Category: Publishing & media (Page 27 of 53)

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.

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.

The list of the 20 largest publishers in the world shows a profoundly changing landscape in book publishing. The chart below is provided by Rüdiger Wischenbart from Publishing Perspectives in Germany. He has contributed some good insights into the transformation of the publishing industry. I offer my analysis on the state of the industry and its future.

Some publishers are fairing much better economically, while others are steadily sliding downward in revenue and in their global standing. The changing dynamics between the professional information, education and trade sectors has affected this year’s ranking.  The good news is that publishers that have reinvented themselves (responded to market demand by listening to the customer) have done much better than most.

Pearson, Thomson Reuters, Cengage are identified as star performers on the list. Four out of five dollars is generated through the digital integrated value chain. The digital content and e-book industry for professional information content is the high growth segment of the publishing industry. As an industry, we are weak in our recognition of the current size and opportunity of the digital marketplace. Education publishers and trade publishers are having trouble evolving. There is broad need for knowledgeable skilled digital workers, experienced strategic thinkers, scalable and flexible technology infrastructure, and streamlined workflow/processes that allow publishers to execute on updated strategic initiatives.

Asian publishers are becoming a force, as they are in many other market segments. They include companies like Korea’s Kyowon and China’s Higher Education Press. Their strong suit is “localizing” content (i.e. cultural adaptation), and the power and economics of a huge growing audience. They are hungry. They want their piece of the pie.

Trade publishers, experiencing a steady decline in revenues, are poorly positioned to compete. However, the strong performance of Penguin and Hachette are current exceptions in this segment. It remains to be seen if trade publishers can transform into a sustainable business model. Trade’s poor performance and outlook is due to several reasons, beginning with the fact that they have the farthest to go to find and serve today’s and tomorrow’s readers.

We have seen endless debate in trade on digital pricing and searches for new business models. The best solutions will leverage and be respectful of the stakeholders…all of them! That includes, but is not limited to; authors, agents publishers, libraries, distributors, wholesalers, physical bookstores, digital bookstores, printers, service providers, the media, reviewers, technology companies, etc. If publishers burry their heads in the sand by refusing to experiment with new content, pricing models, and sales channels, then there will be serious trouble.

On the bright side, if publishers aggressively discuss new ways to sell content with their channel partners, and seek out non-traditional channel partners that have the audiences with the demand for their products, there is the potential, not to just maintain current revenue, but to actually grow the size of the pie. I know that is a radical statement to make, yet the ‘book’ is being redefined, and publishing is becoming something new.

Several key findings:

• The majority of Top Ranked Global Publishers are based in Europe.
• Professional/knowledge, STM publishers have course corrected and are doing well.
• The first major Asian Publishers are positioning towards competing as top global players.
• Education sector is unstable.
• Trade Publishers are, and will be, hit the hardest in the rapidly emerging digital marketplace.
• Publishers that have reinvented themselves…are prospering!

I have high hopes for the publishing industry. However, until we can meet Peter Drucker’s market-centric definition where he says “…the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself.” Are we there yet? When we achieve this value statement the industry will once again be healthy. As for me…being part of the solution? I am passionate about helping our clients build a stronger publishing industry that is focused on improving the reading experience.

What are you thinking now?

*The “Global Ranking of the Publishing Industry” is an annual initiative of Livres Hebdo, Paris, researched by Ruediger Wischenbart Content and Consulting, and co-published with buchreport (Germany), The Bookseller (UK) and Publishers Weekly (US).

Follow Ted Treanor on Twitter: twitter.com/ePubDr