A Blueprint For Book Publishing Transformation Seven Essential Processes To Re-Invent Publishing

GILBANE GROUP
A DIVISION OF OUTSELL, INC.

G
October 1st 2010
A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation:

Seven Essential Processes to Re-Invent Publishing
by David R. Guenette, Bill Trippe, and Karen Golden
Outsell’s Gilbane Group: Research Report

Table of Contents Page #
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
A Blueprint User’s Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Digital Comes to Book Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
The State of Book Publishing Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
E-book Market Sizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Trade Book Publishing: How the Kindle Drove E-book Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Educational Publishing: Solutions Have to Address Both Market and Cost Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Agility, Flexibility, and XML Help STM Publishers Meet Demands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Many Challenges, Many Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Book Publishing’s Seven Essential Publishing Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Mapping Processes to Specific Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Planning Processes and Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Editorial and Production Processes and Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Rights and Royalties Processes and Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Manufacturing Processes and Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Marketing and Promotion Processes and Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Sales and Licensing Processes and Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Distribution and Fulfillment Processes and Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Publishing Processes: Steps toward Better Efficiencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
What is a Digital Book? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Digital Reading Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
The Many Forms and Faces of Digital Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
The Quest for “Searchability” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Utility, and Other Benefits of Digital Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
When is a Digital Book a Print Book? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Digital Book Publishing Industry Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
E-Books Have Arrived . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
XML Becoming Core Publishing Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Digital Publishing is Digital Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
E-Reader Devices in Flux, But So What? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Significant Barriers Remain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Integration and Interoperability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Rich Media and Enhanced E-Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
A Brief Glimpse into the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Table of Contents (continued) Page #
Blueprint Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Wolters Kluwer Health: Digital – and the Right Partner – First . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
McGraw-Hill Higher Education: Going All Out Digital Starts with XML-Early Education . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
John Wiley & Sons: When Digital Means Print . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Hachette Book Group: Sticking to Standardization and Best Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Appendix A: Blueprint Study Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Appendix B: Survey Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Introductory Section of Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Publishing Processes Sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Trans-Publishing Processes: Goals and Barriers to Digital Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Appendix C: Blueprint Sponsors and Vision Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Aptara: Driving Digital Innovation in Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
BISG: Informing and Empowering the Book Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Hewlett-Packard Company: Imaging and Printing Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
MarkLogic: Revolutionizing the Way Today’s Enterprises Consolidate, Discover,
and Distribute Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
North Plains Systems Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Océ North America, Production Printing Systems: Delivering Productivity across the Enterprise . . . . 198
Really Strategies, Inc.: Eliminating Barriers for Publishers to Create and
Deliver Content to the World Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Appendix D: Digital Book Publishing Industry Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Appendix E: The “Blueprint” Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Table & Figure Titles Page #
Table 1. New Title Production Numbers, 2008 and 2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Table 2. Non-Traditional Book Production Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Figure 1. Publisher Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Figure 2. Worldwide E-Books Market by Segment, Content Sales Only, 2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Figure 3. Worldwide E-Books Market as a Proportion of Total Books, 2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Table 3. Regional E-Books Market Size and Growth, 2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Figure 4. Percentage of Gross Revenue from E-book Publishing Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Figure 5. Expected Gross Revenue from E-book Publishing in Five Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Table 4. Kindle E-Book Availability by Book Type, Spring 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Table 5. Sample E-Book Cost and Revenue Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Table 6. Differences Across E-Book Devices, Smartphones, and Tablets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Figure 6. Book Publishing Segments Represented in Blueprint Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Figure 7. Software System Used in Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Table 7. Klopotek Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Table 8. Focus on Publishing Software Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Table 9. Firebrand Technologies Title Management Solutions Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Figure 8. Digital Editions Considered During New Title Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Figure 9. Relative Timing of Digital and Print Title Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Figure 10. Digital-Only Title Consideration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Figure 11. DAM Usage Versus Other Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Figure 12. End Format for Print Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Figure 13. Usage of Outsource Services for Print Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Figure 14. Usage of Outsource Services for E-Book Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Figure 15. Lulu.com’s Recent Charge Schedule for POD Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Figure 16. Promotion and Marketing Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Figure 17. CoreSource as Distribution Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Figure 18. CoreSource Fulfillment Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Figure 19. Firebrand Technologies ONIX Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Figure 20. E-Book or Print Book? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Figure 21. Untethered Device Adoption Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Figure 22. The Voyager Company’s 1991 “Expanded” Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Figure 23. Disney Reader, with Callouts of Interactivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Figure 24. Interactivity Takes Many Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Figure 25. Online Access to Digital Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Figure 26. Mixable Textbooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Table & Figure Titles (continued) Page #
Figure 27. Digital Printing and Digital Workflows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Figure 28. BISG “Point of No Return” Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Figure 29. Kinds of Digital Publications Produced by Book Publishers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Figure 30. Length of Time of XML Used by Book Publishers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Figure 31. Percentage of Titles in XML at Book Publishers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Figure 32. Reasons for Using XML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Figure 33. Use of XML Repositories for Content and Metadata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Figure 34. Reasons for Using XML Repositories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Figure 35. Reasons for Not Using XML Repositories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Figure 36. Perception of E-Books’ Support of Digital Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Figure 37. Reasons for Using Digital Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Figure 38. Book Publishing Companies’ E-Book Production Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Figure 39. Digital Formats in Use at Book Publishers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Figure 40. Respondents’ Reasons for Digital Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Figure 41. E-Readers Galore! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Figure 42. Levels of Interoperability Among Publishing Processes at Book Publishers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Figure 43. A Glimpse of Integration to Come? North Plains TeleScope Publishing Platform . . . . . . . . . . 137
Figure 44. Level of Rich Media Use in Digital Publishing Efforts Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Figure 45. Level of Rich Media Use in Digital Publishing in Five Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Figure 46. “Columbus: Discovery” Multimedia Title, 1991 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Figure 47. “The Elements,” a Contemporary Enhanced E-Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Figure 48. A Sampling of Video Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Figure 49. A Copia E-Reader, Showing a Reading Community Review Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Figure 50. Disruptive Technologies on the Horizon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Table 10. Major Cloud Vendors and Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Figure 51. Respondents’ Self-Identification with Specific Publishing Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Figure 52. Respondents’ Identification of Size of E-Book List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Figure 53. Position Title Breakout for Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Figure 54. Position Title Breakout for Editorial and Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Figure 55. Digital Publishing Gross Revenue Percentages Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Figure 56. Digital Publishing Gross Revenue Percentage Projections in Five Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Frank Gilbane, President of The Gilbane Group, for his support and understanding. We also
thank our new parent company, Outsell, of which The Gilbane Group became a division during the
time we worked on Blueprint; Outsell has been very helpful, and we’ve enjoyed the fruits of their own
research and analysis on e-books and digital publishing, referencing and quoting liberally from their
related reports, to the great improvement of our own efforts. In particular, we thank Anthea Stratigos,
Marc Strohlein, Ned May, and Sheila King, and that hardly exhausts the list.
We are especially appreciative of all the book publishing professionals who let us bother them so much,
both from publishing companies and from the vendor and consultant communities that we found to
be both generous and open. Our association with Book Industry Study Group (BISG), and, especially,
its executive director Scott Lubeck, has been productive and very pleasant.
Finally, and very much in the last but not least tradition, we thank our sponsors for supporting this study.
We hope that thousands download this study, and that every one of them becomes the perfect lead.
Megan Prosser, of Aptara, was incredibly helpful, as was Marianne Calilhanna, of Really Strategies.
Andrew Gordon of Océ North America deserves special credit for his patient tutorials about digital
printing; Anat Herring of HP Indigo Digital Printing Solutions deserves our gratitude for getting us a
terrific case study subject in Lynn Terhune, of Wiley & Sons. MarkLogic’s Jason “JT” Tidwell, long-time
client of The Gilbane Group, showed continued good grace with putting up with our demands, as did
Joshua Duhl, of North Plains, another of our favorite repeat clients.
—David R. Guenette
Acknowledgements
©2010 Outsell, Inc. 6
A Blueprint User’s Guide
The main audience for the study, A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation: Seven Essential
Processes to Re-Invent Publishing, is book publishers; however, it was created to be used in a number
of different ways, at different times and circumstances, by different audiences. Our over-arching
intent is to have approached the subject of e-book and digital publishing from the perspective of the
book publisher, emphasizing the publishing processes familiar to all as the starting point for further
exploration.
Book publishers – and other interested parties – who don’t have time to read, please let these chapter
descriptions guide your reading.
Background on Digital Publishing

The introductory chapter, Digital Comes to Book Publishing, is provided as background; those readers
familiar with e-book publishing already may wish to skip on to other parts of the study. For those who
are newly coming to the subject of e-books and digital publishing in relation to book publishing, we
hope you will find sound perspective and solid basis here before moving on to other elements of this
study.
Essential Processes of Traditional and Digital Publishing

The second chapter, Book Publishing’s Seven Essential Publishing Processes, provides a general
background on the processes of book publishing, tied together with e-book specific and digital
publishing in general considerations. In this chapter, we begin to apply our analysis, drawn both from
extensive interviews and from a significant web-based survey we designed and conducted over two
months. We also explore the specific issues at work in book publishers today and how print-centric
publishing processes are changing as e-books and digital publishing become more important elements
of a book publisher’s business.
Defining the Digital Book

The third chapter, What is a Digital Book?, is an essential part of this study. We found that just as the
various book publishing processes had to be clearly defined and presented within the context of digital
publishing, the very nature of “digital book” required exploration, too. This chapter does not answer
the question definitively; instead, it provides a perspective about digital publishing to help readers be
conceptually inclusive and open to what cannot yet possibly be well-defined or yet well-known.
Where Book Publishing is Going… and What May Block the Way
The Digital Publishing Industry Outlook, the last chapter, takes on the charge of analysis of current
e-book and digital publishing practices and challenges while seeking to define what is important for the
book publisher to keep in mind moving forward. We’ve brought quotes from your fellow practitioners,
reports from the survey concerning key barriers and likely technology developments, and our own best
efforts to share our understanding about what is ahead for digital publishing.

Concrete Case Studies in Digital Publishing
As an essential part of our research, we’ve undertaken in-depth interviews with book publishers and
have produced case studies that emphasize real-world experiences. The case studies presented in the
appendix reflect most of the key issues facing real book publishers seeking to make a real business out
of e-books and digital publishing. We hope that these case studies will be seen as resources for readers,
and will help our readers present effective and compelling arguments to colleagues and management
as they advance their digital publishing efforts. Taken together, the case studies provide a different way
of telling the same story as the rest of the study, but as grounded in practical reality as possible.
Digital Book Publishing Industry Directory

This list is a useful tool providing an alternate snapshot of where the book publishing industry is,
especially in terms of tools and services. These types of vendors sometimes spring up and disappear
quickly; an online, self-maintaining, yet editorially shaped resource would be ideal but our static version
is a very good start.
A Note About Our Methodology

We worked in partnership with the sponsors of our multi-client study to develop and validate answers
to key questions about the transition to digital publishing now taking place in the book publishing
industry. We investigated these questions using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods,
and relied on our sponsors to arrange introductions to their key reference accounts – customers who
have deployed innovative solutions using their systems, tools, services, and applications.
We investigated, in a systematic manner, how our sponsors’ content systems, tools, services, and
applications are being deployed. We interviewed both the technical and business leads for projects
within the reference accounts. We used the questionnaire that we’ve developed to enable us to
characterize the size, scope of deployments, and outcomes, together with open-ended questions
through which we gathered an experiential assessment of the projects. We gather sufficient qualitative
information from the reference accounts to develop comparative case studies.
Finally, we compared and contrasted the business and technology drivers among the multiple
deployments across a range of organizations. We then mapped the technology landscape for content-
centric solutions and documented our analysis. In addition, we identified the key business drivers and
critical success factors demonstrated by the vendor-nominated customers and by other publishers we
interviewed.

Executive Summary
It truly is a whole new world for book publishing. Publishers know this of course, as do their partners,
vendors, and, of course, their booksellers. There are the obvious signs – the Kindles you see in friends’
hands and on the subway and the lines at the Apple store when the iPad was introduced. For industry
observers, there are also the daily headlines about Google, Sony, Apple, and Amazon. PW Daily, the
Monday-Friday e-mail blast from Publishers Weekly has e-book-related articles in almost every edition;
we have counted more than one edition in the past year where every article was about e-books.
After the devastating economy of late 2008 and early 2009, book publishers are seeing more numbers
that are positive. The revenues for digital publishing – and e-books specifically – are very strong and
promise to continue to grow. Some segments of book publishing, including STM (scientific, technical,
and medical) and professional, reached the digital revenue tipping point long ago. Some research from
our Outsell colleagues, summarized later in this report, suggest other segments will start to tip in the
next year or two.
These larger forces are creating significant pressure inside of book publishing. The goal of this study
was to look at how publishers are adapting their traditional processes – many decades old and older
– to adapt to digital publishing. Since these processes are usually aided by technology, the study took
aim at the tools and systems publishers have been using and are starting to use.
The excitement of the marketplace is tempered by some of our analysis. While there are many bright
spots – production and digital printing jump to mind – other process areas lag, are too nascent, or are
waiting for industry standards and best practices to coalesce. What makes the landscape particularly
challenging for book publishers is the rapid-fire addition of new channels and business models and the
need to codify these models in their internal processes and systems even before they can fully evaluate
how valuable some of these channels and models are.
Still the big picture for book publishers is very positive. The revenues are there, and growing. Readers
are excited by the new devices and are demonstrating their excitement in fast-growing device and
e-book sales. Publishers are moving ahead quickly across a broad front of process improvement and
technology investment. Our case studies point to some of the smartest bets publishers can make in
the near- and medium-term. We expect that a look at these process areas in another year would show
steady improvement in most areas and marked improvement in those areas tied most directly to
revenue growth and e-book promotion.
For publishers and their technology and service partners, the challenge of the next few years will be to
invest wisely in technology and process improvement while simultaneously being aggressive about
pursuing new business models. We hope this study helps book publishers with such a balancing act.
Executive Summary
Digital Comes to Book Publishing
These headlines, all of which occurred within a one-day period in May 2010, were designed to spark
panic in the heart of every book publisher:
‘Google Editions’ Could Transform Publishing
Google Editions: Let the e-book war begin
Open vs. Closed: Google Takes on Amazon and Apple in e-Books
With or Without You, Your Google Editions Will Have Unique ISBNs
What will be the best iPad app for reading Google e-books?
Google Editions still due in ‘late June or July’
Our best advice to book publishers: Take steady, even breaths, and stick to your knitting.
Of course, this advice – apart from the breathing aspect – can easily cause plenty of panic itself,
especially when wrestling with the definition of “knitting.”
What is a book publisher’s “knitting” these days? In one sense, the book publisher should be what it has
always best been about – discovering, improving, and making public good (and even great) books. But
what has changed for book publishers is the radically different world in which they interact today, and
that is the world of bits and bytes: digital content, digital communication, and digital commerce.
Today’s knitting must include, right along with the traditional goals of discovering, improving, and
making public great books, the always-ongoing effort to improve the processes for meeting these
goals. And today that invariably means mastering the digital tools and techniques within publishing
processes. If done right, today’s efforts toward digital publishing processes will “future proof” the
publisher, because today’s efforts done right are aimed at adding value to the content in media neutral,
forwardly compatible forms.

We need to emphasize that the present day for book publishers should involve XML formats as early in
the publishing process as possible. We are convinced that e-book formats will evolve and change and
that new ones will emerge. XML stands today as the one standard format that will enable publishers
to best create, manage, and curate content over time. Moreover, the future will expand how XML and
metadata can support strong integration among the various publishing processes within the publisher’s
own work. Even more valuable, as the industry moves forward, will be the interoperability of metadata
and its subject content across the multiplying value chains from authors to publishers, to distributors
and sellers, to readers, and all the known or still not yet discovered participants along the way.
This study, A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation: Seven Essential Processes to Re-Invent
Publishing, provides a guide for book publishers to discover where they are this moment regarding
digital transformation. It also offers specific case studies and analysis of how book publishers should
approach getting to where they need to be to take advantage next year and in the years ahead.
Remember the Chinese proverb that every problem is also an opportunity… as long as one keeps
breathing.
The State of Book Publishing Today
What is going on in book publishing today? Even for those of us who may be able to take a calming
breath or two, there’s no denying that business is stressed. A number of major trade publishers –
starting with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – stopped acquiring titles for a while. While there are a number
of reasons given for this, the main message drawn by the industry as a whole was about as dark as could
be: trade book publishing is in big trouble. Now, is trade publishing really in “big trouble?” Despite
journalists’ and analysts’ comments, it may not yet be time to abandon all hope. According to Bowker’s
estimates, new title production dropped a noticeable (but small) 1.25% from 2008 to 2009, as shown in
Table 1. More striking than the small overall drop is the steep decline (almost 15%) in fiction titles while
all other types of trade titles showed healthy growth, especially in a difficult market.
Table 1. New Title Production Numbers, 2008 and 2009

2009 2008
Rank Category Growth
Production Production
1 Fiction 45,181 53,058 -14.85%
2 Juveniles 32,348 29,825 8.46%
3 Sociology/Economics 25,992 24,737 5.07%
4 Religion 19,310 18,296 5.54%
5 Science 15,428 14,100 9.42%
Total 138,259 140,016 -1.25%
Source: Bowker Reports Traditional U.S. Book Production Flat in 2009, April 14, 2010 Press Release
©2010 Outsell, Inc. Reproduction strictly prohibited.

As Rachel Deahl reported in the November 24, 2008 issue of Publishers Weekly:
It’s been clear for months that it will be a not-so-merry holiday

season for publishers, but at least one house has gone so far as to
halt acquisitions. PW has learned that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has
asked its editors to stop buying books.
Josef Blumenfeld, Vice President of Communications for HMH, was reported by Deahl as saying, “In
this case, it’s a symbol of doing things smarter; it’s not an indicator of the end of literature. We have
turned off the spigot, but we have a very robust pipeline.” But the article also referenced “the highly
leveraged HMH” that could be suffering from “the company’s need to cut costs in a tight credit market
as about the current economic slowdown.”
A week or so later, National Public Radio ran a story that built upon the HMH news, citing that “several
publishing houses [Simon & Schuster, Thomas Nelson] announced layoffs or salary freezes, and a major
reorganization at Random House left two major players in the business without jobs.” The story, Book
Industry Enters Shaky Chapter, by Lynn Neary, ran on December 5.
In Table 2, a look at the top publishers by title output in 2009 shows who is providing content to the long-
tail marketplace through the web, according to Bowker statistics. The point here is the large number
of titles emanating from what Bowker calls “non-traditional” publishing, which includes e-books and
print on demand.
Table 2. Non-Traditional Book Production Numbers

Publisher Number of
Titles
BiblioBazaar 272,930
Books LLC 224,460
Kessinger Publishing, LLC 190,175
CreateSpace 21,819
General Books LLC 11,887
Lulu.com 10,386
Xlibris Corporation 10,161
AuthorHouse 9,445
International Business Publications, USA 8,271
PublishAmerica, Incorporated 5,698
Source: Bowker Reports Traditional U.S. Book Production Flat in 2009, April 14, 2010 Press Release

Neary quotes Jonathan Burnham, the CEO, vice president, and publisher of Harper, an imprint of
HarperCollins, saying, “We were already facing certain big challenges before the recession came
along, and those challenges were connected to the traditional mechanisms of the book business.”
Burnham’s major concerns are two-fold. The first is the need for trade publishers to find an alternative
to the system of returns that allow stores to return unsold books to warehouses, resulting in books
being shipped back and forth across the country at great cost. The other concern? Burnham says, “The
industry must now truly grapple with digital advances, like electronic readers, that are already leading
to dramatic changes.”
Fast forward to 2010 and a thought-provoking article about changes in the book industry. Writing in
the April 26 issue of The New Yorker in an article called Publish or Perish: Can the iPad topple the Kindle,
and save the book business?, Ken Aulleta notes:
In the weeks before [the iPad product launch], the book industry
had been full of unaccustomed optimism; in some publishing circles,
the device had been referred to as “the Jesus tablet.” The industry
was desperate for a savior. Between 2002 and 2008, annual sales
had grown just 1.6 per cent, and profit margins were shrinking. Like
other struggling businesses, publishers had slashed expenditures,
laying off editors and publicists and taking fewer chances on
unknown writers… The industry’s great hope was that the iPad
would bring electronic books to the masses – and help make them
profitable.
The diversity of the publishing industry is illustrated well in Figure 1, which delivers the results of a
question in an Aptara survey: “What industry segment(s) best describe your publications?”
Figure 1. Publisher Type
5%
15%
32%
Professional: Science / Technical / Medical (STM)

Trade / Consumer
16% Education / College
Other
Education / K-12
31%
Source: Aptara Survey

Question: What industry segment(s) best describe your publications

E-book Market Sizing
The Gilbane Group’s parent company, Outsell, Inc., published the report Worldwide E-Books Market
Size & Forecast Report, 2009-2012 (June 21, 2010), in which Ned May explores how the landscape
for e-books is unfolding across all content types. The report also focused on the potential revenue
opportunities for all publishers targeting e-books. Here’s an interesting data point:
Outsell forecasts the worldwide e-book market to grow at a

compound annual rate of 42% from 2009 to 2012. While this is
robust growth and worthy of note, it obfuscates a set of divergent
dynamics underlying the segments and regions comprising the
market. The e-book market today is not one market but several
distinct markets and it is unfolding at different rates across the
world’s regions.
Like this Blueprint report, the Outsell report segments the market into narrow slices that closely mirror
the print book market, although Outsell’s three primary fields – education, professional, and consumer
– is somewhat simpler than our breakout. “As a starting point in this divergence,” May writes, “the
definition of e-book (or e-textbook) is subtly different depending on the core market it is designed to
serve.”
Figure 2. Worldwide E-Books Market by Segment, Content Sales Only, 2009
$1.8
$1.5
$1.3
Total Education E-book Total Professional E-book Total Consumer E-book

Market Market Market
Worldwide E-Books Market Segment Size ($ Billions)
Source: Outsell estimates

Our definition of e-books fits nicely with Outsell’s, which defines e-books as downloadable units
of digital book content that can be read on a variety of devices (e.g., laptops, e-book readers, and
smartphones). The Blueprint defines digital publishing more broadly as including websites based on
content from existing books, for example, but Outsell also is mindful of the difficulty in differentiating
the two categories. “However, the standard form of this content is changing for some types of ‘books’
as publishers increasingly look to explore the inclusion of video and audio to support the text where
appropriate,” writes May. “In practical terms, this means the category of educational e-books includes
a wider variety of formats than trade books, which keep a closer alignment to their print counterparts.”
He provides another useful caveat about defining the e-book market:

One of the challenges in discussing the e-book market is that
e-readers can range from a proprietary software platform accessible
via the web to a dedicated standalone device. In between is a range
of other options that include proprietary software downloaded to a
computer, laptop, or handheld device as well as relatively ubiquitous
software programs such as Adobe Reader and even Microsoft Word…
Complicating this further is that the lines between these different
“readers” are increasingly blurred. For example, the Amazon Kindle
is a standalone device that utilizes a proprietary format, but it
also accepts other formats such as Adobe PDFs. Additionally, the
Kindle reader platform is also available for download to a computer,
smartphone, and even computing tablet like the iPad.
Outsell sizes the education e-book market at $1.8 billion or 11.5% of the global education book market.
The professional e-book market is estimated at 10.5% of the worldwide professional book total, or $1.3
billion, and the consumer e-book market is forecast at just 4.2% of the consumer book market, or $1.5
billion.
Figure 3. Worldwide E-Books Market as a Proportion of Total Books, 2009
11.5%
10.5%
4.2%
Total Education E-book Total Professional E-book Total Consumer E-book

Market Market Market
E-Books' Proportion of Each Worldwide Books Segment

Outsell estimates the market expanded by 48% in 2009, and for now, the US is seeing the greatest
rate of growth across all segments. However, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) will soon
overtake the Americas in terms of growth and is forecast to reach a three-year compound annual
growth (CAGR) of 51% through 2012. This growth is off of a much smaller base than the US market,
however, as consumers across much of EMEA have generally been slower to adopt e-books.
Although results from the Blueprint web-based survey we conducted as part of the research of this
study don’t directly reflect market size for e-books, the results do reflect the current state of e-book
revenue contribution and revenue expectations in five years. The growth from today’s gross revenue
contributions among responding book-publishing professionals compared to their assessments of
percentages of gross revenues at book publishing companies from e-books in five years mirrors the
anticipated CAGR growth trend.

Table 3. Regional E-Books Market Size and Growth, 2009
2009 E-Books Market Size 3-Year CAGR
($ Millions)
US 3,023 41%
Americas 3,167 41%

EMEA 975 51%
AP 485 31%
Worldwide 4,627 42%

When asked about the percentage of gross revenue that e-book-specific activities generated at their
company, survey respondents indicated that the majority of book publishers see less than 5% of gross
revenues from e-book efforts, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4. Percentage of Gross Revenue from E-book Publishing Today

Less than 5% of gross revenues are from e-book
34.9%
activities
There is no revenue from e-book activities 27.5%

19.3%
activities
More than 25% of gross revenues are from e-book

7.3%
activities

3.7%
activities
I don’t know 7.3%
Source: Gilbane Group Publishing Survey, July 2010

Question 68, "What is the current level of activity, measured as a percentage of overall gross revenue, of the ebook-specific activities at your book
publisher?"
Base = 109

In contrast, expected revenue from e-book efforts in five years’ time runs high, with the majority
of book publishers expecting 15% or higher of gross revenues to come from e-books, as shown in
Figure 5.
Figure 5. Expected Gross Revenue from E-book Publishing in Five Years
More than 25% but less than 50% of gross revenues are
26.4%
from e-book activities
More than 15% but less than 25% of gross revenues are
22.6%
from e-book activities
21.7%
activities
More than 50% of gross revenues are from e-book
13.2%
activities
5.7%
activities
There is no revenue from e-book activities 4.7%
I don’t know 5.7%

Question 70, "At what level of activity, measured as a percentage of overall gross revenue, do you see for the e-book-specific activities at your book publisher
in five years time?"
Base = 106
There is much more to book publishing than trade books, though the public generally may not know
this. College and K-12 publishers have been doing very interesting things in the digital realm, and
STM and legal publishers were among the first online publishers (and CD-ROM before that). The list
of historical digital efforts and brand new digital publishing undertakings is long and growing. But for
panic generation – right alongside hope and hype making – nothing outstrips trade publishing.

