Author: David Guenette (Page 3 of 4)

At The Gilbane Group’s Content Technologies and Strategies service, we’re wrestling with what we think is one of the biggest challenges facing publishers moving to greater and greater involvement in the digital marketplace: How much impediment is found in publishers’ having insular line-of-business systems throughout their publishing processes?

Digital publishing’s revenues have been growing—a common marker is the statistics in ebook sales growth—and more publishers of all sorts are strengthening their digital publishing efforts. For many, the problem comes down to whether the publisher can make publishing in various ebook formats (or online aggregation, or other models) pay.  It all comes down to how easy (read: cheap) it is to determine conditions like the rights associated with a publication, or part thereof, and how easy (read: cheap) it is to get the actual content into the right form. 

Here’s a simplified example, assuming an existing print textbook.  The textbook’s publisher will have to ascertain the status of and details for all seven publishing processes, from planning through to fulfillment, as follows:
 

• Market for and P&L of digital versions
• Form(s) and features of the digital textbooks
• State of rights and royalties for the textbooks, including, in all likelihood, various contributors and components, and quite possibly licensing or subsidiary rights constraints
• Location, condition, and availability of print edition production and/or manufacturing files
• Design, conversion, and format output requirements of digital versions
• Promotion and sales of digital versions
• Distribution and/or fulfillment of digital textbooks

There is need for planning and editorial to work together to figure out if the digital publications make sense; planning, royalties, and licensing to work together to provide planning with these costs and to work with sales and accounting to meet contractual obligations; editorial, production, and quite likely manufacturing to work together on the specific forms of and source material for the digital versions; production and manufacturing to work together with sales, distribution, and fulfillment, along with marketing and promotion, to get actual digital textbooks out to the end-user or aggregator.

The publishing processes most often have a lot of separate systems and platforms in play, of course. Which means when it comes to extracting money out of print titles by publishing digital editions, there are plenty of places for expenses to become significant. 

Our upcoming report, A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation: Seven Essential Processes to Re-Invent Publishing, looks at, among other things, how these systems can work together, and already we are seeing a number of different strategies that make a lot of sense (read: cents).

We’ll be launching a Web-based survey for mid- and high-level book publishing professionals in about two weeks to gain a more detailed picture of the current state of digital publishing in fact, not theory.  As more and more content technology is applied to book publishing, we think that it is important to ask how well or poorly the different publishing processes can interoperate, and for that answer we need to hear from those doing the real work of publishing.
 

Here’s an old joke of mine I’ve unearthed from the olden times when I was first a developmental editor and then an acquisitions editor at a professional resource and textbook publisher.  

If you don’t think the joke is funny, you’re right.  The feeling among those in publishing of being pressed to absurd extent is a very common one, what a good friend of mine calls “running around with your hair on fire.”  Let’s face it: the practice of publishing, with its tight margins, immovable deadlines, and wide scope of responsibilities is fraught with demands on time.  The Gilbane Publishing Practices group certainly sees this.

One of our ongoing efforts is the upcoming report, A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation: Seven Essential Systems to Re-Invent Publishing, where we’re defining the many systems common across many different kinds of publishing, and describe the technological and process barriers still facing almost every publisher as it moves toward building a successful digital publishing operation.  And, yes, the demands already in place upon the various line-of-business departments are exhausting even to survey.  Add the demands placed upon publishing organizations to create processes that make digital publishing a reasonably good profit center, and it can feel that there is barely time to breathe.  Running around with hair on fire, indeed.

The Gilbane Group means content management, and the long-standing argument that the business of enterprises goes better when content is findable, retrievable, and usable has long been proved by the practices of innumerable enterprises.  With the catchphrase “Every enterprise’s second business is publishing,” it is not surprising that Gilbane has a lot of clients not only in the CMS technology vendor space, but also in the publishing end-user/implementer space.

While there are many similarities between publishers and other enterprises that have a lot of content they need to manage, there are unique aspects too.  Here are a couple examples of the differences: managing royalties and dealing with rights.

