Writing a book on the business aspects of digital publishing is a challenge. For many the digital world offers the biggest revolution in publishing terms since the invention of the printing press; the stakes are therefore high as publishers need to redefine themselves in light of this revolution. As other entrants move into the marketplace, significantly changing the scenery, defining the area of digital publishing is a question in itself. Not only that; as things are changing on a daily basis, keeping pace can be difficult. How far can a book attempt to keep up? Surely this is one of the limitations that digital publishing aims to overcome, so is producing a book like this in itself an ironic statement on the arena? The area of digital publishing is also extremely wide ranging. How far should a book like this look at the technological developments? Which sectors should be covered? How should the issues the industry faces be tackled, given that the parameters of the debates change all the time?
While these questions might suggest such a book as this is going to be difficult to write, digital products are proliferating and business models for these products are becoming more sophisticated. There are now a lot of well-established models around market-facing products that have been robustly tried and tested and are repaying investment. It is important to have a good understanding of these. And as the consumer sector is catching up, it faces various problems which are also worthy of study, as the market watches for the tipping point and publishers reinvent themselves within a digital age. So while much is work in progress, there are certainly many aspects of digital publishing that can sensibly be studied.
This book can only provide a starting point, setting the scene as the business of digital publishing evolves. It aims to cover the basic background so that readers understand the context which has shaped the way digital publishing has developed. The scope essentially covers traditional publishing and the digital products the industry is developing. It focuses on the way these products have been developed in publishing houses and how they have been monetised in different ways. It seeks to give students a basic knowledge across many aspects of digital publishing, so they gain a level of technical literacy, see how each sector works, are alert to distinctions between, for instance, ebooks and apps, and start to understand the key issues that all sectors of the industry face, whether it be rights management or pricing dilemmas. It cannot aim to cover all these topics in depth, but the book should provide a good foundation from which to explore further.
The book is divided into three parts. Part I briefly outlines the technological context. This is important as it has influenced the way the different approaches to digital publishing products have developed. This section does not aim to cover detailed technical knowledge and is not for the specialist. Rather it is a quick summary of key developments. Students should gain enough background to know what key terms such as XML, metadata and CMS mean in order to understand important aspects of a digital publishing business and the challenges it faces. Having a basic level of technical understanding should help the reader to understand something of the product and strategy issues around the development of digital products and understand the implications of certain decisions in product development. There is only room to cover the basics, but this part does provide the explanation of the technical vocabulary that is then used for the rest of the book.
Part II explores in more depth the way four key publishing sectors have developed: professional reference, academic, education and consumer sectors. Each chapter in Part II looks at the growth of the business models from the first stage of their digital publishing programmes to their current shape. It is important to understand why some sectors have much more developed business models compared to others and what influences these models going forward; indeed it is interesting to see how far advanced some sectors are compared to the more visible consumer sector. Students of publishing need to have a good grounding in what is happening across the industry as a whole as the digital revolution moves forward; this part of the book should alert them to the various determining factors that impact on each sector and how each has responded, and continues to respond, to the digital challenge.
The final part, Part III, takes a look at key issues that are commonly debated by those involved in the industry as it restructures around the new digital environment. Each issue could easily be a book in itself. This one cannot attempt to cover them in any great depth, but it does aim to ensure students know the key points and have a comprehensive grounding in each area so they are ready to explore these topics in more depth beyond the book if they so wish. There are some areas, such as agency pricing, from which the industry is beginning to move on; these still provide important learning for those observing the way publishing is evolving and illustrate clearly the continuing dilemmas the industry faces.
The conclusion to Part I and each of the chapters within Parts II and III include further reading and some useful resources to direct those interested in delving deeper into an area. There are also questions to consider, stirring the debate and getting readers thinking further about an area or an issue. Throughout there are case studies that outline a recent development or provide the background to a current hot issue. There will inevitably be omissions; the book cannot hope to cover every topic and discussion that digital publishing raises, but I hope that it will provide a good readable baseline in order to observe, from the point of some knowledge, the continuing digital developments within the industry.