Trade Book Publishing: How the Kindle Drove E-book Publishing
In early spring 2010, a quick check on Amazon.com reported 461,899 results for “All Kindle Books.”
Table 4 provides the breakdown, as shown on Amazon.
Table 4. Kindle E-Book Availability by Book Type, Spring 2010

Category Number of Titles
Fiction 158,277
Nonfiction 282,904
Advice & How-to 33,797
Arts & Entertainment 35,169
Biographies & Memoirs 17,286
Business & Investing 36,399
Children’s Books 17,736
Comics & Graphic Novels 753
Computers & Internet 17,101
Cooking, Food & Wine 5,044
Fantasy 7,293
History 41,655
Humor 10,046
Kindle Default Dictionaries 15
Lifestyle & Home 23,736
Literary Fiction 13,316
Mystery & Thrillers 20,678
Parenting & Families 9,944
Politics & Current Events 14,724
Reference 15,688
Religion & Spirituality 35,432
Romance 26,056
Science 42,115
Science Fiction 9,332
Sports 6,210
Travel 6,447
Source: Amazon.com, early spring 2010


There are bound to be plenty of titles showing up in multiple categories in this list, but even assuming
a three-to-one ratio for repetition, there are a lot of titles available for the Amazon Kindle e-reader
platform, especially keeping in mind that the Kindle is only about three years old. Keep in mind too that
many of these titles – and probably some altogether different ones – are available in other e-reader
formats, as well as PC-oriented titles for Adobe Digital Editions, PDF, ePub, .txt, and etc. And then
there are titles available through aggregator sites – especially in the education and professional areas
– and those (usually high-value) titles from professional and STM publishers that aren’t likely to want
to show up on a trade book retailer’s virtual shelves.
But let’s get back to the Kindle title explosion. How has this happened?
Step One: Begin Selling Books Online (or, Create Amazon.com)

The first step was the emergence of Amazon and some other online booksellers that became leading
places for the selling of books, virtually and otherwise.
Even looking at book publishing in a generic way, ignoring the wide range of book types and markets,
there have been several big developments over the last decade or so. One such development has been
the growth on online bookstores, of which Amazon remains the 800-pound gorilla. Amazon got to
be so big because it made book buying easy through wide title selection, good prices, and a simple,
attractive, and trustworthy buying experience. Other bookstores – Barnes & Noble is perhaps the best
next example – followed suit, even as the brick and mortar bookstores have been falling away.
Step Two: Learn the Value of the Book Online

This second step was Amazon (and to some extent, other online booksellers) learning which titles were
selling how much.
One nice outcome of the high-volume booksellers handling book transactions online – from publisher
orders and distribution to letting visitors browse and buy online, title by title – is that all this activity
is easy to track, especially with tools like enterprise resource planning platforms, web metrics, and
audience tracking and personalization (e.g., “Customers who bought this item also bought”). And so
enters a new thing in book publishing: knowing not just how many copies of a given book are sold but
how customers are seeking, evaluating, and buying them. Book publishers in many markets have never
been close to the customer in this way, but new technologies are giving book publishers visibility into
the customers’ wants, needs, and habits that they have never had before.
Not that book publishing was without such tools, notably ones from Bowker and Nielsen. Nonetheless,
Amazon’s relationship with the book publisher is a direct and highly motivated one for each party, as a
relationship of producer and seller.

Step Three: Make Book Buying Easy
The third step was that Amazon created an infrastructure that supports and expands upon the book
publisher’s traditional promotional efforts.
Amazon’s ongoing efforts expand its role as a promotion and marketing asset for the book publisher,
through book marketing material presentation, by improving discoverability, adding personalization,
and building Amazon Associate linking. Discoverability, a term wrapped by so many in so much magical
language like “SEO,” “taxonomy,” and “social communities,” is the means of making books known
to the prospective buyer via search. Personalization is the association of similar reading choices to
promote similar buying patterns. Associate site linking is a way to accomplish contextual promotion
and advertising of titles across a much larger number of sites than simply Amazon, while driving sales
only through Amazon.
Amazon’s numerous options for customer interaction for a title, such as the Look Inside! function,
reviews, recommendations, and rankings, make Amazon a far more effective co-marketer for book
publishers than any actual storefront. In short, Amazon makes it easy for the book publisher to benefit
from the advantages of online marketing and promoting.
And Along Came E-Books… and Revenue

Amazon’s e-book play has to be admired. The company has become an important part – often the
majority – of book publishers’ print sales. To capture a good share of the e-book market Amazon turns
to its publishers and reports to them several important facts, including an in-depth knowledge of the
publisher’s titles, because Amazon carries them; the audience interest in the specific titles, because
Amazon sells the titles and tracks these numbers; and the search metrics for the particular title and
titles from other publishers that meet the same book-type and subject category.
From these reports, it is but a short step – and getting shorter all the time – to provide reasonable
sales projections for print titles as e-book titles. Put your print titles into Kindle, goes the tempting
argument, and reap the bottom line, done on a title-by-title basis.

For a book publisher, it is not hard math to discern if an e-book edition will make financial sense, based
on such revenue expectations. Table 5 is a simple example we created to illustrate “e-book math.”
Table 5. Sample E-Book Cost and Revenue Analysis

Unit Sales Forecast
Title X has sold 1,000 print copies for the previous three years. First year sales were 2,200. Estimate is for 600
annual units of e-book sales.
One-time costs
Title X’s rights and royalties situation seems clear, but a contract check and agent correspondence will $200
confirm this and update the royalty system to include the new e-edition.
Title X’s production files are available within the publisher’s DAM, but a production manager will need to $200
confirm this and hand off files for e-book conversion.
Title X’s conversion to e-book format $100
Title X e-book edition’s ONIX packaging and distribution to Amazon, including updating inventory, $100
account receivable, and other back end business platforms.
Total one-time costs $600
Revenue Forecast
E-book edition sales price $9.95
E-book edition discount to Amazon (this is conservative, given the reports about Amazon’s buying books 50%
at the regular wholesale price of the print title)
Total gross revenue, year one $2,985.00
Revenue after payment of royalty to author (25% of gross revenue, equallng $746.25) $2,238.75
Net revenue after payment of one-time costs of $600 $1,638.75
Source: Outsell analysis

The assumptions are here for example purposes only, and the success of the scenario in Table 5 depends
on many factors, including:
• Are the rights and royalties well-tracked, simple, and easily discernable by the editorial worker?
• Are back office systems (accounting, inventory, and royalties) easily accessible and updatable by
the editorial worker?
• Are the print book production files well managed, retrievable, and in a format appropriate for
efficient e-book conversion?
• Is the e-book file easily packaged and transmitted to the e-book retailer?

In this simple scenario, with positive answers to the questions above, the revenue expectations are
reasonable, and, indeed, the associated costs per title would likely be lower when applied across many
titles. For a mid-size publisher of 200 titles per year, for example, one might assume that a front-, mid-,
and backlist of titles going back three years (600 titles) may represent 300 titles that can be considered
by dint of sales history to present reasonable sales expectations as e-books. Furthermore, these are
recent titles that may have a better chance of the author/agent contracts cleanly anticipating e-book
editions, and production files that are more likely to be appropriate for e-book conversion, all of which
would work to further constrain the costs associated with moving forward with an e-book publishing
program. If the price and revenue assumptions listed above are extended as an average for a list of 300
titles, the first year’s net revenue for the publisher would be $491,625, on a direct cost of $180,000.
So, basically, Amazon comes to our example book publisher and says, “Would you like an extra half-
million in income next year?” Not to mention other benefits, including:
• Expanded promotion for title;

• Strengthened competitiveness for publisher;
• Potentially lower cost moves into other e-book formats;
• Expanded sales of title through other e-book formats;
• Expanded sales through print-on-demand (POD) and short run, with little or no additional file
costs;
• “Just-in-time” inventory of backlist titles through POD.
What Is in It for Amazon with E-Books?

So why is Amazon, with its Kindle device and its proved-out ability to encourage book publishers to
publish in the Kindle format, doing it? The obvious answer is that Amazon wants to expand its book
selling business to e-books, and not only that, but in its own proprietary format, Kindle.
But this expansion is not without its challenges, especially the challenge of entrenched profit models
for publishers (and royalty models for authors), which are commonly based on the list price of the book.
Aulleta notes that “Amazon had been buying many e-books from publishers for about thirteen dollars
and selling them for $9.99, taking a loss on each book in order to gain market share and encourage
sales of its electronic reading device, the Kindle.” This approach has been effective, with, according
to The New Yorker article, the close of 2009 seeing Amazon accounting “…for an estimated 80% of
all electronic-book sales, and $9.99 seemed to be established as the price of an e-book.” The price
causes concerns among book publishers, even while currently they are losing nothing relative to the
typical wholesale revenue. Aulleta quotes DavidYoung, the chairman and CEO of Hachette Book Group
USA, saying, “The big concern – and it’s a massive concern – is the $9.99 pricing point. If it’s allowed
to take hold in the consumer’s mind that a book is worth ten bucks, to my mind it’s game over for this
business.”

So publishers are pushing back on Amazon’s demands for the uniform $9.99 price point for e-books.
This seemed to come to a head at the start of 2010, when Macmillan, the behemoth trade publisher,
refused to follow Amazon’s pricing scheme for Kindle titles, all up to then available through Amazon
at $9.95.
It remains to be seen whether Amazon will succeed in its efforts to establish the e-reader (Kindle) as
the expected e-book format and the Amazon channel as the expected source for most e-book sales,
But clearly, not all have been happy: many trade publishers, fearful of print book price erosion, were
sympathetic to the Macmillan et al agency pricing revolt, where the retailer is, in effect, selling on
commission and, typically, for a smaller percentage of the revenue than the 50% wholesale discount
of traditional practice. The current flurry of interest in the agency model may prove to have legs for
publishers wanting more control over pricing, and they have at least temporarily been given a boost.
Part of the boost may come from the hope and hoopla about iPad, and from the many other existing
and coming e-book reader and general portable devices (e.g., netbooks) yet to come.
The real question for publishers of all stripes is not whether Kindle will rule the market or if the iPad
will be the Kindle “killer” and save the book business, but instead whether book publishers can create
and produce their products in ways that allow, cost-efficiently, the flexibility to serve whatever forms,
factors, and fancies their customers may want.
Table 6 notes the various strengths and weaknesses for different types of digital publishing across
e-reader-capable devices.
Table 6. Differences Across E-Book Devices, Smartphones, and Tablets

Primary Best
Primary User Display Display Display Content Battery
Type Connectivity Content
Interaction Size Format Speed Revenue Life Match
Model
E-Readers Consume Medium Grayscale Slow Limited Subscription Long Books
Data Transaction Linear
Smartphones Communicate Small Color Fast Full- Voice Advertising Short News
Data Single
Media
Tablets Engage Medium Color Fast Full Subscription Medium Magazines
Data Transaction Multimedia
Advertising
Source: Outsell analysis


Educational Publishing: Solutions Have to Address Both Market and Cost Problems
A big part of book publishing is textbooks, along with the instructor and student ancillary publications
that support learning, notes Outsell, in the November 9, 2009 report, The Outsell Education 100. Outsell
describes the overall market this way:
We’ve established that the education industry is diverse, global,

and comprised of a variety of players and products. It is highly
fragmented, even in some of the areas that have been in play for
decades such as content available in textbooks or training materials.
What is happening is that the type of content is changing, the
financial models of selling content are changing, and the market
composition and global markets are changing. At the same time, the
market size is almost static with an estimated US 2010 growth rate of
about 3%.
The challenges in higher education publishing have been identified for some time now, but the
problems continue to grow. Here’s an excerpt from the report Digital Platforms and Technologies for
Publishers: Implementations Beyond “eBook”, published in 2009 by The Gilbane Group:
Copyright law has a major impact on how printed books are sold.
While buyers of a book are precluded from copying and distributing
information found in the book that they purchased, they do acquire
a perpetual assignable license to use the book and then sell it to
another reader if they so desire. Although many readers prefer to
collect and retain books that they have purchased, other readers
lack the space or inclination to keep their books and eventually sell
them. The internet has played a very important role in enhancing the
market for used books.
Used books have a minimal impact on the trade, STM, school and
children’s markets. However, the higher education market has
been severely affected by used books. While many people believe
that used books save students money, quite the opposite is true.
The preponderance of used books significantly reduces the number
of new units that are sold by publishers. In that publishers are
responsible for providing significant amounts of costly pedagogical
support elements for instructors and students, the price of new
books must be increased to compensate for the lower number of
units that are sold. As the price of textbooks increases, the number of
copies diminishes further and the cycle repeats itself.

This above example illustrates the importance of publishers
choosing a business model that reflects the behavior of their
customers and that offers pricing that is commensurate with the
value that customers derive from each content product. Digital
publishing affords publishers much more creativity and flexibility
in pricing their products. Free from the costs of manufacturing and
distributing printed books, publishers have quite a different cost
structure to work with. And channel costs and discount structures
can be less because retailers do not need to pay to ship the books and
to dedicate space in their store to display the books for sale. Other
costs such as royalties and permissions need to be rationalized in
light of the potential growth of digital content products.
What is going on in education digital publishing would make for a multi-volume report in its own right,
but there are a number of very interesting efforts underway that speak quite eloquently about digital
publishing’s role in the healthy future of this book publishing segment. Perhaps most impressive is
CourseSmart, for its assembling of major Higher Education publishers into an effective production
process and delivery platform.
CourseSmart: An Early Implementation of Integrated Digital Publishing Focused on Audience

CourseSmart was founded and is supported by five higher-education textbook publishers: Pearson, John
Wiley, Cengage Learning, McGraw-Hill Education, and Bedford, Freeman and Worth Publishing Group,
but today has 14 publishers participating. This effort brings together thousands of textbooks across
hundreds of courses in an e-book format on a common platform, with the following objectives:
 To provide an environment where faculty can access digital texts for evaluation purposes;
 To create a marketplace where students could buy e-textbooks;
 To support business partners.
CourseSmart hopes to reduce what has always been a high cost for publishers, even while helping
teachers find the most relevant and applicable textbooks in the correct editions. From the students’
perspective, such a resource helps resolve access barriers, since the mass of e-textbook content is in
a common format. While it is early days as yet, part of the hope behind CourseSmart is to become the
single – or, at least, main – distribution channel into college stores and institutions.
Currently, CourseSmart uses two content formats, including a proprietary format that delivers an
online version of the textbook, and a downloadable format called VitalBook, powered by software
developer VitalSource (now part of Ingram Content), which allows users to download the textbook to
one laptop or PC. This format was designed specifically for the teaching and learning environment, and
is also used by other publishers in this marketplace with large and complex texts, such as John Wiley. At
least at this moment, CourseSmart does not support formats that would enable its e-textbooks to be
delivered to e-book reader devices such as the Amazon Kindle.

Although device developments such as the iPad may enable textbooks that rely heavily on color or
that would benefit from other rich media, the experience of having an e-textbook on a laptop or PC is
becoming well-established, and laptop penetration among higher education students is as high as 80%
of incoming freshmen in the US.
Not surprisingly, the business model CourseSmart uses with students is quite different from the
traditional textbook purchase model. Instead, students take out a subscription to the textbook for
a specified period, although an alternative model that would allow limited use for four more years of
access is reportedly being considered. VitalSource’s VitalBook e-book format uses proprietary DRM
technology.
This approach to textbooks may remind some readers of Safari Books Online, which pioneered technical
e-books through an online environment. Sean Devine, CourseSmart’s CEO, had spent six years as the
CEO of Safari Books Online, a leading provider of electronic access to computer and business books
founded in 2001 by O’Reilly Media, Inc. and The Pearson Technology Group, with the goal of gathering
technology books into an online database serving IT, programming, and design professionals. A well-
known aspect of Safari Books Online is the Rough Cuts service, where authors publish their working
manuscripts to give customers early access to pre-published information, and where readers post
feedback to the editors and authors. Collaborative authoring is a small step further, and it remains to
be seen if CourseSmart and similar efforts taking form in digital textbook publishing might succeed as
significant custom publishing environments.
For many publishers, figuring out how to benefit from the digital transformation in book publishing
can seem as painful as a root canal. But while educational publishers have always had some connection
with the process of learning, digital publishing clearly expands the utility of texts to support learning –
whether through interactivity, improved search, or rich media.
Agility, Flexibility, and XML Help STM Publishers Meet Demands
Most publishing professionals understand that journal publishing has for the most part run ahead of
book publishing in the adoption of digital production and distribution. There may be any number of
reasons for this, but one, certainly, is that the high-value content of scientific, technical, and medical
information tends to appear first through peer-reviewed journals, not books. In addition, the need for
access is often very time sensitive: for most scientists, for instance, there’s not much enthusiasm for
using out-of-date research when trying to cure cancer.
In its history, STM’s digital inception is similar to the history of digital legal publishing, where LEXIS
launched publicly in 1973, offering full-text searching of all Ohio and New York cases, and by 1980, had
completed its hand-keyed electronic archive of all US federal and state cases. The NEXIS service, added
that same year, gave journalists a searchable database of news articles. Medline, one of the oldest
bibliographic archives, came out of the National Library of Medicine, with the first online interface
developed in 1984 by Ovid Technologies, Inc., now a significant part of the publisher Wolters Kluwer
Health.

And much like the requirements of legal publishing, STM content often carries high-level search and
retrieval requirements, including complex taxonomies, composition-challenging tables, math, and
chemical formulae, which made working in SGML (the Standard Generalized Markup Language and
XML’s predecessor) common, despite the pain of it.
Clearly, STM – as well as a number of legal and professional publishers with highly structured references
and directories – have their own demands on top of those shared by other book publishing segments.
Much of the progress in XML use in editorial and production processes owes a debt to these segments of
book publishing. One specific aspect of XML application in book publishing is what is commonly called
an XML repository, a server platform that provides capabilities to store, search, enrich, analyze, and
dynamically deliver content. Typically, on top of such platforms, technology partners build information
access, editorial and production tools and interfaces, and delivery solutions used by publishers to
accelerate the creation and distribution of titles.
One of the major benefits of XML repositories is that when they are properly implemented, a book
publisher can more easily repurpose content, creating new information products faster and delivering
them through multiple channels, in what is often called “content agility.” Flexibility comes from a
number of capabilities including the integration of immense stores of data from distributed sources,
enhancement of the content, and structured search and navigation. What these capabilities can
mean for e-book and digital publishing generally is easy enough to see: book publishers can create
content once, but publish many ways, such as the various e-book formats, or to aggregators, or within
distinct portals, making content available in as many formats and as many contexts as possible, and as
efficiently and economically as possible.
As Outsell’s report, <title>XML: The Necessary Ingredient for Information Publishing</title>, from June
22, 2009, noted:
The tenth anniversary of XML recently passed without so much

as a candle being blown out, but as this report will show, perhaps
that is the biggest testimony to its acceptance and success.
Many standards and technologies seem to get (and require) an
extraordinary amount of press, often in stark contrast to their actual
impact and importance. XML, on the other hand, has had a sort of
quiet revolution where, for many publishers, it has quietly become
pervasive in all aspects of content markup, manipulation, and
reuse. But, that doesn’t mean “we’re done.” XML may be pervasive,
but much value remains to be exploited by most publishers and
information providers.

As well, we will use their very solid definition of XML, found in the same report:
One of the challenges in understanding XML is its chameleon-like

nature – it is described in as many ways as it can be used. Most
basically, XML is a specification sponsored by the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C) for creation of custom markup languages. In other
words, users can define the markup elements. XML is a sort of lingua
franca, enabling sharing of content across disparate computers,
devices, and applications by defining the content of a document
separate from its format. XML also enables serialization of data
– which in layman’s terms is the ability to deconstruct, send, and
faithfully reconstruct a document or other form of content.
Many Challenges, Many Opportunities
Book publishing is hardly monolithic; it contains many market segments, of which the common
breakout is as follows:
• Trade and Consumer • STM, Professional, Legal
• Higher Education • B2B and Directories
• K-12 Education • Government and Regulatory
These are gross categorizations, and there are many subcategories. One example is that trade
publishing contains religious publishing, which in the US market, especially, takes the form of “Christian
Publishing,” but even within this sub-category there are bibles and references (concordances, for
example), fiction, non-fiction, and, no doubt some education and professional publishing, too.

The response (in Figure 6) to the Blueprint survey, which shows the distribution of survey respondents
among publishing segments, was somewhat more heavily reflective of trade publishing than the
Aptara survey noted earlier, but since Aptara has many STM publishers as customers, the discrepancy
is understandable. The “Other” category largely reflects trade variants, especially religious publishing,
when individual text entries were reviewed.
Figure 6. Book Publishing Segments Represented in Blueprint Survey
Trade and Consumer 30.9%
STM, Professional, Legal 22.3%
Education, Higher 20.5%
Education, K-12 15.1%
B2B and Directories 4.2%
Government, Regulatory 4.2%
Other 3.0%

Question 1, "In what segments of the book publishing market are your books sold? (Check all that apply)"
Base = 337
The universe of book publishing is varied in other ways as well. These days, the phenomenon of self-
publishing has moved a great distance from the vanity press services of old; self-publishing is fast
becoming the basis for the new publishing business model, as well as for new forms of books (think of
blog-originated print books). The very nature of “book” is up for grabs, whether from the many efforts
to support processes to create customized and one-off titles or because e-reader devices and personal
computing platforms are increasingly supporting non-traditional book content such as audio, video,
hypermedia, or collaborative virtual services.
Obviously what segment of book publishing one is involved with means a lot; for example, each has
different audience needs, different content use cases, different channels and media requirements,
and different business needs and models. The questions raised by digital publishing opportunities and
change requirements for book publishers are significant, and while some specific issues regarding
digital publishing may be more or less applicable to one book publishing segment compared to another,
the fundamental challenges face book publishers across the spectrum.

Here are some examples of questions every book publisher facing a move to digital publishing must
wrestle with:
• What are the high-level business objectives (e.g., increased revenues, lower costs, customer
satisfaction, quality, and time to market) for producing digital content products? What results are
publishers achieving now and what are their expectations?
• How do requirements such as royalty obligations and rights assignment and protection deter
digital content publication?
• Where are the biggest pain points in providing digital content publications to internal and
external partners, suppliers, and/or customers? What major obstacles do publishers face
with distribution of digital content products or parts thereof, across their own enterprise, in
conjunction with partnering service providers, and to distribution channels?
• How are publishers making the business case for short- and long-term investments in the digital
content publishing efforts?
• What role does business intelligence play in publishers’ digital content publishing efforts?
• Once a business case is made, how are publishers prioritizing investments according to the
business issues they want to address? What kinds of change management issues are occurring?
What role is IT playing in technology-driven decision-making?
• To what extent are standards such as XML, DOI, ISBN, ONIX, ePub, PDF, and others in use and
how are they delivering value?
• How much cross-systems (departmental) collaboration takes place within the publisher? What
level of interoperability exists among the publisher’s publishing systems? Which cross-systems
intersections require more attention?
• What e-commerce system implementations or e-commerce partners are publishers pursuing?
How is the imperative for “discoverability” affecting business decisions regarding digital content
publishing? Are SEO efforts, social media communities, and self- and customer-generated
content entering in the publisher’s business model?
• Are increasing benefits being seen by publishers in building direct customer relationships and
feedback mechanisms?
Getting to answers for these questions, and others, is what this study is about.

Book Publishing’s Seven Essential Publishing Processes
This chapter defines the book publishing process as a sequence of business processes common across
most book publishing segments, whether trade, educational, professional, STM, or many others.
In researching the topic and developing the report prospectus, we decided on a breakdown of seven
business processes:
1. Planning
2. Editorial and production
3. Rights and royalties
4. Manufacturing
5. Marketing and promotion
6. Sales and licensing
7. Distribution and fulfillment
Any such breakdown is a matter of judgment, and publishing companies vary based on size, market
focus, and a variety of other factors:
• The breakdown could include anywhere from five to nine processes, and certain processes could
be broken into their own category (sales, certainly);
• In large publishers, certain processes become highly specialized and segmented and can be
supported by multiple, unrelated systems;
• Processes grouped together here can be discrete in practice. For example, in a large publisher,
separate groups will often handle subsidiary rights while other individuals will handle royalties.
Mapping Processes to Specific Systems
Our research showed that some processes map cleanly to specific dedicated systems (e.g., a dedicated
planning system customized to a publisher’s specific process). In other cases, a process is supported
by more than one system or by one primary system and specific tools. For example, one educational
publisher we consult with has several planning systems for different geographical locations, though it
is trying to migrate all groups to one standard system. In another example, a trade publisher uses an
enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for planning and tracking major milestones (e.g., manuscript
complete, page proofs ready, and files to manufacturing), but then leaves it up to individual acquiring
editors and the production editors to track individual manuscripts from inception to completion. On a
smaller scale, publishers have long been creating ad hoc databases and spreadsheets to maintain data
for royalties, contracts, assets, and schedules.

