Transcript Digital publishing today: Standards, challenges & opportunities Columbia University Libraries’ Digital Library Seminar Michael Healy, Executive Director, Book Industry Study Group.

Digital publishing today:
Standards, challenges & opportunities
Columbia University Libraries’ Digital Library Seminar
Michael Healy, Executive Director, Book Industry Study Group
What is BISG?
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Founded in 1977
Not-for-profit corporation
Based in New York City
Three full-time staff members
 Executive Director
 Associate Director
 Office Manager
Membership
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Drawn from all parts of the supply chain
Our unique strength
Printers, paper mills, book manufacturers
Publishers (large/small; corporate/independent)
Booksellers and wholesalers
Service suppliers
Libraries
Trade associations
A small selection of members ….
Our mission
“Working to create a more informed,
empowered, and efficient book industry.”
The mission in action
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Standards
Best practices
Certification
Research
Publications
Education
Events
U.S. market size *
* Caveat emptor
E-books: $67.2 million *
Audio books: $1 billion
Books: $37.26 billion
Reasons to be gloomy?
 Book sales
 Industry consolidation
 Readership
U.S. book sales 2004-2011
Book sales by sector
Increasing consolidation
A crisis in readership?
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Americans are reading less
Young adults are reading fewer books
Reading is a declining activity for teenagers
American families are spending less on books
Reading comprehension skills are falling
Civic, economic, and cultural implications
Reasons to be cheerful?
Sources of confidence
Technolog
y providers
Search
engines
Standards
Publishers
Devices
Service
providers
Areas of strategic focus
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Infrastructure
Content development
Marketing
Content protection
Infrastructure
 Content preparation
– Frontlist titles “born digital”
– Backlist digitization: selective or total
 DAM and DAD systems
 Workflow integration
– Editorial, production and distribution
 Standardization
– e.g. XML, .epub
Content development
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“Fragment” publishing
Reader-generated content
Customized publishing
Short form narrative
Reader interaction
Content development
Content development
Marketing
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Widgets
Podcasts
Social networking sites
Cell phone marketing
Browse inside
Author-publisher collaboration
Pricing – the importance of $0.00
Author-publisher collaboration
Experimenting with free
Content protection
 Encouraging sales; discouraging piracy
 Meeting consumer expectations
 Online audio books without DRM
 Random House experiment: September 2007
 Random House announcement: February 2008
 Watermarking and piracy tracking
 Amazon and Audible?
Issues for publishers
 Focus on the individual consumer/user
 Focus on “granular” content
 Focus on user-defined content
 Influence of social networking sites
 Encompasses all types of publishers
 Many new players
Issues for publishers: quality/authority
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The question of authority
“The wisdom of crowds”
The role of the editor and the publisher
Social, political, & civic implications
Author-reader relationships
The prospect of disintermediation?
 Publisher
 Bookseller
 Librarian
Issues for publishers: content delivery
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New focus on “content”, not “books”
Customer-driven content models
Selling “fragments”
Aggregation from different sources
Aggregation from different providers
Integration of personal and 3rd party content
Issues for publishers: business models
 Learning from other media
 Newspapers
 Music
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“Getting rich by charging nothing”
Will books ultimately be “free”?
Cost of quality content
Proliferation of new commercial models
 Purchase, rental, ad-driven, subscription etc.
Issues for publishers: rights and DRM
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Rules that describe how content may be used
Mechanisms for rewarding content creators
Tools for investment returns
What are the lessons of the music industry?
The influence of the search engines
Standardized rights-expression languages
Changing publishing models
Traditional Publishing Model
Bookseller owns customer
Publisher’s contact with customer
limited to advertising, author
appearances
Content
Metadata
Content Creators
Content
Publisher
Bookseller
Content +
Product
Metadata
Consumer
Product
Changing publishing models: web 1.0
Web 1.0 Model Shift
Publishers and authors make direct contact
with consumers through online marketing
Content + Product Metadata
(Websites, Newsletters)
Consumer
Content Creators
Publisher
Bookseller
Content + Product Metadata
(Websites, Newsletters, Games, Contests, Interactive)
Changing publishing models: web 2.0
Web 2.0 Model Shift
Publishers
Dynamic
and Authors increase Consumer interaction
Search and Discover
Consumer
defined products
Interactive
Social networks
Digital
Warehouse
Content Creators
Product + Content + Product Metadata
Consumer Defined
Product
(Chapters, Recipes)
(Websites, Newsletters, MySpace)
Publisher
Bookseller
Product + Content + Product Metadata
(Widgets, chunked, mobile, search)
Consumer
Digital
Warehouse
Challenges: the need for standards
 Identification
 Products
 Works
 Contributors
 Product description
 ONIX 3.0
 Product formats
 Transaction standards
Thank you.
Michael Healy
[email protected]
646 336 7141