Erik Larson (Senior Director of Product Management at Adobe) has publically stated the intention to integrate Day and LifeCycle to create a ‘full suite of enterprise technologies’.  It will be important for the Adobe customers that have adopted the Alfresco based integration, to understand how this will affect them going forward. 

One other area that I am sure my colleagues here at Gilbane in the Publishing Technologies practice will be watching with interest is the impact this will have on Adobe’s digital publishing offering.  

As we’ve seen with previous acquisitions, it’s best to be cautious over what the future might hold. From a WEM product strategy perspective bringing Ominture and Day together makes a great deal of sense to us. The commitment to standards and open source projects is probably safe for now, it has been a part of the Day identity and value proposition for as long as I can remember and one of the most exciting things could be what this acquisition means for digital publishing. 

Let’s wait and see… 

Suggested further reading:

• Adobe Press Release 
• Day Software FAQ 
• CMSWire - Perspectives: What the Adobe + Day Software Deal Means
• Real Story Group - Adobe To Acquire Day - First Take ECM Perspective 
• Adobe Buys ECM Vendor (and Apache Contributor) Day Software

The call for speakers has been issued, with June 14, 2010 being the deadline to submit a proposal for presenting at Gilbane Boston this year.

Guidelines can be found here: http://gilbane.com/speaker_guidelines.html

Feel free to ask us any issues you have that aren't covered above!

By Ted Treanor, Senior Publishing Consultant

Publishing predictions for 2010 abound. As a digital publishing pioneer and visionary, Ted Treanor has been well positioned ahead of the curve, with a unique vantage point to see what's in store for the industry. At this tipping point, publishing convergence of print and digital has collided with mainstream. Let us know what you think of these predictions.

Let’s see if 13 predictions will be lucky for publishing.

1. New eReading devices will proliferate. The market is responding like the California gold rush.  Not only will there be new companies launching in 2010, but big electronics firms will have their products. CES will be a haven for digital reading, which will astound everyone.
2. Pricing experimentation will take center stage.
3. Digital sales channels both retail and distribution will grow rapidly.
4. The ePub standard (IDPF.org) will strengthen as an international industry standard. ePub will compete with PDF for the top format for commercial content.
5. The big surprise this year will be the number of large recognized companies that will strategically target the digital publishing eReading and content space. At least one major communications infrastructure company (possibly wireless) will stake a claim through a publishing partnership. Other prime segments will be computer manufacturers and printer manufactures.
6. Trade associations will scramble to stay relevant in their attempt to lead members through this time of convergence of print and digital.
7. Content workflow using XML technologies will become standard for single source production to multiple print and digital editions.
8. Publishers will attempt to build direct relationships with their reader customers…not very successfully in 2010.
9. Technology and services companies will further enable authors for self-publishing and in their sales goals. At least one big name author will experiment in self-publishing in 2010.
10. eCatalogs will become a standard tool in selling content to booksellers, librarians, etc..
11. Digital galleys will gain in popularity.
12. E-content will be grafted into print in innovative ways.
13. New ebook data reports and ebook directories will become ‘must-have’ resources. Gilbane Group has a series of three publishing transformation reports planned in 2010.

Follow me on Twitter @ ePubDr

As we have mentioned before, we have been very interested in leveraging the knowledge base we developed from our successful digital publishing study, Digital Platforms and Technologies for Publishers: Implementations Beyond "eBook."

With that in mind, we have moved forward and developed a strategic consulting offering, "Implementing Digital Publishing." 

Consultation Description

Publishers face a wide range of strategic and tactical decisions when looking to start or build their digital publishing programs, and while publishers have taken many paths to success with digital product development, marketing, sales, and distribution, the organizational underpinnings of the most successful efforts have the common characteristics of technology spending consistent with business needs and opportunities. 

The Gilbane Group’s Content Strategies service is offering a three phase consultation that is aimed at both management and operations personnel in educational, professional, trade, association, STM, and specialty publishing. The goal of the consulting is to assess the publisher’s current systems involved in digital publishing—planning, editorial and production, rights and royalties, manufacturing, promotion and marketing, sales and licensing, and distribution and fulfillment—and to provide decision-making support and guidance. The consulting targets and sets the course for achieving effective and efficient digital publishing business models.

Stakeholders

Depending on the size and scope of the publishing company, as well as the particular consultation phases sought, the stakeholders addressed in these consultations may include Publisher, VP and Editorial Director, VP of Production Services, VP of Digital Publishing, VP of Marketing, VP of Royalties, VP of Manufacturing, VP of Rights, VP of Business Development., VP of Digital Licensing, VP of Sales, VP of IT and CIO or CTO.