Another factor complicating a clear mapping exercise is that mergers, acquisitions, and divestments
often require the acquired company to adopt the processes and systems of its new parent, or for the
new parent to realize (and live with the fact) that its new acquisition is sufficiently unique that it must
keep its own processes and systems intact.
This section summarizes our research of the various publishing processes – and the systems and tools
that publishers use to support these processes – including a discussion of the breakdowns and overlaps
we often see among them. As such, this breakdown of seven processes is our stake in the ground. It’s
also our attempt to make explicit common book publishing processes that are often well understood
inside the industry, especially within each specialty. For example, book marketers know very well
what they do, especially for their own markets but might only have a high-level understanding of
manufacturing.
One key assumption behind this report is that digital publishing will require publishing processes to be
more integrated, efficient, and transparent. This call for higher integration and efficiency will require
key stakeholders to have a more common understanding of other functional areas in order to help
enable process improvement and tighter system integration. We are also interested in both supply
chain issues and value chain issues, and attempt to highlight where e-books in particular and digital
publishing in general introduce new requirements to both processes and their associated systems.
A fundamental difference between traditional book publishing – print – and e-books and other
digital publishing forms is that while print processes are increasingly digital in many of the publishing
processes, the medium itself is physical and so, unavoidably, must at some stages participate in the
physical world of paper, bookshelves, transport, etc. However, apart from digital-to-print on demand,
digital publishing remains digital from start to finish, which means that computational processes and
electronic transmission can be brought to bear on every aspect of publishing. The potential for creating
highly efficient publishing processes – largely by advancing integration – remains tremendous for
publishers, not just in the creation and production processes, but up and down the entire value chain.
Planning Processes and Systems
Planning is where book title acquisition is undertaken, and typically where profit and loss (P&L)
estimates for titles are calculated. This process can also include the development of at least preliminary
marketing, production, and manufacturing costs and details.
Of the process areas we looked at, planning is one where investments in technology range widely:
• Very light investment in desktop tools (e.g., Microsoft Excel and Access, Filemaker Pro) that are
used to track key information. These can be informal (an editor keeping track of his or her own
titles) to more formal (a complex spreadsheet or Filemaker database kept on a shared drive);
• Moderate to significant investment in a publishing-specific ERP or planning system. There are
a number of systems marketed specifically for planning, though they have a wide range of
functionality to include title information management, inventory management, royalty tracking,
and subsidiary rights management;
• Significant to very significant investment in a major ERP system such as those from SAP or Oracle;
• Anywhere from moderate to very significant investment in wholly custom systems built to the
specifications of the publisher.
We kept hearing about Microsoft Office being used as planning system, and now we believe it. Figure 7
shows that office software such as Microsoft Office is used by half of respondents for title planning; the
other half use a variety of custom-developed and general ERP or TIM platforms.
Figure 7. Software System Used in Planning
Office software such as Microsoft Office for book title

49.3%
planning purposes
Custom-developed software from title planning purposes,

and have this integrated with various other publishing 17.9%
processes (e.g., manufacturing, sales)
General ERP platforms (e.g., SAP, Oracle, Great Plains,

Microsoft Dynamics ERP) for book title planning
14.9%
purposes and have this integrated with various other
publishing processes (e.g., manufacturing, sales)
We use custom-developed software from title planning

purposes, not integrated with various other publishing 10.4%
processes (e.g., manufacturing, sales)
Off the shelf book title information management

platforms with modules for integration with various other 7.5%
publishing processes

Question 10-PL3, "What general types of tools and sof tware platf orms are used f or your company’s planning process? (Check all that apply)"
Base = 67
It’s notable that these latter three categories of technology involve customization, often extensive.
This is not surprising considering the range of products that publishers develop, the variety of roles
and titles in different publishing houses, and the wide variety of partner and vendor relationships from
publisher to publisher. It’s hard to imagine one system that can codify all the variations in business
process without extensive customization.
One Consultant’s View

Edwin Fager, a publishing industry expert and consultant (Kensai International Ltd.) who focuses on
title information management platforms and royalty and ERP platforms for publishers, sees most
vendor companies as small, with tight budgets, and the perception that their overall markets are
constrained. For example, according to Fager, “Publishing Technology or Klopotek targets about 300
to 400 publishers [in the USA]… [while] Cyberwolf and MSGL… are targeting about 1,500 publishers
[which tend to be smaller publishers].”

Fager describes the world of “traditional” publishing software solutions breaking out as follows:
• At the top end of the market the main competitors are IBS, Publishing Technology, Klopotek, and
Virtusales;
• At the low end are Cyberwolf and MSGL;
• Only IBS and Cyberwolf are focused on selling an integrated ERP solution, while the others focus
on selling modular best-of-breed solutions;
• Other competitors lack the market share, at least to date: Trilogy has only a few clients in the US;
and iPub not many more;
• A number of current publishing clients are switching to general financial platforms to handle
rights and royalties (among other things), and a number of prospective publishing clients seem
happy with SAP, Oracle, or other general business platforms in use.
Even bigger challenges remain, when electronic publishing is added to the potential publishing
customer’s requirements. Fager sums it up:
All the vendors are attempting to reposition themselves as digital

publishing enablers, with various degrees of success, MSGL is
promoting their ability to handle fractional sales [e.g., chapter
sales], Cyberwolf has their digital download service, and Publishing
Technology has their turnkey digital conversion and marketing
service. IBS and Klopotek are promoting their ability to handle
digital books.
That said, each vendor, perhaps with the exception of Publishing Technology, lacks a key element that
the others have, such as, for example, MSGL handling fractional sales for royalties but lacking a digital
download service, or Acumen (Cyberwolf’s platform) offering the Digital Download Service, but no
fractional sales capability.
There are other players in this field, including MetaComet Systems, which manages the royalty
payments, rights tracking, and royalty statements, and handles unlimited authors per title, reserve
accounts, sub-rights, sliding scales, advances, and expenses applied against royalties, all while
integrating with most AP or GL accounting systems. MetaComet Systems offers its platform, Royalty
Tracker, as a web-hosted service or as an in-house installation. Like so many of its competitors,
MetaComet Systems has a lot of small publishers on its customer list, but also a number of surprisingly
large publishers on board, including Harcourt.
Firebrand Technologies has recently added an e-book production capability to its stable of offerings
that include title information management, an ONIX server and service considered very highly by
many in the industry, and various components that support promotional and marketing efforts of
publishers.

Looking at the Survey Results
We were curious to try to quantify title information management, royalty, and ERP systems with
the question “What specific software programs and platforms are used for your company’s planning
process?” Here is the list of products and their companies we included as choices:
• ACUMEN, Cyberwolf • IPUB, IPRO Business Systems

• Advance, Publishing Technology, Plc. • Klopotek/Global Turnkey Systems
• Advantage, Advantage Computing Systems • knk Publishing, knk Business Software AG
• Biblio3 and Biblio Publishing systems, • Schilling, Schilling A/S
Virtusales
• BookMaster, International Business Systems • TeleScope Publishing Platform, North Plains
• ELAN Book, Media Services Group • Trilogy Title and Production Management,
Trilogy North America
• Title Management Enterprise, Firebrand • I don’t Know
Technologies
• Focus on Publishing, Focus Information • Other (Please Specify)
Technology Services, Ltd.
This list is not complete, but does cover most of these categories well, although outfits like AVATAR
and Bradbury Phillips – both UK-based companies offering royalty-oriented platforms – could have
been included, for example, and the list potential is much greater still (look at the Vendor Directory in
the appendix for others).
We found many responses we expected, but “I don’t know” and “Other” were the big winners, with
“none” and “custom systems” the main entries filled in when “Other (Please Specify)” was checked.
Cyberwolf, Firebrand Technologies, and Klopotek were in close first-through-third placement, with
Virtusales a further distant fourth, among those companies that had any noticeable selection.
Fager’s analysis is borne out by our survey results. To begin with, most publishers use general-purpose
software for planning purposes instead of dedicated software. Almost 65% of respondents report using
one of the following for title planning purposes:
• Office software such as Microsoft Office (49.3%)

• General ERP platforms (14.9%)
Custom-developed software represents 28.3% of respondents, leaving only 7.5% who report using
“Off the shelf book title information management platforms with modules for integration with various
other publishing processes.”

When asked, “What specific software programs and platforms are used for your company’s planning
process? (Check all that apply),” respondents’ most common answers were Firebrand, Cyberwolf,
Klopotek, ELAN, and Vista (Publishing Technologies). But several publishers also reported using
custom systems here as well, along with SAP.
Scratching the Surface: More Research Needed

We encourage readers to understand that a more probing analysis would need to be done to fully
understand how book publishers apply automation to the planning process. To begin with, we repeat
our earlier point about “considering the range of products that publishers develop, the variety of roles
and titles in different publishing houses, and the wide variety of partner and vendor relationships from
publisher to publisher.”
Also, we asked for “high- and mid-level book publishing professionals” to take the survey, and the
titles of the respondents bear this out. More than 30% of respondents to the planning questions are
C-level executives, and 18.4% hold the title of publisher. In other words, one half of the respondents are
executives, and it is likely many of these respondents do not perform hands-on work with the planning
systems themselves. We can imagine (and know of) scenarios where acquiring editors and editorial
assistants do the work inside the planning tools, and more senior personnel are provided with reports
and presentations generated by the tools. In other words, a person’s role in the process likely says a lot
about how they would report on the system or tool they use in the process.
Nonetheless, it seems clear to us that the way forward with integration will be found in one or several
of the choices already being made within the industry. We wonder which of the following may provide
an answer:
• Title information management platforms, tied into financial, production, marketing, sales, and
fulfillment platforms, perhaps through modular components;
• General financial platforms, with specialized publishing-centric options;
• Publishing-centric platforms, with robust API or middleware connections to general financial
platforms.
Understanding the Market for Commercial Planning Systems

It’s worth looking at some of these commercial systems in depth.
First, the capabilities of these systems, inasmuch as they are successful, represent generalized needs
and requirements of publishers. In other words, if a vendor has bothered to develop a feature or module,
it has been in response to a perceived need or requirement.
Second, and as discussed further in our outlook chapter, some of these platforms represent the most
extensive and public attempts to integrate varied publishing functions. The success of the vendors –
and more importantly the publishers – to reach high levels of integration with digital products may well
be the key technology and process question for book publishers moving forward.

Third – and most importantly – most of these platforms are used in other process areas. Publishing
Technology’s Advance system (formerly the VISTA platform) is used extensively in rights and royalty
operations and many of these systems have order-to-cash modules that are essential in sales
management and distribution management. Indeed, it’s reasonable to say that some of these systems
ended up in this category because they have title planning modules, not because they are primarily
planning systems.
Klopotek North America, Inc.

The Klopotek Group claims that it is “by far the largest provider of solutions specifically designed for the
international publishing community, servicing hundreds of individual customers, including the majority
of the largest publishing entities in the world.” With the acquisition of Global Turnkey Solutions in 2006,
the Klopotek Group was set to support “more than 11,000 users” around the world.
Klopotek is a supplier of software and consulting services for publishers, from trade and specialist
literature, school book and education publishers, to scientific publishing houses. Global Turnkey
Systems was a leading supplier of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions to the publishing
industry, and has been designed specifically for publishers of subscriptions and books in the areas of
subscription management and customer service and fulfillment.
Klopotek is clearly tuned into the market needs brought about by the explosion of digital product
development. A recent Klopotek press release noted, “As the publishing industry continues to evolve
into an increasingly electronic future… [publishers need to] support both their physical and online
product development and distribution.” The press release goes on to describe Klopotek being focused
on “…the system requirements for supporting the evolving production, editorial and distribution
processes. The need for sophisticated production management, global contracts, rights and royalties
and online integration capabilities within the context of physical and online distribution of both books
and journal products… [requires Klopotek].”
Putting aside the question of whether publishers achieve this with Klopotek’s offerings, Klopotek’s
view of the market is in line with our analysis.
In a move that is becoming standard in this area of product and services for publishers, Klopotek also
offers software as a service (SaaS), an internet-based, on-demand service allowing publishers of all
sizes and types to more rapidly access the Klopotek software.

Klopotek is a strong example of the “modular approach” to process integration, which means nothing
more than its product offerings come in discrete entities – modules – that address one or another
business process element of use to publishers. Table 7 provides the current Klopotek module list (not
including several journal-specific ones).
Table 7. Klopotek Modules

Module Description
Order to Cash Covers book sales and distribution, journal sales and distribution, online
business, and school teacher systems
Product Planning and Includes contracts, rights, and royalties; production; address management and
Management (PPM) marketing; product management; publicity; and sales statistics and customer
and product information
Customer Care Management Integrates customer acquisition, customer classification, customer service,
complaint management, and call center activities
Advertising Sales and Manages the information for sales calls, including data to support sales meetings
Management
Editorial Planner Project planning module, with all data created by this module exportable to PPM
Ingenta Online Platform Platform for publishing content on the internet that contains IngentaConnect,
IngentabyDesign, and pub2web, from alliance partner Publishing Technology
iPublishCentral Self-service infrastructure solution from outsource vendor Impelsys that enables
publishers to brand, market, promote, and distribute their products, regardless
which format, on the web, but with special focus on e-books
Web Application Server High-performance Java enterprise integration platform through which non-
Klopotek systems can be integrated with Klopotek software, in both directions
ST4 Component CMS Module from SCHEMA GmbH, which makes the XML-based editing and content
management systems, SCHEMA ST4, for which Klopotek is exclusive worldwide
implementation partner for the publishing industry
GTS UNISON Solution that offers subscription management, order-to-cash, warehousing and
accounting modules for the publishing and information industries, and which
grew out of Klopotek’s 2006 acquisition of Global Turnkey Solutions, and aimed
at integrating with PPM, as an end-to-end solution for the mid-market publisher
Source: Klopotek North America, Inc.

What makes Klopotek an interesting case for integration and interoperability is not only the company-
developed modules relating to basic publishing processes, but also Klopotek’s willingness to work with
other service or product vendors – Publishing Technology, Impelsys, SCHEMA – to offer as complete
a solution as possible, even as some of Klopotek’s affiliate companies make claims of their own for
wide-ranging integration solutions. While our sense is strong that Klopotek has a very sophisticated
offering for integrating book publishers’ processes, our confidence that this level of integration is
widely implemented is far weaker. We do look at the Klopotek offerings as a developing model for
book publishers’ platforms.

Publishing Technology
Like Klopotek, Publishing Technology is a larger, well-established vendor of planning and supply chain
software for publishers. It was formed in 2007 following the merger of Ingenta, VISTA, and Publishers
Communication Group (PCG). The combined company provides a wide range of software and services
and represents perhaps the most comprehensive set of offerings available from one company,
spanning acquisition, product development, production, title information management, sales, and
distribution.
Like Klopotek, their positioning centers on digital publishing, with their home page noting, “In the
fast paced digital world, our services are designed with tomorrow’s market in mind. Supply chain to
social networking, scholarly research to semantic web, Publishing Technology provides practical and
accessible solutions and does the hard work for you.”
For book publishers, Publishing Technology’s main planning offering is its platform Advance, which
is its contemporary version of the VISTA product that has been marketed since the 1970s. The core
modules available through Advance:
• Product Manager
• Contract, Rights, and Royalties
• Order to Cash
• Relationship Manager
• Information Commerce
For societies and associations, Advance also has modules for membership management and meeting
and event management.
As Outsell noted in an Insight report at the time of the merger of the three companies, “The new
company, Publishing Technology plc, will find itself straddling the central need of the industry –
management of declining print sales while uncovering the potential for online growth. The new
company will endeavor to help customers minimize the disruption caused by migrating from one to the
other.” The two product companies, VISTA and Ingenta, did not have a great deal of overlap in customer
and product focus at the time of the merger. VISTA had focused on providing electronic solutions to the
problems inherent in print publishing: distribution, stock control and so on. Ingenta, on the other hand,
had experience in online subscription management, through its Information Commerce System (ICS)
and electronic hosting and publishing services for clients that were not staffed to provide full electronic
services directly to the market.

Three years later, Publishing Technology is seeing this expertise combine in interesting ways:
• Publishing Technology offers its pub2web digital publishing platform, a hosted service that
provides publishers with a tailored environment to place their content online. Pub2web supports
a variety of digital content, from journals and books to data sets and video clips. Support services
include data conversion, e-commerce, and content discoverability management (metadata
distribution, search configuration, and optimization).
• IngentaConnect is an online scholarly publications collection that offers a ready-made
audience for publishers’ content. It makes publishers’ content available to registered libraries,
organizations, and researchers around the world. IngentaConnect handles usage reporting via
standards such as COUNTER, and supports purchasing account features to meet document
delivery needs. IngentabyDesign is an upgrade allowing publishers to apply their own branding
and web design to their IngentaConnect web pages.
• To drive revenue to its digital products and support individual publishers’ sales and marketing
strategies, Publishing Technology’s Publishers Communication Group (PCG) offers full-service
marketing and sales consultancy either in conjunction with, or separately from, other Publishing
Technology services.
Writing about Publishing Technology a year after the acquisition, Outsell wrote that Publishing
Technology “is unique in its capability to provide enterprise-wide software and services that straddle
both digital and print production processes.” This unique position stems from Publishing Technology’s
size and focus; it’s ability to tie numerous back office functions to a web interface; its strength and
presence in the print publishing supply chain; and its ability to offer “a one-stop-shop solution for STM
publishers seeking an online presence: They can simply hand over their online files and let PT handle
online hosting, content conversion and enhancement, search, e-commerce, sales, and marketing.”
Virtusales
Virtusales is a relatively new vendor, but one that has managed to gain a reputation as one of the fast
growing book publishing software solution vendors. They entered the market with a product focused
on bibliographic title and digital asset management, but their software has expanded to include many
other aspects of publishing management; editorial management, royalties, rights, and production
management.

Here’s how their “About Us” puts Virtusales’ positioning, with messaging that highlights process
integration for publishers:
The release of our BiblioDAM Digital Asset Management system

is revolutionizing the publishing process, enabling publishers to
modernize their methods, improve workflow, and further embrace
multimedia and other modern technologies... As a consequence,
Virtusales now specializes in the following four core areas:
Implementing the current functionality of Biblio3 and BiblioLite to

book publishers
Broadening Biblio3’s functionality by replacing disparate and

legacy systems, keeping the system technologically advanced and
programming “gaps” in functionality
Building supplementary systems that integrate with Biblio3 and

compliment the Virtusales portfolio of systems
Building robust interfaces between Biblio3 and other core publishing

systems within the publisher’s IT landscape and to third parties such
as customers and suppliers
Like Klopotek, Virtusales is modular in nature, although, also like Klopotek, its offerings can span a
wide range. In addition to the main platform Bilbio3 system, the company offers BiblioLite, a tool for
smaller publishers, by way of a web-based hosted system that provides a user-friendly way of managing
reusable data that is BIC and ONIX-compliant. In addition, there is BiblioDAM System, a digital asset
management system designed especially for book publishers, and which enables publishers to control
and distribute all assets. BiblioDAM includes automatic version control; a transfer tool that provides a
secure, robust method of transferring large numbers of sensitive and valuable files across the internet;
conversion of files between popular file types such as Microsoft Office and open source files; and
scalable storage and data replication.
Biblio3 is described by the company as “an enterprise-class system that has been developed
extensively, ensuring that your key publishing processes are handled with ease. Developed in the latest
Microsoft .Net technology and SQL Server, Biblio3 is browser-based, which means that the system
works equally well across both Mac and PC platforms and provides for straightforward remote access.
The modules of Biblio3 include:
• Bibliographic, Editorial, Sales and Marketing module, which manages title data, images, and
documents as collections that can be accessed by real-time reports in formats such as Excel,
PDF, Quark, XML and a native “interactive” reporting function. Other characteristics of this
module are feeds in and out of other business systems and websites to ensure “in sync” data, the
ability to generate “title information sheets” for a single or group of titles “with a single click of
a button and then have them e-mailed directly out of the system, thus drastically improving the
operational efficiency of staff.”

• Production and Print Control module, which has as its focus on editorial and production
scheduling, estimating, and cost management applied to both book production process and
reprint management, along with margin analysis and P&L reports.
• Contracts, Rights, Subrights, and Royalties module, which is aimed at managing contracts and
royalties along with the sale and acquisition of rights and sub-rights for a title or range of titles.
In some implementations, the contracts module “front ends” a royalties payments system and
stores the scanned paper contracts for ease of inquiry.
Schilling
Schilling is a European company without a lot of activity in the US, and one that approaches book
publishing process integration by providing a web-integrated ERP system to publishers. The company
describes its product concept as based on “30% standard finance and 70% publishing solutions.”
With Schilling’s fully integrated e-publishing solution, “everything is covered from sales, distribution,
storage control of books, e-books, e-books for marketing, subscription, and royalty control, including
new self-service functions for customers and authors,” according to marketing material.
One of Schilling’s boasting points is that publishers can use the platform to start integrating processes
quickly, and, like most other such platforms, Schilling has a modular approach. “Be quick to make your
first success with the functions that you need the most here and now,” this company argues, “Later on
it will be possible for you to expand your system with additional modules.” The total integration of the
modules makes an automated updating of data possible wherever it may be relevant in the system, in
such cases, for example, where a posting automatically triggers an updating in the stock and statistics
module, payment in foreign currency in connection with discounts, freight costs etc. and updating of
the relevant accounts in the nominal ledger accountancy. The modules offered by Schilling will have by
now a familiar ring, although the emphasis on e-books and digital publishing is refreshing:
• E-Publishing • Project Life of the Book

• Subscription • Sales Orders
• Standing Order • Nominal Ledger
• Conference Booking • Stock and Distribution
• Marketing • Sales Ledger
• Royalty • Purchase Ledger
• Advertisement Control • Business Intelligence
• Book Club
SAP for Media

By no means are all publishing process software platforms coming from specialty companies. Not
surprisingly, big business platforms like Oracle and SAP have solid presence in this marketplace.

SAP for Media supports a comprehensive set of industry business processes for premium content
publishers, including:
• Author Relations Management, which manages author relations, from first contact to contract
entry, from royalty settlement to contract performance analysis;
• Editorial Collaboration, which manages tasks, resources, and schedules involved in the
development of new titles;
• Subscription Sales, which addresses aspects of the subscription-based sales of products such as
journals, loose-leaf collections, closed series, book clubs, and online content.
The business process of Author Relations Management, for example, reflects quite well the general
needs of book publishers, including such areas as idea management, license acquisition, contract
processing, rights clearance, outgoing royalties settlement, contract analysis, and activity analysis. The
Editorial Collaboration and subscription Sales platforms are as thorough, and likewise, not surprisingly,
are based on or extended from SAP applications such as SAP Intellectual Property Management, SAP
ERP, SAP Product Lifecycle Management, and SAP Supply Chain Management.
Based on SAP’s well-developed and powerful business process platforms, SAP for Media no doubt has
extensibility and scalability for very large publishing houses, and several of the publishers answering
our survey reported using it. Its orientation, however, also suggests a weakness of not keeping current
enough with e-book and other digital publishing demands about which the more publishing-focused
platforms are likely to be in front.
Focus on Publishing Software

Focus on Publishing Software describes itself as “the first complete accounting and management
software solution for publishers,” and while the claim of ascendancy may be in question, Focus
on Publishing stands in as a good example of the accounting orientation a number of publishing
management platforms pursue. Focus on Publishing is a unified system that integrates various
departmental functions, in what sounds very much like the module approach of other platforms,
broken out into the two module categories in Table 8.
As the company says, “the Focus on Publishing system is uniquely developed for the publishing industry
to meet their accounting, administrative, and electronic data requirements.”

Table 8. Focus on Publishing Software Modules
Financial Modules Publishing Modules
Sales Ledger Production and Scheduling Returns Processing
Purchase Ledger Author Royalties Standing Orders
Nominal Ledger Rights Management EDI/XML Electronic Document
transmissions
Cash Book Marketing Journal Review Management
Sales Order Processing Subscriptions Import Dispatch Information
Stock Control and Product Cataloguing Publishers’ Management Account
information (ONIX version 2.0
compliant)
Job Costing Consignment Control Importation of orders from
e-commerce website
Purchase Order Processing
Source: Focus on Publishing

knk
knk Business Software AG, with its head-office in Kiel (in the very north of Germany) is a developer of
business software for publishing houses that offers Microsoft certified publishing-specific modules
that integrate with the Microsoft Dynamics (formerly Navision) software. knk employs about 120 staff
at several locations in Germany and France and cooperates with several local partners in about 30
countries worldwide.
The knkPublishing software, this company claims, “has been developed for the business organization
of small and medium-sized editors of books, journals, magazines, newspapers, electronic media and
other kinds of media (e.g., yellow pages and calendars). It handles a publisher’s editorial requirements
and pays attention to the newest and important developments in this industry, i.e. e-books, new
media; standardization of information interchange with authors, surveyors, printers; and best business
practices in the publishing industry.”
In one sense, knk can be described as trying to bring the power of Microsoft Business Solutions’ ERP to
editorial and publishing services. Something of a counter to SAP for Media, one could argue, although
how Microsoft ERP compares to SAP is a good question to consider.
Firebrand Technologies
Firebrand Technologies’ Title Management Solutions, a title information management (TIM) platform,
now in Version 7, is a substantial newer offering in this space, one that seems to be competing head
to head against larger competitors such as Klopotek and Publishing Technology. Title Management
Solutions offers publishers software based on a centralized database with the capabilities to manage
publishing, the company states, “from acquisition through reprints, with marketing and sales in
between.” A core principle in the TIM design is that title information and collateral is collected in one
central place “by those that know that information the best, at the time that they know it.”