Yes, tracking royalties is a sort of accounting issue, and many enterprises—especially those dealing with a lot of rich media—need to take care with rights.  But in publishing, royalties and rights are central to the business.  How does a publisher integrate these key elements of the business with the technology platforms used in other parts of the business process?

Our upcoming report will be quite specific about the real state of opportunity in digital publishing, which means that we’ll need to answer many questions, including the ones about royalty and rights handling.  So it is our turn to run around with our hair on fire, but we promise to still have time to read your comments and inquires about our latest efforts.

Of course, it goes without saying that if one doesn’t have time to read, one probably will be hard-pressed to take a survey: nonetheless, that is exactly what we’ll soon be asking publishers to do.  The survey will be from the book publishers’ perspective and their experiences and concerns about expanding or starting digital publishing programs.  Stay tuned for more specific information on this and for the survey kick-off.

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

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.

The Gilbane Publishing Practice is diving deep into the transformation of publishing as more and more publishers realize that the digital domain can not be ignored.  Not that there aren’t plenty of publishers—especially in STM and other professional publishing efforts—already very active in digital publishing.  Still, trade publishing, for example, is seeing the very real opportunities in eBook markets, and we’re wrestling with what makes for best practices for them.

Not that anyone’s strategy makes for a “one-size-fits-all” approach. There are some trade publishers that have started in on or already have well-established single repository XML-based content management systems, the benefits of which are tremendous not just for eBooks, but for content re-use, custom publishing, localization and translation, and even to varying extents, integration with other line of publishing business systems. In trade publishing, however, there are plenty of publishers that have diverse collections of editorial and production platforms—often the result of the long history of mergers and acquisitions in this industry—and the level of integration within these editorial and production systems is ad hoc, at best, never mind effective tie-ins with marketing or sales systems, or royalties, or rights, etc.  You know who you are.

So, what is the trade publisher supposed to do?  While the ideal solution might be to create content chunks rich with meta-data that feed workflows across not just departments like production, but in and out of all of the other business systems as needed, there is a lot of time and money that goes into such a set up. For trade publishers with publishing systems that work—and maybe it doesn’t really matter if it’s taken a lot of gum and baling wire—what really is needed to add eBooks to the mix?

Companies like Aptara and even newer comer Tizra, along with well-established composition and conversion services, will tell you that if you can output in PDF, they can make eBook for you. And depending on the vendor, the eBook production may be very inexpensive, or have very sophisticated features, or be ready to market and sell, or some combination. SaaS is becoming more common for such processes, so investment, too, is relatively painless. Let’s think of this class of eBook production as “tigers.”  This class of solutions offers impressively quick solutions and a good range of capabilities across a growing number of vendors, and represent a strong competitive argument.

XML-based repository digital asset and content management platforms, with their ability to embed rich metadata that may even enable actionable content to other publishing systems—including sales and distribution—stand as a class we can think of a “grizzly bears.”  There is no doubt that this class of digital publishing solutions is a competitive strategy choice itself. One example is Wave Corporation, another is Mark Logic.  Some solutions work better with publishing business-specific platforms (e.g., Klopotek, Firebrand, MEI).

Of course it may not be an either/or question.  Recent news from codeMantra, about partnering with Mark Logic, points to the combining of the tiger and the grizzly. A “tizzly,” anyone?

Keep an eye open for our efforts to answer such questions, and if you are a vendor in this space, please be sure to contact Bill Trippe or Ralph Marto about participating in our multi-client reports. To read more about our Gilbane Publishing Practice consulting services, click here.

Look into almost any publisher’s history, and if it has a good number of decades behind it, chances are very good that you’ll see that the publisher was its own printer. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is but one example: it’s origin stems from the merger of publisher Ticknor & Fields and Riverside Press, an old Cambridge-based printer founded by Henry Oscar Houghton.

Today, of course, a lot of publishers typically use big printers such as Quebecor, RR Donnelley, or others. With the digital content streams getting under control among publishers of many stripes, together with the growing capability of production printing hardware and software, print on demand (POD) is already mainstream option. Witness Lightening Source.