The Educational and Directional phase of the consultation (Phase One), which may be purchased as a standalone service or in conjunction with Phase Two and Phase Three, provides the publisher with a high-level assessment of the publisher’s current state of digital publishing capability across the multiple publishing systems. This phase concludes with a report and briefing that defines the publisher’s current state of digital publishing and provides recommendations for improving digital publishing capabilities.

The Analysis, Planning, and Recommendations phase of the consultation (Phase Two) moves the publisher from a general assessment of the conditions and challenges it faces in moving toward a more effective digital publishing business by providing an in-depth plan that a publisher can use to undertake its transformation into a more effective and efficient publisher for digital success. This phase concludes with 18-month action plans and on-site presentations and discussions of findings and recommendations with appropriate stakeholders.

The Implementation Support phase of the consultation (Phase Three) is designed to provide structured support as the publisher follows through on recommendations from Phase Two. Services within the Phase Three purview can include implementation progress reports, regular client visits, retainer and query programs, RFP assistance, prospective vendor research, and bid and implementation document review.

For a full data sheet describing the offering or for other information, you can email me or contact Ralph Marto via email or phone, 617.497.9443 ext 117.

As part of our new report, Digital Platforms and Technologies for Publishers: Implementations Beyond "eBook," we researched and wrote a number of case studies about how major publishing companies are moving to digital publishing. The following is case study of Random House and its use of Digital Asset Management (DAM) technology from OpenText to create a much more dynamic and agile publishing process.

Background

Random House, Inc. is the world’s largest English-language general trade book publisher. It is a division of Bertelsmann AG, one of the foremost media companies in the world.

Random House, Inc. assumed its current form with its acquisition by Bertelsmann in 1998, which brought together the imprints of the former Random House, Inc. with those of the former Bantam Doubleday Dell. Random House, Inc.’s publishing groups include the Bantam Dell Publishing Group, the Crown Publishing Group, the Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, the Knopf Publishing Group, the Random House Audio Publishing Group, the Random House Publishing Group, and Random House Ventures.

Together, these groups and their imprints publish fiction and nonfiction, both original and reprints, by some of the foremost and most popular writers of our time. They appear in a full range of formats—including hardcover, trade paperback, mass market paperback, audio, electronic, and digital, for the widest possible readership from adults to young adults and children.

The reach of Random House, Inc. is global, with subsidiaries and affiliated companies in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Through Random House International, the books published by the imprints of Random House, Inc. are sold in virtually every country in the world.

Random House has long been committed to publishing the best literature by writers both in the United States and abroad. In addition to the company’s commercial success, books published by Random House, Inc. have won more major awards than those published by any other company—including the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer founded the company in 1925, after purchasing The Modern Library—reprints of classic works of literature—from publisher Horace Liveright. Two years later, in 1927, they decided to broaden the company’s publishing activities, and the Random House colophon made its debut.

Random House first made international news by successfully defending in court the U.S. publication of James Joyce’s masterpiece, Ulysses, setting a major legal precedent for freedom of speech. Beginning in the 1930s, the company moved into publishing for children, and over the years has become a leader in the field. Random House entered reference publishing in 1947 with the highly successful American College Dictionary, which was followed in 1966 by the equally successful unabridged Random House Dictionary of the English Language. It continues to publish numerous reference works, including the Random House Webster’s College Dictionary.

In 1960, Random House acquired the distinguished American publishing house of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., and, a year later, Pantheon Books, which had been established in New York by European editors to publish works from abroad. Both were assured complete editorial independence—a policy which continues in all parts of the company to this day.

The Open Text Digital Media Group, formerly Artesia, is a leader in enterprise and hosted digital asset management (DAM) solutions, bringing a depth of experience around rich media workflows and capabilities. Open Text media management is the choice of leading companies such as Time, General Motors, Discovery Communications, Paramount, HBO and many more.

When clients work with the Open Text Digital Media Group, they tap into a wealth of experience and the immeasurable value of:

• A decade of designing, delivering, and implementing award-winning rich media solutions
• A global client base of marquee customer installations
• An experienced professional services staff with hundreds of successful implementations
• A proven DAM implementation methodology
• Endorsements by leading technology and implementation partners
• Domain expertise and knowledge across a variety of industries and sectors
• The global presence and financial strength of Open Text, a leading provider of Enterprise Content Management solutions with a track record of financial growth and stability

As part of our new report, Digital Platforms and Technologies for Publishers: Implementations Beyond "eBook," we interviewed a number of industry visionaries. The following is a summary of a discussion between Lulu's Bob Young and Gilbane's Steve Paxhia.