Firebrand offers Title Management Solutions in both a hosted form, for companies that want to
minimize up-front capital investment and still provide a predictable operating cost, and as an
installed platform, run by a publisher’s IT department, on its own servers and operating systems. Title
Management Enterprise uses a Microsoft SQLServer database, coupled with features such as RSS-
based “desktop alerts” and e-mail alerts, and with Ajax controls for web browser integration for such
UI assistance as “Recent Activities and Overdue Tasks,” “Multiple Saved Searches,” and “ Saved Lists of
Titles/Projects/Contacts.” The full range of modules includes the list in Table 9.
Table 9. Firebrand Technologies Title Management Solutions Modules

Module Description
Acquisitions Handles proposal, through peer review, due diligence, and final decision, and helps acquiring
editors to track the status of all submissions or proposals under review
Title Profit & Loss Integrated with acquisition projects, with project-based P&L based on the publisher’s
own pre-defined models; creation of P&L for each stage in lifecycle of the project (i.e.,
Acquisitions, Manuscript Transmittal, Print Decision, and Actual from ERP); and with the
ability to carry multiple versions for each stage, including sales, royalties, expenses across
multiple editions, and multiple years
Manage Global Manages contacts for authors, freelancers, peer reviewers, publicity contacts, and
Contacts professors/universities
Editorial For capturing and managing title information efficiently and accurately in a single integrated
database developed specifically for book publishers
Contracts For managing and maintaining author-publisher contract specific details, including multiple
contracts for a title or group of titles, traditional royalty author contracts, work-for-hire fee
based contracts, and other contracts for creative contributors
Production Supports the development of publishing project plans using configurable and customizable
schedule templates
Manage Content Units Includes detailed task and file management for various iterations of manuscripts and other
and Files materials, schedules building from pre-defined templates, tracks rack tasks, and generates
desktop and e-mail alerts
Manufacturing Supports tracking manufacturing specifications, cost estimates, and purchase orders by
title and printing, including reprints; maintains historical records for each component of a
manufacturing process; and manages sourcing opportunities by analyzing data
Paper Management For tracking paper inventory and assigning and reserving paper stocks for upcoming printing
jobs
Marketing For coordinating the marketing team across a wide range of activities by managing
marketing plans, campaigns and projects, as well as creating, gathering, and disseminating
marketing content throughout the lifecycle of a title, including sales catalogs and other
promotional materials
Marketing Projects Used to manage events, exhibits, ad campaigns, and promotional materials, as well as other
marketing and sales for text book course adoption
XML Integration with Includes new catalog export in XML, application support for InDesign templates, and snippets
InDesign for page layout and import of title information
Sales Provides support for the sales department
Publicity For managing contact records by media, market, or category; creating review request and
call lists by linking contact records to entered book titles; creating pitch letters and mailing
labels using mail merge templates; and organizing and managing author tour schedules with
event details, budgets, and notes
Reporting Provides any information captured in the Title Management database as reports that can be
displayed and shared.
Source: Firebrand Technologies

2010 Outsell, Inc. Reproduction strictly prohibited.

Planning Processes and Systems: Summing Up
As these snapshots of the dedicated software systems show, this is a category of technology that does
not lack for ambition. The full list of systems that could have qualified for inclusion in the survey is quite
a bit larger. These vendors aim to capture the broad range of publishing business processes in a single
system, a single modular system, or a single modular system integrated with modular offerings from
other vendors.
Two-thirds of respondents report that digital publishing titles are being considered right from planning
and acquisition, which suggests to us that book publishers are moving away from early reactive stance
regarding e-books, as shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8. Digital Editions Considered During New Title Planning
Digital editions are always or mostly considered as part of

68.4%
new title planning and acquisition
Digital editions are never or almost never considered as

18.4%
part of new title planning and acquisition
Digital editions are sometimes considered as part of new

13.2%
title planning and acquisition
I don’t know 0.0%

Question 13-PL6, "Are digital editions considered at the stage of title planning and acquisition?"
Base = 38
Significantly, this ambition seems to be met by publishers. Of those respondents who answered
our questions about planning processes, a sizable majority indicated that the planning tools in use
are usually comprehensive, most often helping publishers plan products from assessment through
production or from assessment throughout the entire product cycle. The gap between the relatively low
numbers of off-the-shelf title planning platforms listed in the survey question selected by respondents
and the large percentage of book publishers claiming that their planning tools in use are comprehensive
falls to a matter of definition or semantics. In the course of our interviews, we came to see that many
book publishers do indeed have title planning systems in place, but the “systems” are not necessarily
discreet software products. Rather, they are a system or systems developed over time to accomplish
title planning processes. In some cases, such systems may be checklists or spreadsheets, but work well
within the culture of the particular book publisher.

Just as significantly, our survey showed that digital publishing is highly important among today’s book
publishers. Digital products are a key consideration for publishers and are a key part of the planning
process for two-thirds of publishers. Moreover, in addition to being accounted for in the planning
process, digital products are very often developed alongside print products.
Figure 9. Relative Timing of Digital and Print Title Development
Digital editions of print titles are always or mostly

44.7%
developed as part of the development of print titles
Digital editions of print titles are sometimes considered as

part the development of print titles, but sometimes
28.9%
handled post print title publication through a conversion
service or process
Digital editions of print titles are never or almost never

considered as part the development of print titles, but
26.3%
instead are handled through a conversion service or
process post print title publication

Question 15-PL8, "Are digital editions developed concurrently with print titles? Digital editions of print titles are…?
Base = 38
Finally, while digital-only products are still mainly the exception and not the rule, a quarter of publishers
are already developing digital-only versions of books and close to half have done it, if but rarely.

We’re left with a picture of a book publishing industry with ambitious plans for digital product
development, with senior leadership directly engaged, and with a vendor community with equal
ambitions for their supporting products. As shown in Figure 10, about 75% of book publishers rarely or
never publish digital-only titles.
Figure 10. Digital-Only Title Consideration
Yes, but rarely 42.1%
No 31.6%
Yes 26.3%
I don’t know 0.0%

Question 14-PL7, "Does your book publishing company ever publish digital only versions of books?"
Base = 38
Editorial and Production Processes and Systems
Editorial and production is where the planned book begins to take shape in the hands of authors
and editors, and through the detailed efforts of design, production management, and final copy
preparation.
As we’ve seen already from the planning section, editorial and production processes don’t stand
alone. Some of the planning vendors offer editorial planning modules, especially to support product
acquisition and profit and loss analysis. Moreover, in digital content creation, the system supporting
editorial and production may also be, in effect, the digital manufacturing system.
For our purposes though, we defined editorial and production traditionally – from book acquisition
through editorial development, design, manuscript development, copyediting, and final production.
For book publishers who are still developing print books (as the vast majority still is), editorial and
production is still about developing the book from inception until it is ready for manufacturing. In 2010,
“ready for manufacturing” means delivery of an electronic file, typically a print-ready PDF file or a
native production file such as those produced by a program such as Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress.

Our direct experience with publishers has seen an increasing investment in improving editorial and
production processes:
• Publishers have been working hard to improve on and even optimize these processes. They
have been analyzing their workflows, as well as looking at their own skill sets and those of their
freelancers, vendors, and partners. While this process improvement may have sometimes been
driven by a desire to cut costs initially, the need for digital product development has trumped cost
containment, especially recently.
• Some publishers have gone so far as to specifically redesign their processes with an eye toward
“digital first” – the idea being to have digital products ready first – or sometimes “media neutral”
– with the idea being print and digital products are developed in concert.
• Such process improvement efforts have often been undertaken in advance of investments in new
editorial and production software and systems. As more than one publisher explained it, they saw
no sense in overlaying an old and potentially outmoded process on new and expensive software.
With this direct experience in mind, we were surprised to see that most of the survey respondents in
this area reported a heavy reliance on desktop tools such as InDesign and QuarkXPress and far less
use of centralized workflow systems such as K4, Woodwing Enterprise, and Quark Publishing System
(QPS):
• 40.5% reported using Adobe Creative Suite

• 11.9% reported using QuarkXPress
And what is DAM? Wikipedia has a good definition:
Digital asset management (DAM) consists of management tasks

and decisions surrounding the ingestion, annotation, cataloguing,
storage, retrieval, and distribution of digital assets. Digital
photographs, animations, videos, and music are samples of media
asset management (a sub-category of DAM).
Digital asset management systems include computer software

and/or hardware systems that aid in the process of digital asset
management.
DAM’s day is yet to come, it would seem, and if more evidence is needed, those who indicated they use
DAM cited MediaBank, from Wave Corporation, as the leader, but it was equal to “Other,” Documentum
(EMC) and OpenText tied with “I don’t know,” and the many rest almost didn’t register at all. Custom
systems developed in-house, file management platforms, and a little bit of content management
systems seem to be how the majority of book publishers’ editorial and production processes handle
production asset management of storage, organization, workflow, and revision control.

The other tools or systems reported to be used to help automate editorial and production processes
are:
• K4 • Woodwing Enterprise
• Klopotek • SDL Contenta
• RSuite CMS • Artesia
• Quark QPS • Mediabank
• North Plains TeleScope Publishing Platform • FrameMaker
and TeleScope DAM
• Silverchair Content Manager • DocBook and DITA open source tools
• PowerXEditor from Aptara • oXygen (XML editor)
• DPS or other applications from Content Data
Solutions
As shown in Figure 11, close to 44% of respondents claim DAM usage at their book publishing company,
but 26% still rely on file management, and only about 9% use content management systems to control
asset access, which is less than half the number using custom solutions. DAM’s day is yet to come, it
would seem.
Figure 11. DAM Usage Versus Other Solutions
Yes 43.5%
No, but we use a file management system 26.1%
No, but we use a custom, in-house process 21.7%
No, but we use a content management system 8.7%
I don’t know 0.0%

Question 21-EDPR, "Does your editorial and production process use one or more digital asset management (DAM) platf orms to store
publication elements (e.g., text, art, titles)?"
Base = 23

It’s worth reporting an observation we made in the planning section, namely that a person’s role in the
process likely says a lot about how they would report on the system or tool they use in the process.
While the planning respondents were comprised heavily of C-level executives and publishers, the
respondents in the editorial and production arena were varied, spanning the role of publisher, acquiring
editor, and production management.
The leading DAM vendors present some overlap – at least in terms of companies of origin – to the many
companies listed earlier in relation to planning processes. Here is our list of DAM platforms:
• ActiveMedia (formerly ClearStory Systems) • MediaBin, Autonomy/Virage MediaBin

(formerly Autonomy Interwoven)
• ADAM, ADAM Software • Nuxeo DAM, Nuxeo
• BiblioDAM, Virtusales • Open Text DAM (formerly Artesia), Open
Text DMG
• Cumulus, Canto • Portfolio, Extensive
• Chuckwalla, Chuckwalla • QuarkDMS, Quark
• Documentum, EMC Corporation • TeleScope, North Plains
• MediaBank, Wavw Corporation • WebNative, Xinet
• MediaBeacon, MediaBeacon, Inc. (formerly
BrightTech, Inc.)
Of the 15 DAM platforms listed in the survey question, “Please check off all digital asset management
platforms in use for your book publishing company’s editorial and production process, for production
asset management, with a focus on storage, organization, workflow, and revision control,” only a
few DAM platforms showed up with any approaching significant numbers, and those were the long-
established, general-purpose DAM systems. MediaBank, for example, was equally well known as
“Other,” and Documentum and OpenText tied with “I don’t know.” – not a strong showing for DAM.
This lack of concentration of a few DAM platforms in editorial and production systems reflects a reality
of the marketplace, including, to some degree, a rash of acquisitions, consolidations, and platforms
that have come and now may have already left the marketplace, while other DAM platforms are quite
new. While the desktop war has largely seen QuarkXPress cede more ground to Adobe’s Creative Suite
in a lopsided two-horse race, the broader market for editorial and production systems is wide open,
with a long list of small- and medium-sized vendors carving out corners of the marketplace. A system
such as Silverchair Content Manager, for example, would only be seen in STM publishing while both
K4 and Woodwing Enterprise have been adopted by K-12 publishers with design-intensive, full-color
books. Moreover, some products are part of a hosted solution; Aptara’s tools are a good example, as
are the offerings from Content Data Solutions.

Editorial and Production Process Trends
Despite these differences in tools and systems, the survey results do shed light on some trends we have
seen in practice at publishing companies. These trends include:
• Even print books have digital workflow and digital underpinnings;

• XML is gaining in usage, and being seen further upstream in the editorial process;
• Book publishers are taking more control of their assets;
• Outsourcing is the rule and not the exception in editorial and production.
Print Book Publishing is a Digital World

More than 90% of respondents indicated that the final format for books going to manufacturing is
either print-ready PDF or a native production file (such as Adobe InDesign).
In direct discussions with publishers we see a growing use of print-ready PDF. Many publishers have
optimized the later stages of production so that they are producing the print-ready PDF as well as a
PDF suitable for e-book use and conversion. These manufacturing files are often managed in a digital
asset management system or digital asset distribution (DAD) system so that they can be readily shared
with print and e-book channel partners, including print-on-demand vendors.
XML is Gaining in the Editorial Process

48% of respondents say they use either an “XML-first” or “XML-early” workflow. We define an XML-first
workflow as one where XML is used from the start with manuscript through production, and we define
an XML-early workflow as one where a word processor is used by authors, and then the manuscript is
converted to XML.
This 48% is then supplemented by an additional 20% choosing “XML-after-the-fact,” which we define
as “XML is used after the native print edition file has been completed (post-production conversion).”
The remaining responses were “no XML” (28%) and “I don’t know” (4%).
We see this penetration of XML as highly significant, especially in a survey where trade and educational
publishers account for two-thirds of the respondents and STM, professional, and legal accounts for
only 22%. These latter segments, after all, represent the early adopters for XML usage upstream in
the workflow (and SGML before that), and trade and educational publishers have traditionally lagged.
It suggests to us that market forces are driving publishers to work hard at creating the kind of multi-
channel publishing XML is best at driving.

Print-ready PDF’s day is here, with almost 54% of survey respondents in Figure 12 saying that their
book publishing companies use it for final title format. Native production files make up most of the
other third.
Figure 12. End Format for Print Books
Print ready PDF 53.8%
Native production file (e.g., Adobe

34.6%
InDesign, Quark)
I don’t know 7.7%
Other 3.8%

Question 18-EDPR, "What is the f inal print book title f ile f ormat at your book publishing company? (Check only one)"
Base = 26
Book Publishers Take Control of Assets

There were times when book publishers famously could never put their hands on the final production
files for a book in print. They might have still been at the printer, or with their prepress vendor, or on
a CD-ROM, DVD, Zip Disk, or optical disc somewhere. When publishers first began to create digital
products, many found that the first step was to locate such files for conversion. They sometimes found
themselves unable to find files, or having to pay their prepress vendor or printer a fee for providing a
copy of the file.
Now publishers are much more attuned to maintaining their source files themselves, or paying for
a hosting service under far less onerous terms they were subject to in the past. Our survey found all
publishers using some kind of mechanism for maintaining digital files and assets.
• 44% use a DAM system;

• 26% use a file management system;
• 22% use a custom, in-house process;
• 9% use a content management system.

We can only guess what this final category might entail, though we do know several publishers who are
using hosted DAD systems such as those from LibreDigital and North Plains, others who use a similar
service provided by their printer, and still others who create digital copies on physical media that are
stored off-site.
North Plains deserves a special note, because of the ambition of its TeleScope Publishing Platform
(TPP), which builds on the company’s TeleScope DAM offering. While one best keep in mind marketing
hyperbole, North Plains is onto something important, when it claims:
A Revolution in Digital Publishing: North Plains’ TeleScope

Publishing Platform (TPP) is the world’s first and only completely
modular solution to address every aspect of the digital publishing
workflow. Leveraging the industry expertise gained in serving the
world’s largest publishers, the TPP’s innovative design redefines how
publishers create, distribute, and sell their content. The powerful
platform streamlines the publisher’s production workflow to
dramatically improve time-to-market and capitalize on emerging
revenue opportunities.
We see the North Plains TPP effort as an important vanguard of publishing processes integration, and
discuss this platform in some depth in the Digital Book Publishing Industry Outlook chapter.
Editorial and Production Outsourcing is the Rule

We asked two related question on how outsourced services are utilized in editorial and production:
1. What kind of services does your book publishing company use from outside services for its print
book titles?
2. What kind of services does your book publishing company use from outside services for its e-book
titles?

Almost all book publishers use outside services, although not so much for project management or
quality assurance, as shown in Figure 13. “Crash publishing” comes up nil.
Figure 13. Usage of Outsource Services for Print Publishing
Editorial: Copyediting 15.6%
Editorial: Proofreading 14.3%
Artwork and graphic design 14.3%
Composition 11.7%
Editorial: Developmental editing 10.4%
Title/document conversion 10.4%
OCR capture and digitization 7.8%
Packaging: Product development from editorial through production 6.5%
Project management 3.9%
We don’t use outside services 2.6%
Quality assurance 1.3%
Crash publishing 0.0%
I don’t know 1.3%

Question 24-EDPR, "What kind of services does your book publishing company use f rom outside services f or its print book titles?"
Base = 77
Strikingly, only about 3% of book publishers reported that they don’t use outside services for print title
development, and only 13% said they don’t use outside services for e-book development. And while
e-book outside services are, unsurprisingly, dominated by conversion services (with 32% of publishers
using them for this service), the types of services utilized for both print and e-book development span
the full range of editorial and production services:
• Packaging • Composition
• Project management • Artwork and graphic design
• Developmental editing • Quality assurance
• Copyediting • Title/document conversion
• Proofreading • OCR capture and digitization

For publishing insiders, this is not breaking news, though the extent to which outsourcing has taken
hold might well be. It frames a reality that many publishers have known for years, which is that key
editorial, design, and production tasks are being done outside the walls of the company. It also points
to the need, expressed well in at least one of our case studies, that publishers need to be cultivating
deeper business relationships with their key vendors, and that indeed the term “vendor” should begin
to give way to an understanding of the vendor as a key product development partner.
Book publishers use outside services for e-books less than for print, but the big exception is for “title/
document conversion,” not surprisingly, as shown in Figure 14.
Figure 14. Usage of Outsource Services for E-Book Publishing
Title/document conversion 27.9%
We don’t use outside services 14.0%
Project management 9.3%
Editorial: Copyediting 9.3%
Artwork and graphic design 9.3%
Composition 7.0%
CR capture and digitization 7.0%
Editorial: Developmental editing 4.7%
Editorial: Proofreading 4.7%
Quality assurance 4.7%
Packaging: Product development from editorial through production 2.3%
Crash publishing 0.0%
I don’t know 0.0%

Question 25-EDPR, "What kind of services does your book publishing company use f rom outside services f or its ebook titles?"
Base = 43
Editorial and Production Systems: Summing Up

We can conclude from the survey, from our interviews with publishers, and from the case studies
that editorial and production processes likely represent the most honed and developed area for book
publishers. We have seen directly the investment in improved processes, and have also been involved
with many of the large-scale editorial and production systems in operation today.

We were especially pleased to see the high penetration of XML in the editorial and production arena,
as we – and many others – remain convinced that XML provides the best means for publishers to drive
flexible, highly automated, multichannel product development. And while the market for technology
platforms remains wide open, publishers are well served by the platforms out there, many of which are
tuned for selected markets and applications.
At a very high level, production processes are nearly uniform and standardized. Print-ready PDF is
near ubiquitous as a final format for passing files to manufacturing in all book publishing segments. In
trade publishing, the advent of the Kindle and other devices, the advancement of ePub as a standard,
the compelling economics of POD, and the growing capabilities of DAD systems have created a clear
mandate for production and manufacturing – produce print-ready PDF, a PDF suitable for e-book
distribution and conversion, and ePub, and you have solved at least 80% (if not more) of the channel
needs.
Outsourcing also plays a key role here. As more than one publisher has pointed out, the better
outsourcing vendors represent a great deal of the practical experience and detailed expertise required
for efficient digital publishing. Publishers need to optimize not only their internal editorial and
production processes but also their processes that intersect with outsourcing vendors. As Neil Schmidt,
Vice President, Operations, at Wolters Kluwer Health, notes, publishers achieve the highest benefit
when their outsource vendors become true partners in the process and understand the publisher’s
product goals and direction.
We see these trends coming together in a promising model where – because processes are known,
formats are standardized, and service providers are highly capable – publishers will be positioned to
develop more digital products economically and predictably.
Rights and Royalties Processes and Systems
Rights and royalties is where contractual obligations meet back-end business systems, including
accounting and sales systems.
Royalty tracking and rights tracking have always been complex, subtle areas of a book publisher’s
operations, largely the province of specialists who have typically learned on the job and cultivated their
knowledge over a long period of time. Consider the following:
• Even prior to digital product development, royalty tracking has had complexities such as multi-
author titles, authors with more than one title, revenue and payments in multiple currencies, and
international revenue and tax reporting.
• Rights management has also been complex, with issues such as sub-rights, permissions sales,
licensing, and territorial restrictions.

Digital product development has added layers – or perhaps more accurately dimensions – of complexity
to each of these areas. Even in the simplest case – a single-author work with a single royalty rate –
digital products were likely not accounted for before a certain point in time. As publishers have looked
to produce digital versions of titles, this has often meant tracking down the original contact, confirming
the royalty terms, and then presenting the author or agent with the proposed royalty arrangement for
the digital version.
While this simplest case might be readily solved by an altered contract, a new column in a spreadsheet,
or perhaps a new rule in a royalty tracking system, the reality of book publishing is that the simplest
case is dwarfed in complexity, and often in number, by much more detailed royalty arrangements –
multi-author works, sold in multiple currencies, and with a perhaps short but growing list of digital
incarnations, each of which might have its own royalty rates.
Consider these examples:
• The college publisher who has opportunities to sell both custom print versions and custom
electronic versions of a multi-author textbook;
• That same publisher now has the opportunity to also license that same textbook to an
aggregator, who in turn wants to sell the entire title, individual or multiple chapters of that title,
or even individual or multiple chapters of that title blended with other author’s works.
Indeed, educational, technical, and professional publishers have significant markets for “chunking”
their content in both print-on-demand and electronic form, sometimes sold as stand-alone modules,
sometimes blended with content from other authors and publishers. The opportunities are there, and
publishers are straining to develop the most efficient processes to recognize the revenue, attribute the
revenue correctly to each product, and in turn to pay the royalties appropriately.
Rights tracking has grown increasingly complex with digital product development. In acquiring rights
for photos and illustrations, book publishers historically acquired specific rights related to one use –
for example, to use an illustration in a print edition of a new book. If the book were to go into a second
edition, the sub-rights person or an editor would go back to the rights-holder and acquire the new
necessary rights, and so on. But the growth in digital opportunities and channels has rendered the old
process obsolete, even though the rights-holders – sensibly from their point of view – don’t suddenly
want to blow up the old model. In fact, though, publishers need to have flexible and more rapid abilities
to determine the rights they might need to clear or acquire for a given book (or portion of a book in
some markets). They need to then quickly acquire the rights, and later on they need automated and
highly accurate ways of reporting on the use of those assets back to the rights-holders.
We are mindful that we are writing about this topic while contentious issues are being worked out –
sometimes publicly – between authors and publishers. We are also aware that there are new models and
opportunities for both publishers and authors that may fundamentally alter the contractual landscape
in some publishing segments. The purpose of this report is not to look into the merits of various
approaches and positions but instead to look at the underlying processes and related technologies
that publishers are implementing to support digital product development.

Publishers’ Rights and Digital Rights and Royalties
As we noted in the section on planning processes and platforms, many of those platforms are in fact
broad offerings that include royalty and rights modules. Some examples:
• Klopotek’s “Product Planning and Management (PPM)” module includes both rights and royalty
management;
• Publishing Technology’s Advance platform includes a “Contract, Rights, and Royalties” module;
• Virtusales Biblio3 has a “Contracts, Rights, Subrights, and Royalties” module.
Our direct experience with publishers has shown a mix of these platforms and custom platforms in use
for royalty and rights tracking. Just as often, publishers use home-grown tools (e.g., spreadsheets and
ad hoc databases) and some larger publishers have built custom systems on top of general-purpose
databases (e.g., Oracle and SQLServer) and run complex royalty and rights tracking and reporting
applications that they have been maintaining and extending for several years.
Our survey probed a number of issues with how publishers perceive the ease with which they can
calculate, pay out (or collect on), and report on rights and royalties obligations. The results are mixed.
While some publishers reported little problems with these issues, others reported significant issues and
a lack of automation. It is clear from the survey and from our direct experience with publishers that they
are hard pressed to automate many of these new models in current systems. The complexities are the
definition of what we remember being termed as “friction” in the early days of e-commerce – where
terms and conditions are hard to figure out and harder still to codify in automatic processes.
Still, as discussed in the outlook section, these complexities and lack of automation have not diminished
the appetite publishers seem to have for new product development and for experimenting with new
channels and devices.
Manufacturing Processes and Systems
Manufacturing is where the physical product is made manifest through pre-press work, through to
actual print and binding.
Indeed, to a certain extent “manufacturing process” is a misnomer for book publishers, as few book
publishers do their own print manufacturing any more. In most publishers, manufacturing is really
“manufacturing management” – vendor management, cost estimating and tracking, job tracking, and
reporting on all of the above.
Our observation on planning processes and systems holds here as well. Many of those systems are in
fact broad offerings that include functionality critical to cost estimation and tracking, title scheduling,
and P&L analysis and tracking. As one example, Virtusales Biblio3 platform has a “Production and Print
Control” module can be used to schedule printing, estimate and track costs, and improve on margins
for a wide variety of print jobs.

