Publishing: February 2010 Archives

I’ve followed iFactory, which recently released PubFactory, since its inception as a multimedia service agency, going back to my days wearing the editor’s hat at eMedia Professional.  Here’s a company that has spent its youth wisely.

PubFactory is a digital publishing platform that emerges from iFactory’s many years of solving their clients’ pressing Web publishing demands, alongside iFactory’s habit of throwing in a few extra-demanding capabilities of their own.  They’ve taken what they’ve figured out and rationalized the process into a platform, and the platform is impressive.

PubFactory is content online publishing platform “built from the ground up to support books, reference works, and journals in a variety of XML formats, with full support for PDF, images, and other rich media.”  Sounds, good, but not unique, right?  Here’s what I really like hearing about: “…management tools for librarians and administrators, and a full suite of back-end controls for publishers to control their content and manage relationships with their customers.”

The range of options that are oriented to a publisher’s customers is impressive, and includes such things as flexible ecommerce, access models, social media, analytical metrics, to name the big ones, and the flexibility in publishing control is also smart, with strong search and browsing, DOI and various library-specific support, customization, and, basically, push-button PDF and ePUB creation.

This last feature is showing up more and more, as in SharedBook, a multi-source/community/blog-content ebook/pbook generator, to name only one.  The biggest surprise about PubFactory, however, is its sheer scalability.  Using PubFactory, and slated for release in late spring 2010, Oxford Dictionaries Online (part of Oxford University Press) will present modern English dictionaries, thesauruses, and usage guides.  Not exactly a chapbook.

Of course, real-world use is the real test, but iFactory’s decade-plus efforts suggest a good passing grade out of the gate.  I’m looking forward to seeing iFactory’s Director of Publishing Tom Beyer’s PubFactory demonstration at Tools of Change, next week.

Need me to look up a word for you?  If so, or if you want to know more about our upcoming study, A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation: Seven Essential Systems to Re-Invent Publishing, drop me a line.

Not surprisingly, there’s been a lot of ink spilt on the iPad, from the numerous name-related jokes, to serious considerations, both positive and negative.  I’ve been letting the iPAD news kick about for a while, before adding my two cents.

On the thoughtful side of iPAD-related commentary, as good an example as, any comes from Samir Kakar, CTO, Aptara Corporation, a fellow that knows a thing or two, or million, about ebooks, digital publishing processes, and content formats.

Samir points to some interesting strengths of the iPAD, including its use of the ePub format, even while rightly arguing that “the ePub standard will likely need to be updated to allow publishers to create more detailed layouts and attach various types of multimedia supported by the iPad.” Other important characteristics include the color screen, Apple’s DRM, and distribution and ecommerce platform initiatives like Apple’s iBookstore.

A lot of people are enthusiastic, and especially among the ebook crowd, since Apple comes in as a major play, and, hey, as usual, another of Steve Jobs’ good-looking babies.

But of course, the immediate impact the iPAD will have for book publishers will be modest, at least in comparison to these same publishers’ need to get their publishing processes in order. From the perspective of making money from digital content, publishers need to keep their focus on enriching content with meta-data and striving for one-source/many format publishing. This alone should cause book publishers to take a deep breath or two.

As to iPAD, while I may be wrong in my complaint, at least I’m consistent: As I’ve earlier argued about Kindle being a needlessly restricted device , I’m more annoyed when it comes to iPAD.  Why there’s no voice telephone option—despite the presence of the 3G cell phone signal I/O—simply flummoxes me. Why the iPAD isn’t multi-tasking—such as a MP3/iTunes player, while, say, perusing the Web or epublication—leaves me scratching my head.

But then again, I haven’t seen a compelling enough argument for dedicated ereaders that erase my reservations about too-high prices for artificially constrained communication devices.  Yes, people say that the Kindle is too big to be used conveniently as a telephone, and, obviously, the size/portability questions grow more as the size does, as with the iPAD.

But then, just what am I going to do with all those iPAD shoulder holsters I’ve been making in my basement over the long winter?

I guess I better concentrate on more useful projects, like the upcoming report from the Gilbane Publishing Practice, A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation: Seven Essential Systems to Re-Invent Publishing.  For more information about this, contact me or Ralph Marto.

Perhaps it is not as much fun as naming all the seven deadly sins, but we’ve been having a great time deciding just how many systems are in play in publishing.  Of course, one of the difficulties of such a task is that there are many different types of publishers.

Here’s our take:

1.    planning
2.    editorial and production
3.    rights and royalties
4.    manufacturing
5.    promotion and marketing
6.    sales and licensing
7.    distribution and fulfillment

There’s a great deal of room for niggling on this breakout where planning and editorial, to some, for example, may be practiced as a tightly integrated process, or royalties and rights are actually handled by distinct departments.  The breakout could change as we continue our conversations with publishers, but our best guess is that there is no single unassailable breakout, and so we’re hoping this one will do for the purposes of exploring how CMS ties to various business processes common to publishing.

But, hey, we like a good argument, so feel free to make one!

For more information about our Publishing Practices consulting services and our multi-client-sponsored studies, contact Ralph Marto.