A recently received press releaseannounced the planned acquisition of Océ, which provides high volume production printing platforms, by Canon, known for its consumer items like cameras and ink jet printers, but also for office equipment such as copiers and printers.

It turns out the Océ’s production printers are behind a good portion of the big POD services, and these machines are able to provide cost-effect alternatives to regular printing in many cases. As publishers seek to extract value out of backlists and custom books by digitizing the content and managing workflow, POD can enable them to produce runs too small for regular printing. But right-sized and right-cost POD can offer attractive margins when the digital content has been managed right.

It makes me wonder if publishers will take the POD in-house, given the relatively modest POD platform expenses, so that the publisher can capture a greater part of the margin on small press runs. Who knows? Maybe the separation of publishing and printing will turn out to have been a temporary anomaly.

With Kindle et al., it can be easy to get stuck on eBooks as the output, but with the right technologies addressed by the digital stream, what shouldn’t be overlooked is POD. PDQ, QED.

With the advent of Kindle, from Amazon, a second dedicated ebook reader device has made the news, not counting the press and high hypes of the many preceding, deceasing ebook device contenders. There is a lot to like about Kindle on the face of it: like the Sony reader, Kindle uses the very effective E-Ink display, and few argue that the display lacks sufficient print page fidelity. But, so what? If you want good black type on white, readable only when illuminated by lamp or sun, the book itself has proved a pretty good format.

But, of course, Kindle promises much more, including all the old bromides about ebooketry like storing many titles, interactive index capabilities, bookmarking, etc., but there are some new tricks in Kindle that may indeed spark new interest. The best one is that through cellphone data network connectivity, the user may order new titles anywhere and anytime the cell network works (which, admittedly, is a whole lot more where and when than Wi-Fi, unless one happens never to leave the office or home network, or lives in a Starbucks). Hats off to Amazon for this innovation. Other features include some sort of Web browsing, an online ebook ordering system that should be second nature to Amazon, and, kinda, MP3 playability. But many of the newest features Kindle offers are more disappointment than delivery, and these shortfalls have everything to do with one of the biggest conceptual problems of dedicated ebook readers in the real world: The additional device conundrum.

While readability is a key requirement for an ebook device (and the lack of which helps explains why PDAs have proved to be a poor ebook market factor), the human species has neither physically evolved more hands, nor has human culture fashioned more pockets. Like 99% of people, I have enough trouble making sure that I have my keys with me when they might be needed, and when you throw in the now essential cellphone, it can seem like half of each day is spent performing the mime of pocket swatting. (Thank god I long ago gave up smoking, and now no longer have to also pat myself down to see about matches or the pack.) People sherpa the minimum, and the idea of having a cell phone, and a PDA, and an MP3 player, and a laptop, and an ebook reader doesn’t require a lot of imagining to be seen as unattractive. And that’s before you figure than anyone hitting their forties also has to carry reading glasses, not to mention for some of any age inhalers or secure ID cards, and for many, breath mints, handkerchiefs, gloves or mittens, and the wallet or two. I’m sure that this is all good training if you’re going to be a combat grunt, but for daily living our current list of the things we carry is a burden.

That’s what drives me crazy about Kindle. It has a built-in cell phone, but there’s no option to use it for anything else other than ordering a book. It has the ICs and jacks for playing MP3 files, but no playlist management, nor—absurdly enough, considering that Amazon is set up to sell things like music—any iTunes-like music downloading. The critical assessment of the Web browsing capability of Kindle is not fully formed, but there’s already plenty of complaint about the Kindle’s shortcomings there. Even one of the strong features of Kindle—E-ink—comes with its own drawback; while promotional copy claims that it is just like reading a page, that also means that you can’t read without a light, so better add a booklight to your pack, even as you’re carrying an electrically powered “book.” And with Kindle’s fundamental lack of support of PDF files—without question the single most widespread format for ebooks—you have to wonder, “What were they thinking?!”

Yes, I’d love to have an ebook device with seamless book ordering. But gosh darn it, it better handle phone calls and calendars, text entry and music playlists, and a good enough Web browser before I’d consider it. Throw in a breath mints storage bin, and I’m sold.