Our direct experience with publishers once again shows a mix of the use of these commercial platforms,
the use of custom systems, as well as the use of ERP systems such as those from SAP. Larger publishers
have tended to make the larger investments here as even incremental improvements in manufacturing
line items such as paper usage can be significant. Smaller publishers are more likely to rely on desktop
and ad hoc tools for cost estimating, scheduling, and tracking.
Against this backdrop, what is less clear about manufacturing in the digital age is how traditional
manufacturing processes and personnel are being brought to bear on digital product development.
While publishers have sometimes been using the cost estimation and scheduling tools to track digital
products, the development of digital products seems to largely be the province of editorial and
production teams, together with their vendors and development partners. In some cases, there is a
dedicated digital product team that may be part of editorial and production operations or set off from
it. Typically, though, these functions are not aligned closely with publishers’ manufacturing operations,
in our experience.
Consider the following models we saw in the course of our research:
• A mid-sized trade publisher where the digital product team reports directly to the company CEO,
and includes its own sales, marketing, and product development functions;
• A small STM publisher where the editorial and production staff has been producing both print and
digital products concurrently for several years. New digital products that require special focus are
guided by a vendor management specialist who reports directly to the Vice President for Editorial
and Production;
• A mid-sized educational publisher where acquiring editors have recently been renamed as
product managers and have been given product development and management responsibility
for both print and digital products. Along with this, the production department is now responsible
for production and QA of both print and digital products, where a separate team had done those
tasks previously.
Long-time followers of publishing know that publishers have tried many organizational approaches
to developing digital products – a period of separate groups, separate divisions, even spinoffs have
been followed by periods of re-integrating the digital product teams back into normal editorial and
production operations, only to evolve back to separate groups again. We seem to be in a period where
book publishers are trying to leverage multi-channel publishing technologies such as XML into an
organizational structure where one team is made capable of developing all products. Yet to a certain
extent, is manufacturing the outlier?

Merging Digital Publishing and Digital Printing
The answer may well lie in the future of multi-channel product development all the way through to
the delivery of print-ready PDF and e-book files (ePub and other formats). If publishers reach such
an integrated process, they could well take it all the way through to distribution of these files out to
print and digital partners, which North Plains’ TPP, LibreDigital, and other DAD products are well
on the way to doing. This is the promise of integrating multi-channel publishing workflows with a
distribution mechanism such as a DAD. Such a solution would be especially powerful if it were then
tightly integrated with a comprehensive cost estimating, scheduling, and tracking system – especially
for a publisher with a deep product catalog.
Tod Shuttleworth, Senior Vice President and Group Publisher, Specialty & Global Publishing, Thomas
Nelson, comments, “We’re finding new sales through print on demand (POD), which is now a huge
proportion of our production mix, as well as e-book formats. Most authors are just delighted.” For
Thomas Nelson, POD largely applies to its soft cover titles, but softcover is a big part of its publishing
program each year. “The biggest change is that we’ve halved our inventories thanks to better inventory
control and print on demand,” says Shuttleworth. “When we get our sales forecasts, we print a month’s
demand forecast, as opposed to what we used to do before, which was three-to-six months [for offset].”
Shuttleworth feels that Thomas Nelson is fortunate to have Ingram Content, of which the POD service
Lightning Source is part, “in our back door,” which makes it easy for Ingram to deliver once or twice a
day any shortfalls that Thomas Nelson inventory may have. “We never miss a beat if it is softcover,”
Shuttleworth says.
Our research finds other publishers that are already doing exactly this. As one major trade publisher
explained, its production process yields the precise outputs it needs – print-ready PDF and ePub,
together with the necessary bibliographic and business metadata to produce ONIX feeds and other
partner feeds required.
At the point where production is complete, the manufacturing team has exactly the end products it
needs to go to print and to go to e-book partners. Given the business model – popular trade books –
first-run printing is nearly always offset, but additional printings can be digital short-run. Interestingly,
this publisher has one printing provider that handles all of their printing for all titles – offset for first-run
and sizable additional print runs, digital short-run for select additional runs, and print-on demand for
older titles that don’t sell significant volumes any more.
This publisher has found the mix of printing methods that has worked for it, and seems to have
optimized the process for its market needs. Impressively, this publisher had reached a point of very
high automation for both print and e-books, together with a strong partner relationship with its printer
that serves this publisher’s needs.

Each publisher’s specific needs will vary, but each publisher needs to consider how it can reach the
optimum process and manufacturing “mix” that is right for the publisher. The advancements in digital
printing are impressive and moving ahead at a smart pace still. The Book Industry Study Group produced
an excellent small publication, Digital Book Printing for Dummies, which asks and answers many of the
questions publishers should be considering. A publisher’s answers to these questions can help drive a
manufacturing strategy that could make the optimum use of the different forms of digital printing:
• Do you produce low quantity first prints and reprints?

• Do you often place titles out of print because of low sales?
• Do you destroy unused inventory?
• Is your product mix right for digital (printing) technology?
• Have you considered costs?
• Do you have the resources to create a new POD business model?
• Do you have the systems flexibility to automate a POD workflow?
• Do you have a title that needs frequent revisions?
These are excellent questions that all publishers should be asking of themselves, while simultaneously
educating themselves on digital printing options available to them. Some of the case studies here
present intriguing new options for publishers, many of which are already in use.
We’re seeing that many book publishers have added digital printing to the mix of book manufacturing
options. Without question, average book print runs have continued to decrease. Without question,
the use of digital printing by book publishers has exploded. POD Marches On: Enhanced technology
and wider acceptance are fueling its momentum, by Teri Tan, and published in the May 25, 2009 issue of
Publishers Weekly, offers a clarion call for digital printing:
Short runs? Check. Print as needed? Affirmative. Near-offset quality?

Absolutely. Personalization? Sure. Seriously, what’s not to like about
POD (print on demand) and, by extension, digital printing? Ask any
publisher that has gone POD, and especially self-published authors,
and the answer is, go with it.

“On-demand printing is very much in demand in 2009,” notes David
Taylor, president of Lightning Source, the biggest POD supplier
around. “The business model, quality, and cost structure have
matured considerably in recent years. With POD, publishers can
better match supply to demand, thus eliminating the risks and costs
associated with the book market.” All publishers, regardless of size
or specialty, he adds, must take a long, hard look at their business
fundamentals and cash flow. “A globally distributed print model,
where publishers use the same file to print at multiple locations that
are closest to the origins of the orders, has given the book industry a
platform to publish smarter. POD is no longer an optional novelty; it
is an integral and essential part of the future of publishing.”
Best of all, the POD business model is essentially green. “Offset

manufacturing requires a relatively large quantity to be printed
in anticipation of sales,” adds Taylor. “Oft-times, the books go
unsold and have to be destroyed, usually after being shipped and
handled numerous times. In contrast, with POD, even one copy
can be printed to fulfill a firm order or a short run made to replenish
stock. This one-book-at-a-time manufacturing substantially lessens
supply chain waste, reduces greenhouse emissions, cuts pulping and
therefore landfill and conserves valuable natural resources.”
And then there’s a well-known story from a keynote at the 2007 Tools of Change conference, given by
Bob Young, Founder and CEO of Lulu.com, about print on demand. Young, during an inspection tour
of a Lulu-com digital print partner, saw a book come off the line entitled Austria Investment & Business
Guide, written in English, and he joked that he thought that someone had spelled “Australia” incorrectly.
He told his audience of hundreds of book publishers that traditionally such a title would never be
published, because of the cost of print relative to small market for such a book, but Young explained
that their “opportunity as entrepreneurs… is to add value to the consumption of information,” driving
home the point that audience size and run length are no longer an issue: there are niche markets to be
successfully served using a print-on-demand model.
At the very same conference, Ingram exhibited side-by-side with Microsoft Live Search Books,
reflecting an outsource alliance agreement with Microsoft to provide high volume scanning and digital
file management services for books being uploaded into the Live Search Books service. When publishers
sign up to digitize content with Microsoft Live Search Books, they also have the opportunity to be
added to MyiLibrary, which is Ingram’s digital book archive, which, through the digital printing entity
of Ingram, Lightning Source, already had more than 350,000 titles listed at the time of the conference,
and now holds over 600,000 titles.
At another 2007 conference, Book Business (then called BookTech), Interquest presented results from
its research on the on-demand book printing market in the Digital Book Printing Forum session, in
which end-users spoke about the market. Even in what can rightly be described as “early days” for
digital printing, the successes cited and reasons behind the choices made were strong.

One of the speakers was Robert Saunders, Director of Sales for R.R. Donnelley Digital Services, who
reported that his company had over 200 digital printing devices in R. R. Donnelley’s two digital book
facilities in Allentown and Harrisonburg (PA). Saunders described the Allentown facility as a more
traditional digital book site and identified the Harrisonburg site as the site of R.R. Donnelley’s Inventory
Management Solution, which is intended to provide better inventory management through an inline
digital print module. Launched in 2003, the Inventory Management Solution was at full capacity by
2005. A second line was added in 2006, with covers printed on HP Indigo machines. By the end of 2006,
there were about 4,000 orders, totaling 1.7 million books. The line focuses on 5” x 8”, 6” x 9”, and 7” x
9” book formats, with page counts from 84 to 660 pages and a one- to two-week turnaround. Print
runs ranged from 250 to 1,500, according to Saunders, with the split of new titles to reprint work about
equal.
Another speaker was Tom Lysenko, Vice President of Operations for the Penguin Group in the United
States, who reported that Penguin started digital printing of paperback titles in 2003 with its partner
R.R. Donnelley, with 500 active titles in 2006. Lysenko noted that the average run length was 538 copies
in 2006 and that the average page count was 286. This digital printing operation had accounted for 141
million printed pages and driven the operational benefit of flexibility in inventory planning that allowed
Penguin to keep titles in print while not committing to longer print runs. Penguin, Lysenko also argued,
benefits from reduced investment in inventory and reduced inventory obsolescence, including positive
cost and tax results. Penguin does not want to have more than six months of inventory.
At the same conference session, Steve DeForge, President of Ames On-Demand, an operation that
was strictly digital print, reported on his company’s operation as a custom publishing educational
solution. Customers constructed their course materials themselves with existing content and materials
that they provided, according to DeForge, who also reported that that 70% of the professors do it
themselves, including pagination and creating indices. Ames On-Demand was a growing part of its
company’s business but ceased operations in May of 2010.
Lowering the Cost Per Unit, the Digital Way

A lot of interest in POD started within the self-publishing arena, and today, this remains a healthy part
of the digital printing business. But as book publishers further streamline and rationalize their own
digital production processes – whether in-house or outsourced – the print-ready PDF final title format
makes digital printing just another choice. Even today, however, digital printing for books is frequently
dismissed out of hand, because book publishers used to offset prices for large book runs see that digital
printing for comparable sized runs are not competitive. Fortunately, this bad cognitive habit is fast
becoming rare, due to a more widespread recognition of the following digital printing advantages:
• Manufacturing Cost: Digital printing is less expensive than offset, per unit, on small runs;
• Returns/Unsold: Digital printing of books reflects actual demand (POD) and/or smaller inventory
(ultra short run), and hence far fewer (or no) returns or unsold copies;
• Spoilage/Shrinkage: Digital printing of books reflects actual sale (POD) and/or smaller inventory
(ultra short run), and hence far fewer spoiled book in inventory;

• Carrying Cost: Digital printing of books reflects smaller or no inventory (just-in-time inventory),
and hence lower inventory value tax loads, square footage requirements and lower lease costs;
drop-shipping from POD vendor saves on warehouse and fulfillment costs.
While it is true in many cases that book unit costs via POD are higher than offset, unit costs for a POD
book can be lower, depending on how many units of the title are actually sold for a title. There is no
question, for example, that the unit cost for POD is far less in a sale of one copy than the unit cost of
one such unit produced via offset.
Digital printing supports publishers’ pursuits of new and better inventory objectives, whether “zero
inventory,” where a book order results in print-and-ship fulfillment; “low inventory,” where small
numbers of ordered titles are maintained; “non-returnable” inventory, with POD sold as non-returnable
units; or “direct fulfillment,” with POD titles fulfilled through outsourced services.
Spoilage and shrinkage – banged up book units, whether in the warehouse, or returned from a book
seller’s shelf – vary across titles, of course, but the longer a unit sits in the warehouse, in transit, or on
the bookshelf, the larger the number of units lost; some studies show 10% or more of a typical book
print run can be expected. Digital printing can reduce spoilage and shrinkage and therefore contribute
to lowering the actual unit per sale cost.
Costs typically associated with warehouse-related efforts aren’t usually directly tied to the title budget
(P&L), and so these costs are often not part of unit costing. While this may reflect the book publishing
industry’s accounting culture, it does nothing to change the facts: warehouse costs can range tens
of cents to almost $2.00 per unit per year. Other cost factors most often left out of simpler unit cost
comparisons between offset and POD include costs of capital, with offset printing requiring payment
in advance of a unit’s sale, and one consultant to book publishers and book manufacturers has put the
cost carrying to be greater than manufacturing costs for many titles selling fewer than 50 copies per
year.
There are costs associated with the unit cost advantages of offset, and these costs can be too dear,
including lost sales from out-of-print or out-of-stock situations. Offset, by its very nature, offers less
flexibility than POD and short-run digital printing, and with $1,000-plus plate charges and additional
costs for proofs associated with the offset process, small runs and one-off titles are simply beyond
consideration.
At a 2010 Xerox Thought Leadership Workshop, Richard Hollick, Print on Demand Manager, Oxford
University Press (OUP), described how and why OUP rigorously pursues POD benefits. He reported
that a third or so of OUP’s 12,000 titles are available through POD and digital printing, not only to keep
books in print, but also to publish titles with expected sales volumes under 100 per nine-month period,
such as monographs with small audiences. Hollick also reported that an efficient POD program helps
a publisher manage its warehoused and virtual stock. Since 2005, OUP has significantly reduced its
inventory stocks.

Digital Publishing and Digital Printing: The Long and Short of It
In the article, Short Run Books: Digital Printers Offer Runs of One to Many, by Melissa Tetreault, published
in the March 2008 issue of Digital Publishing Solutions, the author starts with a concise argument for
digital printing:
Book publishers and printers strive for efficiency. Publishers want to

clear inventory off the shelves quickly. Printers want a continuous
stream of jobs. Productivity equals profit for both parties.
Tetreault notes that creating books digitally is economically beneficial for future successes. “With
shorter runs, inventory is minimal and money is in the bank as opposed to sitting on the shelf,” she
writes. “Digital book publishing also provides creative license. Thanks to variable data printing (VDP),
personalization is heavily impacting digital book publishing. Customized storybooks, custom publishing
in higher education, and photobooks are just a few products attracting vendors to this space.” Statistics
from InfoTrends, Inc., Tetreault points out in this article, show that runs of 250 to 499 are seeing a 40%
increase in print frequency, as opposed to runs of 50,000 plus, which are seeing a 44% decrease in
frequency. She quotes Guy Broadhurst, VP product marketing, Océ North America, “Book publishers
can offer more titles while actually storing practically none!”
The trend continues. Bowker’s recent analysis of book publisher activity notes that traditional US title
output of new titles and editions dropped less than half a percent, from 289,729 in 2008 to a projected
288,355 in 2009, while at the same time reporting on huge growth for “non-traditional books.” What
does Bowker mean by “non-traditional?” These “books are largely on-demand titles produced by reprint
houses specializing in public domain works and by presses catering to self-publishers and micro-niche,”
according to the company’s recent news announcement, in which Bowker projects that 764,448 titles
were produced that fall outside traditional publishing and classification definitions. This represents a
growth of 181% over the previous year.
In the April 2009 issue of Printing Impressions, Technology Editor Mark Smith wrote an article of central
relevance to book publishers and their manufacturers. In Digital and Offset Convergence – Going Long
on Shorter Runs, Smith writes:
As acceptance of the process and capacity grows, digital printing is

extending the boundary of “short-run” work to produce more jobs
that previously were done sheetfed… David Uslan, chief marketing
-officer at Smith Litho in Rockville, MD, reports that his company has
been seeing digital printing volumes growing rapidly, sheetfed offset
work trending down, and web offset demand heading up in terms of
-number of pages printed. “That’s how we’ve started to position our
capabilities in the last few years,” he notes.

The author of this article notes that Smith Litho has added an HP Indigo 7000 digital color press to its
existing HP Indigo 5000 digital press already in production, with “migration of offset work to digital
printing…one factor in the company’s decision.” Another printer cited as moving to expand its digital
printing capacity is Angstrom Graphics, whose CEO, Wayne Angstrom, is quoted as saying that print
customers have been looking for ways to reduce their costs for some time now, including taking steps
such as reducing product counts and running fewer pages.
St. Joseph Print, a Toronto-based company, is cited by Smith as consolidating its offset and digital
operations, with John Gagliano, the company’s president, describing customer crossover for web,
sheetfed, and digital printing services. Gagliano is quoted in the article: “We are seeing more and more
clients that need all three processes, but there are still a fair number that buy a la carte. We will be able
to better service customers that will buy all three from one source.” St. Joseph Print, which currently
has a mix of Xerox iGen3 color presses and Océ equipment, plans to upgrade its digital capabilities as
part of $25 million dollar investment, according to Smith’s reporting.
American Printer’s Denise Kapel, in a May 2010 article, Sprint to Win, cites InfoTrend’s surveys of
commercial printers that also show progressive decline in long runs, with steady growth in runs “from
one to 1,000 impressions.” Kapel’s central argument is that improvements among book printers in
time and cost efficiencies, from wider adoption of automation in the form of web-to-print portals and
production workflows, to better use of management information systems, provides book publishers
with a path to short-run print production with minimal handling. Jim Hamilton, InfoTrends group
director, on-demand printing, is quoted within this article as saying that part of growth is “directly
attributable to web-to-print. You might have had digital print technology that was capable of doing
those very short runs in 2004, but it wasn’t really cost effective if someone had to pick up the phone, take
the order, and process the job manually.” Designed right, web-to-print can provide automated print
ordering and integrate the orders into print production workflow, for what Hamilton calls “touchless”
operations on short-run, quick-turn jobs.
Kapel reports that InfoTrends has plotted out the general cost per impression for color devices,
indicating that while offset meets or beats digital color print at runs over 10,000 impressions, it
competes only with 2000-era or earlier digital devices on runs under 1,000. “Using a very simple running
cost calculation, Océ’s Jetstream gets down under a penny per color impression at 20% coverage, but
you’ve got to be running 40 million impressions per month to get there,” says Hamilton, in this article.
“On the monochrome side, continuous feed devices have improved output quality, gone to a wider
web that allows you to do 3-up-across 6 × 9-inch [impressions], and now offer halftone capability that
looks pretty good,” says Hamilton, as reported by Kapel. In the 200+ ppm range of cutsheet devices,
Hamilton notes Océ’s VarioPrint 6000 Ultra series, the Kodak Digimaster EX300, and Xerox’s digital
duplex Nuvera 200/288 as key platforms. “Between those three, particularly for book-oriented work,
there are some very interesting things going on in black-and-white [output],” reports Hamilton.

Figure 15 is from Lulu.com’s website, and shows the current cost break-out for individuals ordering
print on demand books.
Figure 15. Lulu.com’s Recent Charge Schedule for POD Books
Source: Lulu.com
Kapel also notes that inline bookletmaking is the most popular short-run finishing capability seen in
InfoTrends’ survey results, including advanced runs using three-side trimmers. Hamilton notes that
finishing multipage documents inline doesn’t slow the process.
There are digital printers that offer different areas of experience and seek distinct customers. There
are printers offering short-run printing, versioning-oriented printing, and one-off or books on demand.
While plenty of printers may offer any combination, there are digital capabilities and equipment that
may be better suited for one or another of these offerings. Other considerations for book publishers
considering digital printing include the type of digital printer, where the main differentiation is
between inkjet and electrophotographic digital printing. Electrophotographic remains best suited for
runs at about 1,000, before the cross over to offset, for monochrome, becomes more competitive;
electrophotographic digital printing is also better for half-tone reproduction and the highest quality
output. With inkjet digital printing, because of several factors, including its higher print speed, and
depending on equipment and job, some estimates for crossover to offset now range as high as 7,000
units.

Marketing and Promotion Processes and Systems
Marketing and promotion is where, under the best of circumstances working along with early planning
and editorial efforts, the key messages and customer targets are defined, publicity campaigns are
mapped, and sales content created.
As noted in the introduction to this report, e-commerce giants such as Amazon.com essentially forced
publishers to morph into digital marketers. The very nature of sites like those from Amazon and Barnes
& Noble demands that publishers be able to push electronic sales support content and metadata out
automatically and efficiently. Moreover, as sales channels grew, as business models morphed, and as
reading devices proliferated, publishers have needed to embrace more automation of their marketing
functions.
As a VP of marketing at a trade publisher remarked to us, “The name of the game used to be to get your
book in the hands of key reviewers and media people. That is still important of course. But now I want
our publicists to have toolkit for pushing widgets and other content into any viable or influential blog,
community site, or other site related to the book and its audience.” An author at a reading of her new
short story collection praised Goodreads.com over Facebook as a publicity channel for her book, but
confirmed the importance of both. And she was delighted to report on Facebook a few days later that
her book was being heavily promoted on a New Zealand website.
It is indeed a brave new world.
The section discussing distribution touches on the role of DADs in supporting the delivery of marketing
content. Once again, though, the planning systems often play a role here. We’ve seen systems such as
those from Firebrand and Publishing Technology act as the core repository for marketing metadata
and sales support (title information sheets, author bios, reviews, etc.) Publishers are adopting best
practices where key metadata is recorded in a single system so that it can be readily published as feeds
to key selling partners.

Although Figure 16 represents statistically barely more than a straw poll, the top promotion and
marketing efforts for e-books include social media-related undertakings, then e-book galley/ARC
distribution and SEO, and then online bookstores, e-book author site (distinct from print, and social
community participation.
Figure 16. Promotion and Marketing Activities

Social community building and marketing through your
18.9%
book publishing company’s own websites
Blogs and/or Twitter and/or Facebook promotion of ebook

18.9%
titles
Ebook galley and/or advance reader copy distribution 13.5%
Search engine optimization (SEO) or search engine

13.5%
marketing (SEM)
Create or support print authors’ websites 10.8%
Create online bookstore for book publisher’s ebooks 8.1%
Create or support ebook authors’ websites 8.1%
Social community building and marketing through third-

party websites and portals (e.g., Gather.com, 8.1%
Goodreads.com)

Question 25--PRM, "Which actions do the promotion and marketing process undertake or support?"
Base = 37
It’s notable that the improved production processes we discussed in an earlier section also play a
role here. Many publishers now routinely produce files that are suitable for Amazon’s Search Inside
the Book, for Google Book, and other key discovery portals. Several publishers we interviewed have
automatic or near-automatic processes for pushing out ONIX metadata, cover art, and a full book file
to such partners. In some cases they are using their Title Information Management system, in other
cases their DAD system, and in some cases a custom system based on a DAM or content management
system.
Many publishers are taking a close look at DADs – and many are coming on board – not just for
distribution support but for marketing support. Several of the DAD systems answer the requirements
of the Marketing VP cited above, who wants her publicists armed with tools to support blogs and other
social media sites. They make it straightforward to push widgets out to reviewers and websites, and
many of them can auto-generate landing pages and micro-sites for books and authors. The DADs
are flexible enough to allow publishers to configure how much metadata and content gets pushed
to different partners and channels. Publishers could opt to create the richest micro-site for their own
purposes, to push full metadata and supporting content to one set of partners, and more limited
metadata and supporting content to other partners, and so on.

In the next section, on selling and licensing, one publishing executive expressed a good overall
requirements statement for publishers everywhere, “For us, the goal either way is efficient creation
and management of product records with the necessary usefulness.” Marketers could create a
similar overarching requirement for their new systems, which is efficient creation, management, and
distribution of marketing content and metadata so as to serve the varied needs of its marketing, sales,
and publicity channels.
One final point to make here is about catalogs. Publishers reported to us, while not universally, a general
trend away from print catalogs. At minimum, publishers are decreasing the print runs for catalogs
and producing fewer specialized catalogs for certain markets. In many cases, publishers have moved
entirely to electronic catalogs or are in the process of moving. One development we have not seen
yet is tight integration between TIM or DAD systems and electronic catalog systems. We have seen
this requirement in RFPs from publishers but have not seen extensive examples of such integration in
action.
Sales and Licensing Processes and Systems
Sales and licensing is where the road to the customer begins, connections are made, and cash is
exchanged – whether for the title itself or for other formats, and market rights and sub-rights.
For sales and licensing professionals, digital publishing is morphing from a gleam in its proverbial
mother’s eye to a key piece of the revenue mix. In some segments of publishing (notably STM,
professional, and legal), digital publishing reached the revenue tipping point several years ago and
longer. But now the Kindle has turned trade publishers into e-book production engines, and devices like
the iPad promise to bring whole new capabilities and interactivity to markets such as education. Major
publishers such as Pearson and Random House are reporting double- and even triple-digit growth in
digital revenues.
Much like rights and royalties, the scenarios for sales and licensing run the gamut from the very simple
to the very complex. In the simplest scenario – an e-book version of a print trade title – the publisher
merely needs to create an ISBN for the e-book, record the information in its sales system, and recognize
the orders against the new ISBN.
Interestingly, even the simplest scenario has its complexity, as some publishers have struggled with
questions such as whether each format of an e-book should have its own ISBN and even whether each
channel partner’s version of an e-book should have its own ISBN. It’s notable that different publishers
are taking different approaches to this question, often to accommodate internal processes and systems
that are difficult to change.