Bob Young: Lulu—Next Steps
 
Bob Young is the founder and CEO of Lulu.com, a premier international marketplace for new digital content on the Internet, with more than 1.1 million recently published titles and more than 15,000 new creators from 80 different countries joining each week. Founded in 2002, Lulu.com is Young’s most recent endeavor. The success of this company has earned Young notable recognition; he was named one of the “Top 50 Agenda-Setters in the Technology Industry in 2006” and was ranked as the fourth “Top Entrepreneur for 2006,” both by Silicon.com. In 1993, Young co-founded Red Hat, the open source software company that gives hardware and software vendors a standard platform on which to certify their technology. Red Hat has evolved into a Fortune 500 company and chief rival to Microsoft and Sun. His success at Red Hat won him industry accolades, including nomination as one of Business Week’s “Top Entrepreneurs” in 1999. Before founding Red Hat, Young spent 20 years at the helm of two computer leasing companies that he founded. His experiences as a high-tech entrepreneur combined with his innate marketing savvy led to Red Hat’s success. His book, “Under the Radar,” chronicles how Red Hat’s open-source strategy successfully won industry wide acceptance in a market previously dominated by proprietary binary-only systems. Young has also imparted the lessons learned from his entrepreneurial experiences through his contributions to the books “You’ve GOT to Read This Book!” and “Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur’s Soul.

For many years, authors who were unsuccessful in getting their books published by a commercial publishing company could underwrite the costs of publishing their books and sell them through “vanity presses.” It was rare that books published in this manner ever recouped the author’s investment and earned a profit.

Bob Young admits that when he was in college that he never fully appreciated the writings of philosopher Jean Paul Sartre. However, one of Sartre’s teachings—“We see the world the way that we expect to see it”—stuck with him. This passage helps explain how established practices and entities become so entrenched. Yet in 2002, Bob Young had an idea that would attack the established policies and practices of the book publishing industry. The industry had consolidated tremendously in the previous decade, and the distribution and retail networks changed dramatically. These changes have had a profound impact on potential authors. The reduction in the number of publishing entities has resulted in it becoming more difficult for authors to get their works published. The publishing company may already have a similar title or be unwilling to take a chance on an unpublished author. Sometimes, a book is written by a prominent author but the market niche is too small for traditional publishers to serve. These phenomena leave a significant number of high quality books without a publisher.

We are very happy to announce that we've published our new report, Digital Platforms and Technologies for Publishers: Implementations Beyond "eBook." The 142 page report is available at no charge for download here.

From the Introduction:

Much has changed since we decided to write a comprehensive study on the digital book publishing industry. The landscape has changed rapidly during the past months and we have tried to reflect as many of these changes as possible in the final version of our report. For example:

• Sales of eBooks finally reached their inflection point in late 2008.
• Customer acceptance of digital reading platforms such including dedicated reading devices like the Kindle and the Sony Reader and mobile devices like the iPhone and the BlackBerry have helped accelerate the market for digital products.
• The Google settlement, once finally approved by the courts, will substantially increase the supply of titles available in digital formats.
• New publishing technologies and planning processes are enabling publishers and authors to create digital products that have their own set of features that take full advantage of the digital media and platforms. Embedded context-sensitive search and the incorporation of rich media are two important examples.
• Readers are self-organizing into reading communities and sharing their critiques and suggestions about which books their fellow readers should consider. This is creating a major new channel for authors and publishers to exploit.
• Print-on-demand and short-run printing continue to make significant advances in quality and their costs per unit are dropping. These developments are changing the economics of publishing and are enabling publishers to publish books that would have been too risky in the previous economic model.
• Lower publishing and channel costs are making it possible for publishers to offer their digital titles at lower prices. This represents greater value for readers and fair compensation for all stakeholders in the publishing enterprise.

We are privileged to report such a fine collection of best practices. And we are thankful that so many smart people were willing to share their perspectives and vision with us and our readers. We thank our sponsors for their ardent and patient support and hope that the final product will prove worth the many hours that went into its preparation.

We encourage readers of this report to contact us with their feedback and questions. We will be pleased to respond and try to help you find solutions to your own digital publishing challenges!