A student of publishing in the UK asked me for answers to the following questions. Other students of Publishing 101 courses may find them useful, so I've posted them here:
Do you think the use
of digital media will have a positive effect on the publishing industry? Please
give your reasons?
Yes, it certainly will, mainly because it will ensure its
survival. Publishing as a business will dwindle and possibly die unless it embraces
all the opportunities that the new digital age creates.
Ebooks are now a fact of everyday life in the industry,
particularly for fiction. Most experts are forecasting that they’ll account for
at least 50% of total fiction and narrative (non-illustrated) non-fiction
revenues within the next few years. They are close to 30%, at least in the US,
today.
The shift to ebooks of illustrated titles (cookery, travel,
children’s, etc) is still at an early stage of development but a number of new
software systems and packages are coming onto the market that are helping overcome
the burdensome and expensive production process. Many publishers believe that
the real digital revolution will not come to maturity until these sorts of
titles are commonplace. That could take another five to ten years.
How do you think
digital books and journals will affect education?
They are currently revolutionising the industry, and will
continue to. Traditional textbook publishers have begun releasing fully digital
versions of their content that incorporate elements that only digital can
provide – for example, online assessment, online tutorial, customisation, classroom
management tools and communication. School and university administrations are
welcoming these innovations as they add real value to their offerings and save
teacher and administration time. To compete with free online resources (MOOCs),
for one thing, publishers will need to offer extensive administrative services
as well as content.
The large educational publishers have begun negotiating with
university administrations to allow their content to be accessed by students via
the universities’ own Learning Management Systems (LMS), and for an annual
license fee payable directly by each university. This is a very different
business model than the current, print-based, student purchase one. But it is
not one that is foreign to publishers. Scholarly (journal) publishers in
particular have been doing business this way for years. So it will be simply a
matter of moving it from the library’s interface to the LMS. (‘Simply’ being
too simple a word! The transition will be lumpy and difficult).
This model has decided advantages for publishers however. It’s
calculated on the basis of 100% of enrolled student participation, eliminates
returns, cuts out the second hand market, and cuts out any involvement by
booksellers in the supply chain, thus saving considerable cost. The ultimate
price to the student can thus be reduced. Any fee charged the student by the
university to recover the cost of their license would be much lower than the
average student’s current annual printed textbook cost. (Equity issues arise
here however. Some jurisdictions, Australia for example, do not allow the
purchase by students of commercial learning resources to be mandated).
It is early days yet for these sorts of licenses, but most
publishers can see that the license model is the future.
Journal publishers are of course well and truly ahead of all
other industry sectors in their transition to the digital environment. They
have virtually completed it, and are now in the throes of finessing their
digital platforms, for example by developing comprehensive usage data that can
allow university libraries to refine their subscriptions. They are also developing
data mining functionality, allowing academics to drill down into the huge
volumes of research data and discover connections, etc. This is a rapidly
growing field.
Do you think it will
have different effects in secondary school and primary school education?
Most school publishers, particularly secondary, are
publishing digital offerings now. The larger publishers, who have more
financial and technical resources, are paving the way. The nature of their
offerings however is paralleling what’s being done in the tertiary textbook
sector. Online assessment and tutorial are critically important dimensions.
The need to include interactivity, illustrated and full
colour material (photos, line drawings, tables, charts, graphs, etc) and video
material, is slowing down the roll-out of digital resources that are the core
component of the package and not just an optional and limited added extra to a
printed text. The production of these resources is very expensive, and skilled,
technical staff need to be hired.
As in the university sector new business models based on
licensing, whether school by school or regionally, need to be negotiated. This
is all pretty unfamiliar territory for publishers and educational authorities,
but it seems inevitable that it’s the way of the future.
What do you think are the positives and
negatives of ebooks against printed ones?
Much of my answer to this question is contained in my
comments above. However as a general statement I would say that moving online
brings all the advantages that the internet brings to modern life. We simply
can’t imagine life without search engines, web sites, online commerce, social
media, etc. Likewise students in ten years time would not possibly be able to
imagine engaging with published educational content at recognised educational
institutions without the rich interactivity that learning involves.
Similarly, general consumers in the trade market are very
quickly embracing e-readers, whether dedicated e-ink devices or all-purpose
tablets. The widespread acceptance of these devices guarantees a substantial
market for ebooks in the future.
Negatives? Digital Rights Management (DRM) for a start! The
restrictions placed on lending to family and friends, and borrowing from
libraries; the non-interoperability of ebooks across the various e-readers,
which restricts a purchaser to one particular eco-system, e.g. Amazon’s Kindle;
the fact that purchasers don’t really own their ebooks as they do physical
books, but ‘license’ them; the territorial rights deals that prohibit a
purchaser from buying outside the designated territory, unlike for physical
books.
Many publishers lament the low prices for ebooks, and the
fact that the ‘Agency’ model of supply has been outlawed, at least for two
years, by the US Department of Justice, thus removing pricing control from
publishers. I don’t share this view. The agency model is anti-consumer and was
only ever about inhibiting Amazon. Because of the DRM restrictions ebooks are
not worth anywhere near the price of the original printed edition, and publishers
ought to allow actual consumer behaviour, mediated by independent retailers, to
establish acceptable pricing benchmarks.
Do you think the
print publishing industry will eventually be gone or will it always exist
alongside digital publishing?
Printed books will survive but certainly not be published
for every title as a matter of course. And those that are printed, apart from
bestsellers, will only be on the market for a short period of time – maybe a
year or two. The ebook version will continue and be the only one available for
years afterwards. Simple economics will govern this.
The aesthetically beautiful books will always be published
in print editions, but fiction and narrative non-fiction titles, particularly
those with niche, specialist markets, will increasingly be available only in
ebook format.
One major issue governing the publishing and availability of
print books will be the demise of the bricks and mortar bookseller, an entity
that plays a critically important role in book marketing and merchandising. As
booksellers become more rare, so do shelf space, display and the possibility
for browsing and impulse buying.
How do you think the
digital publishing age will affect libraries? Will libraries still exist?
Libraries will continue long into the future to play a vital
social role in the community. Publishers who are at present refusing to supply
ebooks to libraries, or who are supplying in very restrictive ways – higher
prices, limited lending periods and volumes, limited catalogues (for example,
backlist only) – are making a major mistake.
Libraries serve the information, study and entertainment
needs of large segments of society that cannot afford to purchase all that they
may like to, or, like students, need access to voluminous amounts of
information. It does no good to deny people access to published content just
because of their financial or occupational circumstances. ‘Cannibalisation’ is
not a concept that makes any sense here.
As well, patrons who discover authors through their library
will often purchase further works from that author through normal commercial
channels. The library therefore is a prime marketing vehicle for publishers,
and will become even more important the more bookseller shelf space dwindles in
the future.