For publishers in markets such as STM, education, and professional, the scenarios grow far more
complex. A few examples:
• A small STM publisher has created its own digital library, selling whole e-books and individual
chapters. It has both retail consumers of individual products and institutional licensees for the
entire library. It would like to develop even more products (e.g., allowing a customer to create
their own e-book out of different chapters of different books; allowing an institutional buyer
to license a subset of the digital library based on subject matter). Its production capabilities
are faster at adapting than are its business systems, but it is determined to create all of these
products and more.
• A mid-sized educational publisher is creating individual e-books for sales through partners but
also is negotiating license deals with major aggregators. As it installs a new back-office system,
it is creating ISBNs for the individual e-books while developing pricing schemes and product
descriptions for the license options.
• A mid-sized trade publisher is aggressively producing an e-book program for sales through Kindle
and other channels but also has a mature licensing program of its reference content. Through
acquisitions, it has also brought other electronic products into its portfolio. As it combines the
sales systems from the different companies, it doesn’t want any of its selling efforts to lag.
Another major question publishers are facing is what to do about identifying, cataloging, and selling
products that are not ISBN-based. These include chapters of existing books, compilations of chapters,
and other iterations of existing content. As publishers look to create more and more “chunks” of
content, do they simply assign ISBNs to everything? And if not, how do they catalog these non-ISBN
products in sales systems (and other systems) that are largely ISBN based?
Selling Atoms of Content

In one discussion with a large publisher, an executive mapped out the complexities he is faced with:
• For example, consider a chapter available for download, only online, and selling directly. Do you
need an ISBN for that? Could it be the ISBN of the parent? This probably works as long as can
accurately attribute the sales revenue and ultimately the royalties.
• What about the continuing atomization of content? Increasingly we will be selling atoms of
content. We’ll have to maintain product records with prices, more granular than what we have
now in our systems. We could go without ISBNs for our internal purposes, but if you have trading
partners, you will need something like ISBNs. Again, if you are only selling directly, maybe you
don’t need ISBNs for each atom.
• For us, the goal either way is efficient creation and management of product records with the
necessary usefulness.
• As atomization grows and we even look to sell individual components (e.g., an illustration or
photo), what is the relationship in our systems between the original saleable items (ISBNs) and
component pieces of those items? Do we even need to track those relationships? We probably do.

• Where in the organization and in our systems do we need to understand this detailed information
on these new atoms of content? In production only? Royalties? Sales tracking? Probably all of the
above.
• The question of whether we need a unique ID (such as but not necessarily an ISBN) at lower levels
might be more about trading partners, but also about the arcane nature of some of our multiple
internal systems.
• Finally, we are very interested in subscription models. If we combine atoms of content in a
subscription product, we need for a subscription system (or a module of our sales systems) to
figure out the allocations and pass them into the sales order processing system, and on to related
systems such as rights and royalties.
There are approaches and best practices emerging out there. EDItEUR has a broad, international
mission, which is the coordination of standards infrastructure for electronic commerce in the book
and serials markets. It manages the ONIX and EDIFACT standards, and manages the interests of its
members on international identifier committees including ISTC (International Standard Text Code),
DOI (Digital Object Identifier), and RFID (Radio Frequency ID). It also provides management services
for International ISBN Agency.
The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) is also very active in this arena. BISG has formed a Sales
Reporting Working Group within the Supply Chain EDI (SCEDI) committee to, among other things,
review the EDItX Sales Report Format version 1.1. The EDItX formats, under the guidance of EDItEUR,
are “intended for general book trade use, covering transactions between retailers, wholesalers and
publishers where ordered items are supplied to, and for resale by, the trade customer responsible for
sending the order.”
BISG has also formed two working groups to explore the issues of Identification of E‐Books and the
ISTC. As BISG has recently noted, “The ISTC has been called one of most important identifiers since
ISBN. The ISO standard, published in 2009, identifies an underlying textual ‘work’ independently of a
specific manifestation. It provides a much needed mechanism for identifying an original text that may
be available in many seemingly different published versions with different ISBNs. By doing so, it has
the potential to provide better, more targeted online search and discoverability.”
Still, these best practices and emerging standards are in some cases nascent. In March of 2010, BISG
published a paper on ISTC entitled, The International Standard Text Code: A Work in Progress. It’s an
excellent paper that explains the ISTC standard while also discussing the practical challenges. One of
its key conclusions:

But it will be publishers who must accept the challenge of taking
forward the implementation of ISTC for new titles. They will do so
first by registering their creative textual works to obtain an ISTC
number; and then by loading ISTCs appropriately and accurately
within the ISBN-based ONIX-for-Books data feeds they provide,
via the bibliographic service companies, to the wider book trade
community.
In conversations with publishers, we heard consistently that external data feeds are a piece of the
puzzle, but as the report and publishers note, the challenge is especially keen for internal systems that
are largely ISBN based. And while there are revenue opportunities that could be supported by ISTC,
publishers are, for the most part, creating their own internal identifiers for these new products now and
looking at ISTC for the longer term. This should be watched closely, though, as efforts such as those
from BISG are bringing excellent, practical perspective to these standardization efforts.
Sales and Licensing Systems: Summing Up

Once again we return to the point that the comprehensive systems we identified as planning systems
have a critical role to play. Nearly all of those systems support sales in a variety of ways including order
entry and order-to-cash processing. Some of them also support sales reporting, sales tracking, and
even sales force management and commission tracking.
The comprehensive targeted systems (Klopotek and others) and the general business systems (Oracle,
SAP) have all been tuned to the detailed needs of the adopting publisher – their products, their SKUs/
ISBNs, their prices, their discount schedules. The critical issue for digital publishing is that revenue
recognition for complex products gets dicey. Since these systems are almost always ISBN based, it can
get very complicated to quickly slice and dice product, blend products, and create the supporting sales
system infrastructure. The goal of the publisher scenario stated in the previous section stands as a good
overall requirements statement for publishers everywhere, “For us, the goal either way is efficient
creation and management of product records with the necessary usefulness.”
It’s clear that sales and licensing systems need to account for the burgeoning business models and
product offerings, while still making it relatively easy to add new products for selling, to record the sale,
and to pass the sale information along to the other related systems.
Distribution and Fulfillment Processes and Systems
Distribution and fulfillment is where the final part of the publishing process begins, getting titles into the
hands of the readers themselves, or the supply chain services, like book distributors and wholesalers,
that represent a long and firmly established aspect of book publishing.

“The once linear book industry supply chain is now a tangled web of relationships with multiple,
occasionally competing business models in place,” says a tagline from a LibreDigital marketing piece,
and we’re hard-pressed to disagree. The issue of supply chains and distribution mechanisms and
channels for e-books is a hard one to nail down. On one hand, there are a good number of services –
LibreDigital, Ingram Content’s CoreSource, Perseus Publishing Group’s Constellation, to name some
– that offer comprehensive means for publishers to get e-book titles into the retail channels. Moreover,
some of the major retail channels – Amazon.com, for example – will help publishers to get their e-books
directly to them. On the other hand, significant difficulties present themselves to book publishers,
including the following:
• Channels in competition, including book publishers’ direct selling of e-books;

• Problems dealing with the different e-book formats demanded by the current marketplace;
• Challenges in dealing with different business models, such as wholesale versus agency models,
with retailers;
• Needing to consider new publishing concepts, such as title as “app” or via “widgets,” custom
publishing, and POD;
• Marketing and promotion opportunities in flux, such as social media, SEO/SEM, author sites,
traditional e-retailers, and Google Book Edition;
• Difficulty with ONIX and other distribution-related metadata that are supposed to make
transmission of e-books from publisher to retailers standards-based processes but fall short of
their promise.
Given the confusing plethora of distribution possibilities and the many different kinds of distribution-
related details that require resolution, it is easy to see why book publishers can take comfort going
with e-book analogs to print book distribution channels such as Ingram Content and Baker & Taylor.
Unfortunately, such comfort can be offset by the discomforting matter of these familiar distribution
models leaving too much margin on the table, a very familiar feeling from the print book experiences
of publishers.
In addition to the book publishers’ desires, there are also the increasing and varied expectations on
the part of the e-book consumer. Even in these early days, customer expectations add pressures to
sales and distribution options, including such matters as being able to access e-books or other forms of
digital publications among any number of reading devices, computers, smartphones, and consumer
electronics a content user may possess. Sharing and lending content can be another appropriate use, as
is the explosion in multiple channel choices for content customers. If custom publishing proves popular,
publishers will need to manage content chunk identifiers.
This is far removed from the traditional book distribution environment. There will likely be some need
to manage many file formats and the nuances within each file format. Add differing naming convention
requirements by publishers and by channel partners, and the likelihood of different sizes, types, and
segments of book publishers following different strategies and different market focus, and it is not
hard to see why figuring out supply chains and distribution solutions within e-book publishing remains
a barrier.

There is also the issue of digital asset distribution (DAD) platforms, that haven’t gotten too far into
e-book distribution service, but which may threaten the more “start-to-finish” offerings of some
of today’s leading e-book distribution vendors. The rise of DAD for e-book and digital publication
distribution is a conditional forecast, since not only are DADs still pretty new in the book publishing
marketplace, but other distribution-related activities, such as ONIX metadata packaging, may continue
to prove to be beyond the abilities or interest of book publishers, and remain one of several such services
that can strengthen the attraction of full-service distribution vendors, and specialty service providers
such as Firebrand Technologies.
North Plains, with its solid roots in DAM, has extended its asset management platform into a publishing
platform that includes a digital asset distribution component, called Distribute. Here’s how North
Plains describes it:
Your finished books are sent from TPP Publish module to TPP Archive
for secure storage. Once there, TPP Distribute creates multiple,
simultaneous distribution events to all your commercial partner
sites, aggregators, and fulfillment service providers. Your book
is then made instantly available for sale on TPP Sell. The TPP Sell
bookstore allows you to sell books, merchandise, e-books, online
subscriptions, and subscription libraries. TPP Distribute passes the
ONIX data and all format fulfillment information to TPP Sell and your
books are instantly available on your booksite.
Other modules include Sell, along with Promote, which, given the DAM capabilities of the platform,
can be populated with any mix of assets used in promoting and selling.
We don’t mean to suggest that there are no other strong attempts in the marketplace to address these
barriers, even as we think that there is much left to figure out, industry-wide. Ingram Content offers
some very good services that address some of the barriers, as do LibreDigital, Impelsys’ iPublish,
Value Chain International, and SmashWords, to name a very incomplete list of widely varying solution
offerings.
Ingram Content’s CoreSource

Print book distribution giant Ingram Content has a well-developed e-book distribution offering in its
CoreSource line, made up of three distinct but related services, as follow:
• CoreSourceContent Hub, the digital content repository in which content, metadata, and ancillary/
marketing materials are aggregated and made available to Ingram’s market-facing distribution
solutions;
• CoreSourceAsset Management Suite (AMS), an extension of the publisher’s digital infrastructure
using a web-based digital asset management system enabling publishers to manage, re-purpose,
syndicate, store, and archive their digital content, metadata, and promotional materials in any
format;

• CoreSourceSearch and Discover, a turn-key solution to power Search Inside and Look Inside
capabilities through third-party websites, in which publishers make content available to
authorized trading partners and their customers according to usage rules set by the publisher and
enforced by Ingram.
The Ingram service is an attractive “turn-key solution” for enabling Search Inside and Look Inside
functionality down the distribution channel (such as Amazon). Ingram hosts the publisher’s content
on Ingram’s own servers, together with the associated metadata, page images, full-text in XML, and,
depending on the level of service, search algorithms. Ingram undertakes digital transformation of the
publisher’s title submitted in Print PDF, into the required ePDF, chunked PDF, page ePDF, and JPEG
with ASCII text needed to distribute using MARC, ONIX, and/or custom electronic distribution files. The
connection with Ingram Content’s digital printing/POD service arm, Lightning Source can be an added
bonus for book publishers.
Figure 17, a presentation slide from the Ingram Content website shows the CoreSource process in
the abstract. This is an impressive service, but when a publisher operates through CoreSource, the
publisher has already accepted “market-facing distribution” as Ingram’s own.
Figure 17. CoreSource as Distribution Channel
Source: Ingram Content

Ingram Content’s fulfillment platform, shown in Figure 18, can use API, web browser, or widget
mechanisms to deliver a publisher’s titles through to many destinations, including back to the
publisher’s own storefront, e-retailers, aggregators or portals, social network sites, and across many
search platforms.
Figure 18. CoreSource Fulfillment Platform
Source: Ingram Content
LibreDigital
From the “About” page of the LibreDigital website:
When LibreDigital formed in 1999 to provide publishers with digital

warehousing and e-distribution, the web was a place for e-mail,
retail, and early content experiments. The term “blog” had just been
coined. Social networking was the province of message boards and
article comments. Google was a small company in Palo Alto. Mark
Zuckerberg, the eventual founder of Facebook, was 15 years old.
Although LibreDigital also focuses on periodical publishing (The New York Times is an investor), the
company has gained plenty of attention from the book world. Here are two quotes that establish this
bona fide:
We chose LibreDigital as the ‘best of breed’ strategic partner

for all digital services.
–Baker & Taylor
LibreDigital powers the largest real time content delivery

platform on bn.com.
–Barnes & Noble

LibreDigital has a lot in common with Ingram Content, including offering “a suite of software and
services leading publishers use to transform, control, optimize and deliver digital content.” In fact,
LibreDigital’s offerings come in three stages: LibrePublish, LibreMarket, and LibreAccess.
The LibrePublish solution takes on a lot of work a book publisher would otherwise have to do itself,
including much of digital transforming of files and the building of digital sales channels for the publisher’s
content and associated metadata involved. Also similar to Ingram Content’s CoreSource, LibreDigital
controls distribution rights and permissions of the publisher’s content (“at a granular level”).
LibreMarket refers to LibreDigital’s tools for helping book publishers market their titles online and,
hopefully, drive sales, through much the same mechanisms as CoreSource, such as content preview
and sampling, social networks, and e-commerce support. LibreMarket Browse lets consumers view
book content online in a familiar browser-based reading application, with search, zoom, and other
interactivity features. With LibreMarket Promote, readers can market titles on a publisher’s behalf
by way of online social networks, blogs, or their own websites through snippets of code that they can
easily embed on a web page. LibreMarket Connect allows publishers to offer downloadable samples
– such as “e-galleys” – of their digital content to consumers through publisher-branded web pages.
Publishers can restrict online distribution of these DRM-protected samples by time and/or quantity,
and LibreDigital argues that the optional consumer registration can provide valuable data about who
is reading what content and enables future marketing opportunities.
The third leg of the LibreDigital offering is LibreAccess, which focuses on fulfillment of digital content
to consumers. With LibreAccess, publishers can establish a closer relationship with consumers by
owning the online sales and fulfillment experience, while offloading the challenges of storing content,
managing fulfillment, or tracking content distribution. LibreAccess further simplifies the process by
allowing publishers to:
• Prevent piracy by optionally DRM-wrapping certain content formats for Adobe Digital Editions or
Microsoft PlayReady;
• Integrate the purchase experience between e-commerce systems and LibreDigital’s content
repository and fulfillment technology, using the LibreDigital Application Programming Interface
(API);
• Establish an infrastructure that enables new business models in the future by selling flexible
access rights to underlying content instead of limiting content sales to specific formats.
Firebrand Technologies
Firebrand Technologies offers a lot of platforms and services to book publishers turning to e-book
publishing, including one of the earliest and well-designed title management platforms. In addition,
Firebrand offers Eloquence, a service that supports book publishers electronically disseminating and
controlling the title information and jacket images being used in the sale of their products, including
transmission of rich formatted bibliographic metadata such as ONIX to distributors and online retailers
such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Baker & Taylor, Ingram, Bowker, Muze, and 200 other trading
partners. Firebrand also offers e-commerce services and NetGalley, an electronic galley service.

Although Firebrand’s Eloquence services are aimed at helping publishers get the title information
out to their supply chains, the newest offering from the company, Content Services, to be officially
launched at Firebrand’s user conference in September 2010, is an alternative for bringing many of the
most egregious hassles of today’s e-book market to heel. Content Services provides management,
storage, conversion, and distribution of final book content. Fran Toolan, Firebrand’s Chief Igniter,
commented in the May 2010 press release about the company’s “…commitment to integrating both
content and metadata throughout the publishing workflow and out into the digital supply chain.
Firebrand is uniquely positioned to help publishers develop digital workflows… as we build this new
suite of services.” Firebrand’s Content Services include many e-book formats that may be handed off
to a partner company, e-book Architects, for file format conversions.
With Firebrand Technologies’ Content Services, publishers manage title records, files, and distribution
from one source. Content Services allows publishers to create an e-book title using a familiar (at least
to Firebrand customers), web-based Title Management wizard, and then “…upload content just once,
pick from an array of conversion options, manage the conversion process, and then distribute it to
where it needs to go. We support file and metadata management and distribution to all of the programs
in which our clients are currently participating or want to participate in,” according to company
marketing material. The system is flexible enough to work with other digital asset management (DAM)
and distribution (DAD) systems; and Firebrand’s goals include working with their publishing customers
to provide thorough integration of Firebrand tools with other companies’ business and technology
solutions.
Firebrand Technologies is well-known for its ONIX wrestling skills, mainly though the Eloquence
service, which works with either Firebrand’s own Title Information Management (TIM) Solution, as a
web-based standalone service, or imported from another TIM. Firebrand Technologies’ ONIX platform
is shown in Figure 19.
Figure 19. Firebrand Technologies ONIX Platform
Source: Firebrand Technologies

Firebrand’s Content Services build on the company’s SaaS model and offer the following solutions:
• Changes in Title Management will include integrated digital asset and workflow management
tools, secure digital file storage and warehousing, and detailed reporting and tracking, providing
existing customers with a familiar interface that is the key to controlling title information,
metadata, and content;
• Distribution to other storage vendors, online search and discovery programs, e-book retailers
and aggregators, print-on-demand vendors, and publisher websites for direct e-book fulfillment;
this distribution of full book content is closely tied to the associated metadata flowing through
Firebrand Technologies’ Eloquence metadata services;
• Quality File Conversion through a partnership with e-book Architects;
• Marketing Services through NetGalley for digital galley and press kit distribution;
• E-commerce Storefront and Direct E-book Fulfillment, using a pre-developed architecture
that allows publishers to serve site visitors with up-to-date title information and the ability to
purchase titles in all formats.
Different Distribution and E-Commerce Models

The three companies above – Ingram Digital, LibreDigital, and Firebrand Technologies – fit into the
print book distribution ecology. What makes such solutions hard to call as fait accompli, however, are
the many new alternatives for publishers and content creators connecting with their audiences and
the very new business models that stem from the nature of digital formats and networked distribution
mechanisms of the content.
There are other strong contenders, as mentioned earlier, such as Impelsys’ iPublishCentral, a SaaS
model of e-book distribution, self-described as a “self-service online content delivery and marketing
solution.” Publishing Technology has pub2web, a hosting platform that supports, according to a
company presentation, “all the information you publish. It is built from the ground up to showcase
and connect all your content, regardless of format. It provides you with online publishing essentials
such as content conversion, discovery, authentication, and customer support. It delivers sophisticated
functionality in e-commerce, search, and browse. And it’s managed by you with strategic support from
our team of digital professionals.”
Impelsys iPublishCentral
Impelsys CEO Sameer Shariff, at the recent Tools of Change conference, gave a presentation that
summed up the business model challenges and opportunities for e-book publishers. Shariff started by
setting the stage with today’s e-book retail scene:
• Dedicated e-retail channels;

• E-retail stores are the channel captains;
• Users locked-in, based on reader and format;

• No direct contact between publisher and consumer;
• Apps supporting multiple titles, more like a bookshelf – e.g., iBooks, Blio.
Shariff believes that today’s dedicated retail models for e-books will give way to what he calls
“convergent models,” with marketplaces similar to app stores, where apps, not just e-books, are sold.
He also projects the following developments:
• Business models based on transactions and revenue sharing, through ad-supported content
delivery;
• Business models based on transactions and revenue sharing, using rental and subscription
models;
• Multiple price points for the same book, based on enhancements;
• Direct relationship between publisher and reader that enables publishers to build relationships
with readers;
• More data about customers will be available, including reading and buying habits, interests,
what’s popular, what they seek;
• Pricing will see a shift.
Value Chain International

Value Chain International (VCI), which was an early player in e-book distribution, looks to provide
building blocks for book publishers distributing and marketing their digital titles, with the stated aim of
helping publishers “protect, diversify, market, promote, and increase your revenue streams.” Although
the services and platforms of VCI look and sound a lot like Ingram Content and LibreDigital’s offerings,
the target is broader than the traditional book publishing distribution systems. Whether a broader but
more amorphous target for distribution channels is strength or a weakness remains to be determined,
as is the potential of either or both Ingram and LibreDigital to move toward developing new channel
opportunities themselves.
On the other hand, VCI is focused on its own digital publishing platform, DX READER (not to be
confused with Amazon’s Kindle DX). VCI’s offerings include DX Inspection and DX Review, both
oriented toward resolving the inspection and publicity review copy processes for DX e-books. The
company also produces a line of widgets that include “View Inside” and “Hear Inside,” which exploits
DX Reader technology to cover the distribution of XML, ePub, PDF, illustrated copy, and audio widgets.
“ViewPlus,” which VCI describes as a “super widget,” will, the company confidently asserts, “radically
change how marketing and bibliographic information is both distributed and accessed through a single
point.”

The world of widgets certainly holds a lot of room for improvement and expansion, but of perhaps
more practical value is VCI’s digital asset distribution offering, a digital repository that automates and
manages distribution of formatted and DRM secure digital content to digital aggregators, POD, and
other third-party suppliers. The DAD can hold both digital content and associated digital marketing
collateral such as podcasts, videos, and links to third-party digital materials. Other aspects of the VCI
DAD include these distribution features:
• eCompile, an e-book compiler service that allows users to create customized e-books in the
Adobe e-book Reader format;
• eSubscribe, to provide flexible, cost-effective, online access to an extensive catalogue of
intellectual content in the versatile DX Reader electronic format, through which users can
subscribe to content of their choice for an elected time-frame, or add value to a subscription
with the DX Reader Research Book, in which the user is enabled to add chapters or pages from
subscribed books, create notes, and annotations;
• ePrint, a digital-to-print service that enables users to purchase print access to content, whether
an entire e-book, selective chapters, or even single pages;
• eCopy, which prevents copyright infringements and ensures legitimate usage of authentic
content, including copying and pasting text;
• My Wallet, which is a user’s personal online account that can be used to finance “micro-
purchases” and other convenient payment options.
Whether or not VCI’s DX Reader-oriented services will win in the marketplace, these breakout services
stand as early steps toward alternative business models. It is interesting to note that many of the
platform’s services have a digital rights management (DRM) orientation.
Self-Publishing with Author Solutions

And then there is self-publishing, which is a term that covers a lot of ground. Companies like Author
Solutions, Inc., which acquired quite a few other “self-publishing” services to become the dominant
player in this field, or, as the company puts it:
We’ve become the leader in self-publishing, the fastest-growing

segment in number of titles published over the past five years.
Our publishing services platform can help traditional publishers of
any size discover new literary talent efficiently. That means more
authors, publishers, and organizations can generate revenue by
publishing books than ever before.

The sheer numbers are impressive – recently totaling more than 85,000 authors that have self-published
nearly 120,000 titles. Author Solutions Inc. (ASI) likes to emphasize that it is not strictly a self-publish
enabler, but believes it also performs important work for book publishing generally. One example of this
thinking is its recently launched AuthorHive, an integrated author marketing services and promotion
company created to provide all authors – whether self-published or traditionally published – with
resources that bring together all the essentials of successful book marketing. “Professional marketing
consultants work with authors to design integrated book promotional campaigns to fit each author’s
individual budget and goals. Authors choose from a rich array of publicity, multimedia, online, and
event products and services,” the Author Solutions website says.
The company claims to be “assisting traditional publishers with the adoption of self-publishing
imprints,” that ASI views as providing traditional publishers a “farm team” from which they can
discover new literary talent, along with services including sales, marketing, and fulfillment services;
trade publishers Thomas Nelson and Harlequin are numbered among such traditional publishers.
Of course, keep in mind that Author Solutions uses digital platforms to create and market print
books, and like other self-publishing enablers, these companies are a boon to digital printer vendors.
Smashwords, on the other hand, is an e-book publishing and distribution platform for e-book
authors, publishers, and readers that offers “multi-format, DRM-free e-books, ready for immediate
sampling and purchase, and readable on any e-reading device.” It’s free to publish and distribute with
Smashwords, with the business model that of revenue sharing, with the lion’s share going to the author
(typically, 85% of sales).
According to this company, “over 3,500 serious writers and 100 independent publishers publish and
distribute with Smashwords.” Many Smashwords authors have been previously published in print
through mainstream publishers, or have had their works published in well-respected literary journals,
the Smashwords website claims, perhaps a bit defensively. Starting March, 2009, Smashwords
introduced new publishing options for publishers who want to publish and centrally manage two or
more authors, and it is clear that Smashwords is trying to become an e-book aggregator, although its
inclusiveness stops when DRM begins. And print, of course, is not ignored, with Smashword authors
interested in creating print versions of their titles may work with Smashwords’ partner, WorldClay, for
digital printing.
Publishing Processes: Steps toward Better Efficiencies
The publishing processes common to book publishing share many traits, but perhaps the most
frustrating shared trait is how book publishers can approach these same processes in such different
manners. Fortunately, some of these processes – such as planning, are structurally no different for
print and e-books, which is certainly not to say that it becomes an easy thing for a book publisher to
judge content acquisition and markets for e-books. The efforts may be similar, but the marketplace
and technical details of production, marketing, and sales and distribution channel navigation are very
much in flux.

There are some publishing processes that map between print and e-book better than others.
Manufacturing is the best example of a print book publishing process that has but a faint shadow in the
e-book publishing world, although the advent of high-quality, high-production, and affordable digital
printing is a solid and crucial connection between the worlds of print and digital publishing. In the case
of digital printing, the distinctions between print manufacturing process and digital publishing process
can virtually disappear.
One of this study’s main concerns is to highlight opportunities for book publishers to realize process
efficiencies from digital publishing. A key consideration regarding process efficiencies is whether
or how well publishing processes may integrate one with another, but in these early days of digital
book publishing, effective integration is still largely elusive. We explore the issue of integration and
interoperability of publishing processes in more detail in the outlook chapter.

What is a Digital Book?
Here’s a quote from our 2009 report, Digital Platforms andTechnologies for Publishers: Implementations
beyond “e-book.”
Printed books are wonderful! They are readable, portable, colorful,

affordable, and lovable. We have enjoyed books since the earliest
moments of our childhood. Nonetheless, printed books have certain
restrictions. As our collection grows, they are bulky and heavy.
Linking to other resources cited in books is a clumsy process requiring
a computer. Nonfiction and educational books are often outdated
when they are published and they do not support rich media. And
printed books are expensive to manufacture, warehouse, and ship.
Digital books offer many advantages. Even more importantly, from a publisher’s perspective they offer
very real and fast-growing markets. But digital books also offer the challenge of definition.
When it comes to e-books that mimic the form and experience of print books, there’s not much
confusion. The Kindle version of Kitty Kelley’s Oprah: A Biography basically looks like and reads like
the print edition. But even in this simplest example, the differences are quite significant. What is the
difference between an e-book and a print book? In the trade publishing model, following Kindle and its
kind, the difference seems very negligible, at first glance.
Figure 20. E-Book or Print Book?
Source: Amazon.com

Finding an e-book title through Amazon or any web search is more or less identical in process to looking
for a print title; after all, the information about and samples provided of the book to help the customer
make his or her selection will be mostly the same. Even the ordering of the book, regardless of version,
is much the same. The convenience of nearly instantaneous download of the digital version of the book
may be the first significant divergence. This alone represents a major change: no waiting for a package
to arrive, no (or fractional) shipping costs to the customer or retailer, at least as far as book-filled pallet
trucking the source to the store is concerned.
This is not to say that there are no distribution costs involved with digital titles, as any publisher covering
the costs of servers, digital file storage, and bandwidth well knows. There are also costs associated
with struggling with ONIX metadata or using the services of LibreDigital or other electronic content
distributors will tell you. The point is that there is a significant gap between the costs of print book
distribution and fulfillment and e-book distribution and fulfillment, and the costs incurred today in
e-book distribution and fulfillment are likely to drop as systems of greater automation, standardization,
and capabilities become better established.
Not surprisingly, there is no standard definition of an “e-book.” While some technology standards
have been developed by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IPDF – previously the Open eBook
Forum), these do not help to define what exactly an e-book is, perhaps in part because such standards
have not yet been implemented across the industry. Outsell, Inc. defines e-books as downloadable
units of digital book content that can be read on a variety of devices (e.g., laptops, e-book readers,
and smartphones). The key to the concept of e-books is to think of the content as a discrete unit, and
so a website based on content from a reference book would not count as an e-book. This definition
coincides with generally agreed to perspectives of publishers.
We agree with this most basic e-book definition: that of a discrete unit of content, which in the vast
majority of cases is based directly on a print title. Market-sizing of e-books generally reflects the global
market for revenues generated from sales of this type of digital content, rather than units sold. More
importantly, these market estimates also typically exclude sales of individual book chapters and other
forms of digital content that go beyond the more constrained e-book definition above.
On the other hand, definitions of “digital books” are many and varied. For the purpose of this study,
we define “digital books” as any digital content product that can be derived from book publishers’
product planning, editorial, and production efforts. While e-books in many publishing markets are a
direct digital corollary to their print version, “digital books” stem from or are adding to publishers’
traditional print book efforts, or, more often recently, are originating as digital content products,
together with or in lieu of print. The simplest conceptualization of “digital book” is the e-book, which
is a digital analogue to a print book, delivered through dedicated e-book readers. Even here, though,
the definition becomes murky when you think of the different formats, capabilities, and limitations
of accessing e-books with computers and netbooks, through web pages or the wide variety of mobile
devices such as smartphones, PDAs, and interactive tablets.

Answering the question of what defines a digital book is far more than having fun with semantics. We
believe that book publishers have a far greater range of opportunity to conceive of and execute digital
content products beyond the book analogue (e-book), even as this alone represents in many book
publishing segments a very large opportunity. Nonetheless, any useful definition of the digital book
must have room for print products that result from digital file formats and delivery, and, especially,
print on demand and custom publishing.
It’s worth noting that digital books often in turn produce more print, though this may seem contrary at
first. Digital books can enable distributed printing and POD, and many publishers already have standard
workflows that produce print, POD, and e-book versions of titles. Moreover, digital distribution
platforms such as those from LibreDigital and North Plains are often used for storing print-ready
PDF versions of titles for both offset printing and POD side-by-side with e-book versions of the titles.
Finally, and most significantly, POD and distributed printing are core to the bottom line of publishing
companies – and increasingly so as improvements in distributed printing and POD give publishers
much greater control over inventory. These trends are discussed more fully in the section, When is a
Digital Book a Print Book?
We also see that the content technologies and services, both already present and emerging in the
marketplace, are enabling non-publishers to participate in the content value chain in many different
ways. Our definition of digital book therefore includes, under various circumstances, social media and
e-commerce functions supporting and even creating – in the case of social media – digital content
products.
Finally, we see the content, asset, information, and transaction management systems within publishing
enterprises as enabling cost-effective processes that allow digital content products to be profitably
made, assembled, marketed, sold, and distributed.
So, an e-book – a specific form of what we call digital books and digital content more generically – is
not a physical entity. Bits and bytes, coupled with pervasive broadband, including public WiFi, offer
easy-to-understand cost reduction for publishers, and some distinct advantages for the consumer of
such titles. But what about the reading experience?
Digital Reading Experience
One of the many reasons why e-books did not move forward a decade ago was that the reading
experience was a problem. Yes, there were dedicated e-reading devices being offered at the time, and
some argue that a number of these could provide a good reading experience. The problem was that no
platform for portable reading managed to establish itself in sufficient numbers to offer an attractive
enough market for enough publishers. This proved true despite the fact that PDF-based and HTML-
based titles were available and each already enjoyed some use on desktops and notebooks. As we’ve
argued elsewhere in this study, the major impetus for e-books’ success in the last year or two may very
well prove to be Amazon’s willingness to subsidize the market by offering low-cost e-books on its own
Kindle device.

While there are many today who will complain about readability of e-Ink screen-based devices or
about design and user interface preferences not followed by this or that e-reader, there is a clear and
strong majority of enthusiastic Kindle and other e-reader users. The success of e-books and reading
on smartphones, and most especially on Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch devices, along with the newly
transcendent iPad, have added millions to the electronic reading markets and have put to rest the
old question of whether enough people could ever be interested in reading text on screens. Indeed,
the iPad, along with the fast-developing netbook, tablet, and smart device landscape, has moved the
screen reading debate on to richer fields – rich media content.
Even before the iPad explosion – over one million sold within 30 days of the product’s release – strong
growth was being projected for the iPhone and other what Outsell calls “untethered devices,” as shown
in Figure 21.
Figure 21. Untethered Device Adoption Rates
1,000.000
100.000
Total Units Sold (Millions)
10.000
1.000
0.100
0.010
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6 Year 7 Year 8 Year 9
Years Since Introduced
iPod iPhone Kindle Sony Reader
Source: Company reports and Outsell estimates

Hypertext and Hypermedia (aka “Rich Media”)

Both “hypertext” and “hypermedia” are terms that have faded from digerati fashion, but only as a
reflection of style, not substance. Hypertext strongly emerged in the 1980s, as the personal computing
revolution was in full swing, and early examples – including Apple’s Hypercard – gained interest not
just from technical documentation producers or writers of help systems, but also from literary writers,
among which most well known may be Michael Joyce with his novel An Afternoon. Like Julio Cortazar’s
break-through meta-fiction novel, Hopscotch, which only ever existed as a print book, An Afternoon
gave readers a number of alternative paths through numerous short chapters, using linking technology
that was the basis of Hypercard. As multimedia became the next big goal for PCs, the interest in linking
content files of all sorts grew into the concept of hypermedia. During much of the second half of
the 1980s and well through the 1990s, CD-ROM was the main medium for complex and rich digital
content.

An example of this type of content is Voyager Company’s Expanded Book: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
CD-ROM, from 1991. The screenshot in Figure 22 shows that the user can read about a score, explore
terminology, and listen to the score by clicking various hyperlinks.
Figure 22. The Voyager Company’s 1991 “Expanded” Book
Source: The Voyager Company, with music and Beethoven expertise f rom Robert Winter,
and HyperCard programming by Steve Riggins, c. 1991
With the advent of the internet’s expanding use, based largely on a linking architecture, “hyperlinks”
became widely known, even to the point of now being largely unnoticed in their ubiquity. As the internet
evolved into the world wide web, and browsers supported wider ranges of multimedia, especially,
much of this type of rich, digital content migrated to the web.
Today, the typical term of art is “rich media,” but the term used by Bob Stein’s The Voyager Company
back in the early 1990s for the hypermedia-rich CD-ROM based texts was “expanded book.” The
Voyager Company published a series of expanded books, on topics ranging from music appreciation
to Shakespeare’s plays (Macbeth) and fiction (Douglas Adams’ The Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy). While the nascent reading platform at the time was early Apple Macintosh PowerBooks, not
standalone e-reader devices, publishers today would do well to look at these titles for inspiration when
considering whether and how to undertake rich media book titles that now most commonly go with
the term “enhanced book.”

Interactivity, Up to the Second
So, while e-books now available for Kindles and other dedicated e-book devices may resemble in their
first generations the print titles they are usually drawn from, the concept of digital book already has
expanded into forms that far exceed print-analog e-books. Baker & Taylor made a big splash at the
January 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), with its announcement and demonstration of “Blio,”
an e-book platform neither tied to a specific e-book reader, nor limited to text, simple graphics, and
incidental music. Blio offers publishers the service of producing Blio editions of the publishers’ titles,
and these additions may carry video, audio, and other rich media interactivity. The market uptake is still
an unknown at this time, but the Blio platform’s provision of rich media inclusion within book editions is
compelling to many, even as the low-cost associated with publishing books in Blio adds to the interest.
The Blio platform comes out of Ray Kurzweil’s K-NFB Reading Technology, Inc., which works on devices
to aid the blind and sight-impaired to read.
Rich media can allow authors to illustrate their content more clearly and allow readers to interact with
their content. Video – if done right, of course – enables the author or some other member of the content
team to give readers new perspectives on places, people, and concepts that would have been difficult
to describe in print. Other types of rich media can accomplish these same ends, but including those
forms of content is no guarantee such ends will be achieved. Like any content, matching the form and
quality to the audience is an entirely different matter.
Let’s keep in mind that the term “interactivity” is rather loose. After all, readers have “interacted” with
novels for centuries, and literary theory has long held that the work is complete not simply when the
author types “The End,” or the publisher ships the book from the printer, but when the reader engages.
Some will argue, for instance, that text provides a much richer interaction than video, but there is
plenty of countering history of interactive instruction, with the work an instructor put in preparing
classroom material having great effect, or the value to an engineer using analytical data simulations.
For certain types of e-books and digital publications, interactivity may mean much more specific
capabilities than fleshing out a fire-breathing dragon or the sensation of a romantic caress. For business-
to-business publishing – whether in the form of catalogs, directories, or references – interactivity is
specific, practical, and more clearly defined. Education and STM publishing have their own forms of
interactivity requirements, but share much with other professional publishing, especially in regard to
navigating across discrete chunks of information through search and structured content. When you’re a
doctor chasing down a diagnosis of a rash, being able to type in descriptive parameters and be linked to
text, images, or additional up-to-date information (like a bulletin from the Centers for Disease Control)
does the trick. In many types of trade publishing there remain plenty of opportunities for building types
of interaction simply not possible in print titles: think of a digital cookbook, for example, where, when a
recipe calls for “folding in” some ingredients, the user can link to a video showing what “folding in” is.
A lot of the current interactivity efforts, at least in trade publishing, are found in children’s books, where
features like audio “Read to Me” translate text to speech. Other common features include highlighting
text (read along), animation, word definitions and pronunciation, and, of course, games, games,
games. Figure 23 shows an image of a Disney Reader title, with callouts, from The Next Generation of
E-Books: Witness It or Invent It, a presentation delivered at Tools of Change, 2010 by Sameer Shariff, the
CEO of Impelsys.

Figure 23. Disney Reader, with Callouts of Interactivity
Source: The Next Generation of E-Books: Witness It or Invent It, a PowerPoint Presentation at
Tools of Change, 2010, presented by Sameer Sharif f , CEO, Impelsys
But the most interesting interactivity comes out of STM and education publishing. Knovel.com is a
website through which engineers not only find books and data they need, but search for the content
through sophisticated and context-sensitive mechanisms, often arriving at content that contains
interactive tables that support the use of the critical data sought.
Here’s one thing you can count on: what we don’t know about making great “enhanced books” far
outweighs what we do know about it today. Fortunately, for most trade publishers, there is ample
opportunity in straightforward e-books, and for professional, STM, and educational publishers, there
are enough sound business reasons and potential revenue structures to continue to support rich media
and interactivity efforts.

Interactivity takes many forms, and e-books and digital content – especially in the publishing segment
of STM – can be extremely sophisticated and useful. The screen shot in Figure 24 is from Knovel.com,
reporting on the details of a digital title that contains interactive tables.
Figure 24. Interactivity Takes Many Forms
Source: Knovel.com
The Many Forms and Faces of Digital Publishing
The type of content becomes an important differentiator of digital books, although, as we see with
most trade e-books, rich media is not necessary. Of great interest especially in educational publishing,
digital textbooks are already presenting all manner of rich media, from videos, audio, analysis tools
and algorithms, and simulations. But the display media for these sorts of titles still – almost without
exception (the iPad being such an exception) – are found in specific portals or similarly structured
browser-based environments. The current prevailing practice is for educational publishers to start with
existing print textbooks and re-purpose them for the learning environments of choice, even as many
print or digital-only ancillaries get developed right alongside. One common choice is CourseSmart, a
provider of college textbooks in digital format in a common online platform. The venture was founded
and supported by of number of leading higher education textbook publishers, including Pearson
Education, Cengage Learning, McGraw Hill Education, John Wiley & Sons, F. A. Davis Company, and
the Bedford, Freeman, Worth Publishing Group.

Digital content formats can provide flexibility otherwise practically impossible in their print
counterparts. For example, in a print world, the student is presented with the choice, typically, to but
the whole textbook or not. If digital content workflows are designed to impose structure on the content
in smaller measures than print publishing typically provides – say, for example, allowing students to
buy individual chapters – then digital content can be re-combined in new ways. Called “granularity” or
“chunking,” the process of defining logically sound subsections of a larger work (such as a textbook)
makes available those subsections for independent applications, such as selling a part of the whole
(sample chapter sales, for example), or creating new custom titles. This approach is already being
undertaken in various book segments, and especially in educational publishing and STM publishing.
In the educational market, Cengage Learning – a founding partner in CourseSmart – publishes print
and digital content for the academic, professional, and library markets. In the academic marketplace,
the company serves secondary, higher education, and graduate-level students, teachers, libraries,
government agencies, and corporations in both traditional and distance learning. More to the point
being made here is that Cengage Learning offers a custom textbook service, where parts of one digital
textbook may be put together with parts from other digital textbooks and even with teacher created
or supplied digital content. CourseSmart’s home page, shown in Figure 25, offered almost 11,000
textbooks as of May 2010. A number of these are available as apps through the Apple App Store, for
iPhone or iPad.
Figure 25. Online Access to Digital Texts
Source: CourseSmart.com

The fluidity of form for digital content is one of the most compelling qualities, but also one of its
greatest challenges, especially in regard to mastering an editorial and production workflow that lends
itself to multiple output, or “media neutrality.” The last two decades have seen enormous efforts on the
parts of enterprises and some segments of book and journal publishing to cope with concurrent media
requirements such as print, online, and CD-ROM. Across all segments of book publishing, in varying
levels of complexity, this “create-once/publish many” model is a major strategic goal. With dozens of
devices competing in the marketplace, with format and metadata standards still in flux, and with as yet
unproved business models joined to display environments, any and all efforts publishers can undertake
to minimize the work required to try new digital content formats should pay strong dividends.
Cengage Learning republishes print textbooks from leading education publishers in digital form, and,
as seen in the screen capture in Figure 26, promotes the mixing and matching of parts of e-textbooks
with others, to create custom e-textbooks.
Figure 26. Mixable Textbooks
Source: Cengage.com
The Quest for “Searchability”
Wikipedia provides as deft a definition for HTTP as any:
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an Application Layer

protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information
systems.

HTTP is a request-response standard typical of client-server computing. In HTTP, web browsers typically
act as clients, while an application running on the computer hosting the website acts as a server. The
client submits HTTP requests; the responding server stores or creates resources such as HTML files and
images. The intent here is not to offer a remedial networking tutorial, but rather to illustrate that the
concept behind hypertext – or, more broadly speaking, linking – is nothing new. Think about indexes,
footnotes, endnotes, tables of content and tables or figures: publishers have been in the forefront of
linking and pointing to content for hundreds of years. In fact, the active index link is an early and now
common feature in e-books. This includes PDF, a format that by design was set to mimic static print
pages, which can have active tables of content, indexes, and both internal and external links.
In fact, the potential of search and retrieval of information has long been a driving factor in digital
publishing, as, indeed, it has been a major rationale for the internet itself. We have come to take search
and retrieval of information for granted, and publishers may overlook this very important aspect of
digital titles. While it may be merely an occasional convenience to see when last a particular character
had appeared in the course of reading, say, a murder mystery, for many types of publishing, the
significant improvement in the speed and accuracy of find particular information is a big deal.
The same is at least as true when it comes to finding books, both print and digital. The advantage
goes to digital in that the entire contents can more easily be made available for the many search
engines across the web, of which the giant remains Google. (Print books are exposed to search spiders,
too, but, obviously, only if the content is somewhere made available in digital form; hence Google
Book Search scanning its millions of titles.) The latest terms for book publishers who quite rightly
see their responsibilities as including making the book and content known – the root of “publish” –
are “searchability” and “discoverability.” There are many in the industry that predict the collapse of
traditional retailers and e-tailers (have they already become “traditional?”) as the channels through
which customers search for and find books. Amazon’s main retail play in books has been to become the
go-to e-tailer for finding books, along with patio furniture, HDTVs, and the seemingly endless inventory
in its virtual store.
On the other hand, Google is making a play even as this study is being written. Originally scheduled
for launch sometime in the summer of 2010, Google Editions will go online later in the year, according
to press reports in August of 2010. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, on May 4, 2010, by reporters
Jessica E. Vascellaro and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg in their article titled Google Readies Its E-Book Plan,
Bringing in a New Sales Approach:
Google Inc. plans to begin selling digital books in late June or July,
a company official said Tuesday, throwing the search giant into a
battle that already involves Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Barnes
& Noble Inc.
Google has been discussing its vision for distributing books online
for several years and for months has been evangelizing about its new
service, called Google Editions. The company is hoping to distinguish
Google Editions in the marketplace by allowing users to access books
from a broad range of websites using an array of devices, unlike rivals
that are focused on proprietary devices and software.

The reporters note that Google users will be able to buy digital copies of books they discover through its
book-search service. It will also allow book retailers – even independent shops – to sell Google Editions
on their own sites, giving partners the bulk of the revenue. Rumors are flying, and one report just in
suggests that almost all US publishers are on board, and that preliminary estimates that the store could
launch with as many as 500,000 titles or even as many as four million e-book titles. Keep in mind that
perhaps 50% of these titles are from books with expired copyrights that Google already offers for free.
Of course, this may not be just a rumor. On October 9, 2009, Google announced that the number of
scanned books was over ten million.
The emphasis here is on “discover.” With its Google Book Search, Google has already gone a great
distance toward making content “discoverable.” Regardless of the details of the legal settlement and
the still not-entirely decided upon resolution of the legal suit brought against the company by many
big publishers, Google Editions sees itself as putting publishers right where they like to be: easily and
frequently before people who are looking for their books. It remains to be seen if book publishers see
themselves so advantaged by Google Editions.
Digital workflows within the book publisher’s process are not strictly required. One could always let
Google scan a print title; after all, they had reportedly already spent $5 million for the first one million
books by the end of 2007, although there have been many criticisms about the quality of Google
scans.
While there is little quantitative evidence to prove this, it is likely that publishers generally want to
control the quality themselves, and anecdotal publisher response to poor scanning by Google bears
out this obvious point. Furthermore, publishers want to own the resulting files, because a native PDF
from a print production file is better for both discoverability and rendering. For a book publisher that
has a digital workflow early in the publishing process, there is, in theory, more opportunity to enable
searching for and discovering the content earlier, although there is not much evidence that promotion
and marketing efforts to date have taken advantage of this potential. Still, the area of searchability and
the mechanisms that may give the publisher more control and more options are still nascent in such
efforts as semantic tagging, applying taxonomies, or simply getting advanced work out into social
communities, to reviewers, and other promotional opportunities that will pick up their own Google
(and Yahoo!, and Bing, and…) web trawlers.
Utility, and Other Benefits of Digital Content
As we know, when reading a digital book on a connected platform, further exploration is much easier
because of hypertext and links, and these links can be to almost any media – if, indeed, the assets
aren’t already directly embedded. But it isn’t only a matter of linking to other resources that increases
the utility of digital content. Other important aspects can include up-to-date content that may be
personalized for a particular user in forms that expand and enrich the user experience. The potential
for this kind of utility – whether informational purposes, or entertainment, or to drive commercial
transactions – is why the emergence of the iPad platform has caused so much excitement.

Clicking on links provided by the author or publisher or launching a context sensitive search can be
especially important to students and to many professional fields, and this kind of usefulness has
driven electronic publishing well before the current e-book developments. Portability, however,
is another aspect of e-books – applied to distinct e-reader devices, as well as smartphones, tablets,
and, increasingly, some notebook and netbook form factors. In the next few years, we will see many
impressive reading devices – and many not so impressive – and one should assume that new devices
pretty much always will remain part of the e-book landscape. The only likely constant will be the increase
in features and capabilities, including better display, better connectivity, better input mechanisms, and
more memory and power.
Digital publishing provides other benefits that derive from the digital nature of the process. More titles
become possible in the digital world, where print-based constraints such as press costs, inventory,
and warehousing, and physical distribution don’t factor into the profit and loss (P&L) equations
that decide the fate – often negatively – for print-based publishing. The other side of reduced costs
can be affordability, where lower prices reduce economic barriers to e-book buying (or other types
of commercial transaction models), although pricing for even simple e-books is the source of much
conflict and speculation, and will likely remain so for some time.
Digital publishing provides new and expanded options for many new types of titles, ranging from
custom collections to self-created. The digital publishing revolution make previously too expensive
print titles – due to small print runs for offset to be economical, for example – back in reach. Digital
publishing very much supports digital printing, and so, print books.
When is a Digital Book a Print Book?
One of the great ironies of the digital publishing revolution is that it is providing new options for print
titles. Advances in digital printing have broken the monopoly of offset presses that, due to unalterable
pre-press and press costs, prevented publishers from producing titles in small print runs. Conventional
wisdom has it that offset print runs must number in the 1,000-2,000 minimum copy range before the
cost of the printing would put profit beyond reach, if not, indeed, price out at a net loss. (Obviously, the
price one can charge for a book ranges wildly, depending on market, value, and perceived need, and
there are many examples of very low print runs for high-priced books well before the advent of digital
printing.)
In fact, the costs for offset print runs vary on many counts, including the type of printing – four or
more color vs. one-color, for example – as well as binding and cover options, paper quality, and more.
The traditional role within book publishers of the manufacturing department was to bid out such
press jobs, where price was one factor, along with schedule, quality, and shipping, among others. The
responsibility was for PPB – paper, print, and binding – and this part of the publishing process remains
central for print titles. That is not to say that decisions about page size and paper quality don’t matter
in digital printing, or that there aren’t choices to be made about paper, trim size, or binding. Indeed,
depending on some of these factors – a typical example is unusual trim size – digital printing may not
be a viable option.

Things have changed radically in digital printing, with several large companies producing very high
volume digital printing machines, including not only monochrome, but color as well. There are also a
number of other companies handling more specialized digital printing (such as trim size) and machines
for inline finishing (i.e., covers and binding), and many, many companies getting into the digital printing
service. Together, these technologies and service companies provide many options for publishers:
whether for one-off or very low runs to meet the needs of titles otherwise lost to sales through lack
of inventory, or as small print runs for self-publishing authors, or any number of other production and
business models.
The promise of digital printing is simple: Receive an order; fill it easily, economically, and efficiently.
Of course, this promise is as easily fulfilled when plenty of inventory exists, regardless of the type of
printing used. But the assumption is that book publishing economics based on offset press costs can’t
keep every title in stock all the time, and this assumption is well-founded. Digital printing can:
• Keep titles available and in print;

• Avoidance of out-of-stock sale loss;
• Supply titles to various channels or customers in a timely manner;
• Control numbers of title copies;
• Significantly offset shrinkage and waste;
• Reduce or eliminate returns.
Some publishers are pushing digital print of one-offs (POD) or small print runs, or ultra short runs (USR)
as a mechanism to improve customer service, publish small run titles that otherwise would not make
financial sense with offset press, and reduce inventory-related overhead such as warehousing and
inventory tax liability. And then there are yet other potential advantages, one of which is the use of
digital printing to produce custom publications.
An excellent overview of digital printing was presented at the 2010 Tools of Change in Publishing
conference, called Making the Case for Digital Printing, by Ashley Gordon, Mockingbird Press, and Brian
O’Leary, Magellan Media Consulting Partners. Here is an excerpt from their vocabulary slide:
• Digital printing;
• Print on demand;
• Short-run printing;
• Ultra-short-run printing;
• One-off printing;
• Self-publishing;
• Author services.

Figure 27, a slide from an excellent overview of digital printing presented at the 2010 Tools of Change in
Publishing conference, provides a striking reiteration of how digital printing supports print titles. The
key to digital printing utility is, however, the very same digital workflow changes needed for successful
digital publishing such as e-books.
Figure 27. Digital Printing and Digital Workflows
Source: Making the Case for Digital Printing, a PowerPoint presentation at

Tools of Change, 2010, presented by Ashley Gordon, Mockingbird Press,
and Brian O’Leary, Magellan Media Consulting Partners
Indeed, the benefits and application of digital printing raise a very interesting consideration: Are
e-books the tail wagging the dog? It’s significant that virtually all of the digital workflow changes
that will support publishers pursuing e-book and other digital publishing endeavors are also directly
supportive of digital printing efforts. Virtually all digital printing services look for PDFs, but many will
process properly structured titles in XML. In order to take advantage of digital printing, a publisher must
have content in a workable digital form, or, if not, be prepared for in-house or third-party conversion
or scanning of the content. Being able to distribute the digital titles effectively is another shared
requirement between e-books and digital printing.
Considering that print sales still account for the lion’s share of book publishers’ revenue and that digital
printing provides the means to increase sales and reduce costs, it gets hard to argue against e-books
and digital publishing being a benefit of digital printing.

Think Outside the Covers
We believe it is better for publishers to think of digital publishing as the larger set of practices that
provide more flexibility in terms of how digital content can be put together, with e-books being a
specific subset. The good news is that a sound XML workflow for the publisher’s content will go a long
way toward making many forms of digital content not only possible, but prepared for current and new
business models. With the architecture in place for well-structured content and the ability to add rich
metadata to the content, the book publisher today is in position to take advantage of various marketing
and distribution automations, track usage, manage royalties and other value chain mechanisms,
control rights, and otherwise pursue both existing and new and emerging markets, e-sales, and reduce
costs.

Digital Book Publishing Industry Outlook
Change is taking place in book publishing at a fast and furious pace. While a lot of change has been
underway for some time – more and more publishers moving to a digital workflow, for example – many
fundamental changes are taking place today. For some publishers, experimentation and best guesses
often rule the day.
Figure 28. BISG “Point of No Return” Findings
Sales Already happened
Production Happening now
Marketing Happening soon

(next 1 1/2-2 years)
Manufacturing Not happening for awhile
(next 3-5 years)
Information Technology Not happening for a long time
(more than 5 years)
Editorial Never happening
Distribution I don't know
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Source: BISG Making Inf ormation Pay 2010: Pre-Event Survey

Question: When do you think these changes will reach a "point of no return", i.e., when traditional practices must yield to new practices
driven by new technologies?
The Book Industry Study Group (a research partner with this study) has recently published the results
of a survey it undertook in advance of its annual publishing industry meeting, Making Information
Pay. Figure 28 is a good presentation of the self-assessment by the book publishing industry about
“tipping points.” Across the publishing processes (quite similar to this study’s own seven publishing
processes breakout), with varying rates, change is more than just “in the air.” There are plenty of
changes underway. Evidence suggests that the industry tipping point is imminent.
Scott Lubeck, Executive Director of BISG, writes, “Unquestionably, the book industry is in a period of
significant transformation. Digital change, in particular, is unavoidable – and the direction is one way.
We will not suddenly find the number of bookstores growing or the e-book market shrinking. Even
those publishing segments that have traditionally been ahead of the curve – professional, academic,
and educational, for example – will find digital delivery accelerating as we get close to a world where
everybody has a computer in their hand all the time.”

The Gilbane Group agrees wholeheartedly with Lubeck’s perception. The next step forward is, of course,
to define in greater detail the substance of the changes going on in book publishing. Moreover, given
the Gilbane Group’s long tradition of working with publishers from many book publishing segments,
especially in areas such as content management strategy and implementation, this study is well-placed
to identify and explicate the most-pressing and important book publishing change factors.
The findings of A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation: Seven Essential Processes to Re-Invent
Publishing, are that the following areas are significant within the book industry:
• E-books – and related digital publishing products – are very real and very important opportunities
for every segment of book publishing; indeed, in many segments, other digital products are
significant contributors to the top line and bottom line, well ahead of e-book revenues per se;
• XML continues to grow in application among book publishers, and especially in regard to the
increasing and crucial shift to digital workflows;
• Digital printing has already emerged as a significant factor in book publishers’ choices for both
manufacturing and distribution in and of themselves, but also as an important enabler of new
revenues and new business models;
• E-reader devices and platforms are in great flux, but the real impact of such fast-evolving content
consumption mechanisms is less significant relevant to the need of publishers to look to the next
years and decades strategically, and stick to their core work of producing valuable content.
Before the book publishing industry declares “Mission Accomplished,” there are many very significant
barriers to digital publishing meeting its full potential. These include:
• More problems remain for backlist titles than front list titles, although the march of time and
continuing efforts on the part of book publishers will address most of the acute problems of
contracts, royalties, and rights that must be re-applied to new electronic formats of the existing
titles;
• Confusion related to integration and interoperability (axiomatically), and the nascent evolution
of selling, pricing, and business models, will continue to retard distribution mechanisms,
channels, and value chain partners for digital publishing;
• Today there exist surprisingly few instances of integration or interoperability between publishing
processes. Indeed, at many major book publishers, there remain a plethora of different
platforms doing the same things, the legacy of building through acquisition. For big and small
book publishers alike, the dearth of interoperable or integrated publishing process systems will
become a bigger problem in the years ahead, blocking book publishers’ from gaining the biggest
potential benefits from digital publishing;
• The prospect for “enhanced e-books” presents some big challenges for book publishers,
including stretching beyond traditional content production and cost requirements that may
stretch already hard-pressed margins;

• Unsettled selling, pricing, and business models still in the “guess-work” phase of discovery and
application – in part related to the lack of interoperability and integration (again, axiomatically) –
present quite distinct problems in their own right.
In other words, things are going along just fine for book publishers, with real advances in more efficient
workflows and real markets for e-books and digital publishing products. All the remaining barriers can
and should be looked at as opportunities, because the resolution of these barriers will provide far more
extensive markets, products, and revenue, even while expanding efficiencies in content acquisition,
production, and distribution. Such change can and should result in the long awaited and much required
improvements in cost reduction and improved profit margins.
Will the new golden era for book publishers be “just around the corner?” No. There remains a lot of
technology work to be done, but the biggest factor in slowing progress is that many of the remaining
barriers require industry-wide solutions, and point to the need for digital publishing infrastructure, and,
hence, the development of standards and other cooperative efforts. The battles that mark such “public
service” are well-known time- and energy-sinks, as such efforts will necessarily be, as any reader who
has been involved in the development of the original ePub standard – or the ongoing efforts toward
a third version of ONIX – will know all too well. There is room, of course, for the development of de
facto standards in the form of emerging commercial platforms, but such developments are too hard to
predict with any useful specificity.
E-Books Have Arrived
The stories told in the introductory chapter of this study – including the discussion of the effective
subsidizing role of Amazon.com – make clear that the time of e-books has finally arrived. E-book
activities across publishers fall into different ranges of scope, but many are quite well along in their
e-book publishing programs.
A surprise we’ve encountered is that many book publishers are actually moving quite fast to e-books.
Just one example: speaking with Tod Shuttleworth, at Thomas Nelson, a book publisher of some 400-
500 titles a year, we learned that virtually all of its frontlist is, as a matter of process, being put into XML
format early in the editorial stage and then formatted as needed into any number of e-book editions for
their various supply chain distributors and retailers. Thomas Nelson also has a robust backlist program
(mostly through Innodata Isogen) that has seen many hundred of titles brought into e-book formats.
Other conversations reveal far slower and earlier stage efforts. We were surprised to learn from Jabin
White, of Wolters Kluwer Health, for instance, that its e-book efforts (apart from what the book side
hands off to OVID and its SGML format) are currently modest, with the publisher pursuing limited pilots
and implementation projects to date. This publisher is using Really Strategies’ RSuite to move titles
into XML format early in that process, but the implementation of XML repositories is only in planning
stages.

Indeed, much of the actual work of placing print titles into e-book formats is being done in conjunction
with outsourcing vendors, or, in certain book publishing segments, as a combination of publisher and
aggregator (especially in education).
That outsource vendors (such as one of this study’s sponsors, Aptara Corporation) are playing such
a central role in the creation of e-books is not surprising, especially given the young age of e-book
publishing. There are a number of good reasons for the prominent role of outsource vendors in e-book
and digital publishing:
• Outsource vendors know the detailed production mechanics of book publishing, having been in
the business of composition and title production for many years, in many cases;
• E-book publishing technologies, including format standards conversion engines, are still
relatively new, and it makes economic sense for a small number of companies to invest in such
technology and leverage the technology investments across many other companies;
• Over the last two decades, cost constraints and low margins in many segments of book
publishing resulted in publishers reducing staff in favor of outsourcing. Now, outsourcing is a
familiar practice that extends to digital publishing and e-books.
As publishing processes’ interoperability and integration improve, and as digital publishing toolsets
become less expensive and easier to use, we must consider the long term viability of outsourcing
vendors helping book publishers. Fortunately for such vendors, however, we see publishing processes
integration as being some time away. This, together with the state of flux in e-book devices and
formats, makes the business opportunities for outsource vendors quite robust, at least for quite a while
to come. Furthermore, it remains an open question whether book publishers will reconsider anytime
soon their long-running habit of reducing basic editorial staff levels, even as book publishers may move
to bring digital publishing platforms inside their walls. (With granularity and custom publishing tagging
requirements – to name but one example of what the future needs of book publishing may involve
– there are good arguments for re-developing in-house content tagging and metadata expertise, or
partnering with the right outsource services.)

Figure 29. Kinds of Digital Publications Produced by Book Publishers
E-books titles for general-purpose devices such as PCs,

22.6%
laptops, netbooks, tablets (e.g., iPad), smart phones
E-book titles for dedicated e-readers such as Kindle, Sony,

22.3%
Nook, etc.
Other forms of digital publications, such as for use in portals,
library systems, and/or by aggregators (e.g., ProQuest, 15.7%
NetLibrary)
Other forms of digital publications for use with print on
14.8%
demand and distributed digital printing
Content applications for smart phones or other devices 13.2%
We do not currently have a digital publishing program, but

10.1%
have plans for one
We do not currently have a digital publishing program, nor

1.3%
plans for one

Question 4, "Does your publishing company currently produce any of the f ollowing categories of digital publications? (Check all that apply)"
Base = 318
Very few survey respondents don’t have any plans for digital publishing, as shown in Figure 29. E-books
for e-readers and general devices represent the biggest participation categories. The fact is that e-books
have become a significant part of a book publisher’s efforts, especially when the broader description of
digital publishing is used. There have been many surveys and reports regarding the size and expansion
of e-book publishing programs, and while many polls and surveys about e-books have had limited
and statistically questionable results, there have also been some very significant investigations into
current and projected e-book market and publishing activity growth (among these rarer instances
falls the work of our colleagues at Outsell, Inc.); both anecdote and evidence prove that e-books and
digital publishing within book publishing are not passing fads. After more than a decade of false starts,
missteps, and one or another important piece missing, e-books have already passed the inflection
point.
XML Becoming Core Publishing Technology
It is true that many book publishers still have little of their content in XML, but the survey results show
solid progress toward what The Gilbane Group believes is a key technology for publishers, and the
numbers show that book publishers are getting this religion. What we’ve also found is that while XML-
early is already a well-established practice among book publishers, XML repositories are still not widely
in place or are under-used within these practicing book publishers.

XML-Early and XML-First
Not only is the use of XML format for content already underway in significant numbers of book
publishers, but many of these book publishers are pushing toward – and, in some instances, already
succeeding – moving XML content format as early as possible in the content creation, editing, and
production processes. In fact, the drive among our interviewees’ publishing companies to move title
content into XML format early emerged as a central issue in the interviews. What is clear is that the
XML-early approach is being handled either in-house through a variety of means, or, perhaps in equal
or greater measure, through outsource vendors. There remain many exceptions to this, including at a
number of the biggest publishers around; one such notable example is Random House.
Figure 30 shows that just over half of respondents aren’t yet using XML, but only just less than 10%
don’t plan to use XML. Twenty percent of those surveyed have been using XML for more than three
years.
Figure 30. Length of Time of XML Used by Book Publishers
My book publishing company is considering using

35.4%
XML
My book publishing company has been using XML

19.8%
for more than three years

15.6%
for one to three years
My book publishing company doesn’t use or plan to

9.4%
use XML

9.4%
for less than one year
I don’t know 10.4%

Question 76 - GB Q "How long has your book publishing company been using XML within any of the publishing processes?"
Base = 96
According to Andrew Weber, Senior VP, Operations & Technology, at Random House, XML is not
introduced early in the workflow. “We are not doing [XML] until we get to making the ePub,” Weber
says. Random House certainly considers XML-early, but this is seen as “early days” to take such action,
even though already there is consensus that this is the direction the publisher will take. Nonetheless,
Weber has the sense that “the tools are still fairly immature and there’s not necessarily a big benefit
that we can identify yet from making the investment and dealing with all of the change management
needed to get to XML-early.” He points to the large number of titles Random House publishes that
contain complex layouts, and the company’s culture of designing every page. “These are things we
have to take into consideration as we think about XML,” says Weber. “We see all of the potential
benefits of XML, but we have to be able to make the books that are selling today, and so XML is just a
complication.”

Samir Kakar, Aptara’s CTO, recognizes the differences among different segments of book publishing in
regard to XML. “It is different for each of these kinds of publishers, and STM publishing adopted XML,
and SGML earlier, before most other publishing segments, and there are some good reasons why,”
notes Kakar. “When XML came into being, it was the journals world that moved most quickly, and then
the book efforts followed. At that time, we started working with publishers that either had strategy in
terms of going with XML, or those who were getting into it as something totally new, as a buzzword.”
Almost 19% of book publishers responding to the question in Figure 31 have half or more of their
content in XML format, while about 46% have none or little in XML. Over 17% said that they didn’t
know, suggesting a significant level of confusion about XML among the book publishers responding.
Figure 31. Percentage of Titles in XML at Book Publishers
My book publishing company doesn’t have any of its

27.6%
content in XML
My book publishing company has less than five percent of

18.4%
its content in XML
My book publishing company has more than five percent

18.4%
but less than fifty percent of its content in XML
My book publishing company has almost all of its content

11.5%
in XML
My book publishing company has more than fifty percent

6.9%
of its content in XML

Question 77 - GB Q "What percentage of your book publishing company’s title content is in XML f orm?"
Base = 87
Today, Kakar notes, Aptara still comes across publishers who have not moved into XML, “and that being
trade publishing, which has been much slower in terms of adoption of XML.” The reason for renewed
interest in XML is simple, says Kakar. “The e-book market is looking more real to trade publishers,”
he reports, “and lucrative.” Earlier, the trade publishers’ thought process was that they would create
a one-off fiction or non-fiction title and might never need re-use of the files, Kakar explains, “but
since e-books happened, the reality is now dawning on them and they are scrambling to change their
workflows to go to digital.” It is the movement toward e-books, as Kakar sees it, which is forcing the
trade publishers’ move toward XML.

“Within the educational publishing world today,” remarks Chris Kaefer, Director, Content Strategy, at
McGraw-Hill Higher Education, “I think that XML-early is the most dominant” approach being used
in editorial and production workflows. “Certainly, for us this is the case, because it is difficult to ask
the authors to work in XML, for many reasons.” Still, Kaefer has some questions about the value of
XML-early because of challenges around tools like Adobe’s InDesign and its trouble managing XML.
“When we get to ancillary material,” Kaefer says, “things can trail off quickly with respect to XML,
partly because the ancillaries are not typically re-used as yet within digital workflows.”
The distinction between “XML-first,” where authors deliver XML content, and “XML-early,” where
content is put into XML format early in the editorial process, can be difficult to separate. Matthew
Bennett, Executive Director of Product Management at Hachette Book Group (HBG), says, “We use an
exclusively XML-first process. All of our content is created in XML before it’s laid out and printed. We
always have our core XML content that we can convert to ePub, POD, or flow into InDesign to create
our printable PDFs or whatever format we’re working on.” Bennett points out that even just two years
earlier, HBG could have been considered an XML-early house, where what the author provided would
get converted to XML within the HBG editorial process. He sees the use by the authors of Open Office
and Microsoft Word today as “being basically XML-based word processors… because whether they [the
authors] know it or not, they are basically providing us with XML, and we just have to extract it from the
source.” Bennett is right, but the definitions of XML-first and XML-early may rest on the level of effort
undertaken by editorial and production. “The authors don’t know that they are creating in XML, but
everything now is XML on the back-end,” Bennett argues. “It’s just a matter of us mapping the tags to
our systems. There’s always some work that has to go on to correctly tag things.”
XML: What Is It Good For?

Our parent company Outsell put together an excellent overview on XML in June 2009, in which it
provided this brief overview of when XML an effective tool to use. Deciding whether XML is important to
one’s enterprise is actually quite simple. Any or all of the following needs indicate that an organization
is probably a good candidate for XML:
• Content integration: Bringing together and normalizing structured and unstructured content in
different formats;
• Content repurposing: Using content in multiple products without having to re-create or reformat
it;
• Multiple delivery formats: Satisfying clients’ demand for custom content delivery formats without
creating multiple publishing streams;
• Fine-grained searching: Searching requires more granularity than simple keyword search;
• Content syndication: Partnering with other content players requires ability to integrate,
normalize, and repurpose content from multiple sources.

In addition to repurposing content and automating content delivery in custom formats, XML can also
be used to add metadata to make content management easier.
When asked what business benefits were derived through the use of XML, organizations gave Outsell
the responses very similar to our own survey results. Outsell summed up its findings as the following:
Since XML is for and about tagging, it is not surprising that adding metadata for content management
was a clear leader. What is interesting is that the percentages of respondents using XML for repurposing
content (16%) and for creating new products and revenue streams (15%) are both higher than for using
XML for metadata and content delivery applications. The number of respondents citing new products
and revenue streams shows that XML is one of those technology rarities that can drive both cost
reductions and revenue enhancement at the same time.
Survey respondents, as shown in Figure 32, gain several benefits from using XML – most having to
do with book publishing where flexibility and repurposing content help the bottom line. A notable
exception is supply chain requirements, which garner little advantage from using XML.
Figure 32. Reasons for Using XML
Use XML to make publishing more flexible and efficient 16.0%
Use XML for re-use and repurposing of content 15.0%
Use XML for creating new products and revenue streams 15.0%
Use XML to publish to multiple ebook formats 14.5%
Use XML to add metadata for content management 13.0%
Use XML to improve searchability 13.0%
Use XML to meet supply chain requirements 6.5%
I don’t know 7.0%

Question 78- GB Q "What business benef its are gained at your book publishing company through the use of XML f or title content?"
Base = 200

XML Repositories
XML is very well established in certain publishing sectors, especially STM, legal, and professional.
Many of the very largest publishers have vast stores of XML-encoded content that drives both print
and digital products. To more effectively manage these growing stores of content, these publishers
and others have turned to XML repositories.
XML repositories come from vendors such as MarkLogic, IXIASOFT, and EMC Documentum. There are
also open source options such as eXist-db and the Oracle Berkeley DB XML repository. At one point,
industry analysts ZapThink used to track more than 40 such technologies, but the market has focused
primarily on the options listed here. And while we must note that MarkLogic is one of this report’s
sponsors, we have to point out that MarkLogic is a clear market leader among major publishers and
with technology partnerships with many publishing platform vendors (including Really Strategies,
another of this study’s sponsors).
Why do organizations look to XML repositories to manage their content instead of relational database
management systems (RDBMSs)? As our survey results in Figure 33 show, some publishers do choose
RDBMSs over XML repositories, but many are using XML repositories, both in the product development
arena (editorial and production) and for content delivery over the web.
Figure 33. Use of XML Repositories for Content and Metadata
My book publishing company does not use XML repositories,

but instead uses relational database platforms to store 22.6%
content and data
My book publishing company is considering using XML

repositories, but currently uses relational database platforms
22.6%
to store content and data (e.g., Oracle, proprietary CMS,
structured SQL, data asset management systems)
My book publishing company uses XML repositories, as well
as relational database platforms to store content and data
21.0%
(e.g., Oracle, proprietary CMS, structured SQL, data asset
management systems)
My book publishing company only uses XML repositories 9.7%

Question 79- GB "Does your book publishing company use XML repositories f or its content and metadata?"
Base = 62

The answer to this question lies in looking at the nature of XML itself, and how it changes documents
(content) by adding markup to support multi-channel publishing, improved search, and flexible,
dynamic delivery. This is a topic we have covered for many years at The Gilbane Group, dating back to
the earliest days of XML and to the use of SGML before that.
Although documents contain useful information, they haven’t traditionally been used as a source of
data. The advent of XML changed this, as each part of a document could now be labeled with exactly
the kind of data it contained, enabling targeted searches and the development of more powerful
document-centric applications.
Early attempts to manage XML documents often cobbled together full-text search engines, relational
databases, and flat files. These early systems suffered from two main problems:
• Scalability limitations, as these systems tended to degrade past a few thousand documents,
while many applications involved hundreds of thousands or even millions of documents;
• Lack of structured queries, since the full-text search engines were sometimes not XML aware and
queries over metadata were limited to a few pre-selected fields.
For book publishing companies already using XML repositories for content and metadata, which of the
reasons in Figure 34 drove the adoption of XML repositories? Enriching content is not a top priority for
the use of XML repositories by book publishers, while modernizing processes, normalizing workflows,
and multi-channel publishing rank high. Almost 15% of respondents – who were from publishers using
XML repositories, answered “I don’t know.”
Figure 34. Reasons for Using XML Repositories
Need to normalize content formats and workflows 13.3%
Ability to publish on multiple channels simultaneously 13.3%
Need to “modernize” publishing processes 12.5%
To help solve dynamic content delivery requirements 10.9%
Benefits of centralizing content 10.9%
Have a very large information corpus and need

9.4%
accurate search and discovery or content manipulation
Ability to monetize content 9.4%
Ability to enrich and understand content 7.0%

Question 80- GB Q "For book publishing companies already using XML repositories f or content and metadata, which of the f ollowing reasons
drove the adoption of XML repositories"
Base = 128

Other problems included synchronization between the database and non-database components,
the need to write custom code to process results, lack of node-based updates (a problem for large
documents), and brittleness in the face of evolving schemas or DTDs. For those systems that attempted
this work without a database platform, they often suffered from the usual laundry list of reasons why
a database should have been used in the first place: concurrency, security, transactional safety, and so
on.
Some developers looked to open source databases for managing their XML assets. While a few of
these have limited XML support, in the form of utilities for exporting relational data into XML formats,
they typically do not support native XML data or XML-aware queries. The result is that users of these
databases had to build a lot of custom functionality that offset any of the advantages they perceive
open source databases to have.
Over time, the major relational database vendors worked to address some of the gaps in XML feature
coverage, giving developers more tools and functions for modeling the XML data, writing applications,
and running queries.
The result has been a steady growth in the use of relational databases for XML applications. Still, some
of the most challenging applications push the limits of the relational databases and the mechanisms
by which they support XML. This is especially true with very large documents, very large collections of
documents, and applications where complex document types need complex parsing, manipulation,
and querying.
A solution to some of these problems was the introduction of XML databases. When these appeared
shortly after XML 1.0 was released, people weren’t sure if they were a replacement for relational
databases or a return to hierarchical databases. In fact, they were designed for the entirely new types
of applications XML made possible. (For the record, MarkLogic considers and labels its product an
“XML Server” and not an “XML database.”)
XML databases have a number of features that are useful for working with XML. The most important are
the XML data model, which is flexible enough to model subjects as diverse as technical documentation,
health data, and customer profiles; XML-aware full-text searches; and structured query languages
like XQuery. They are also designed to manage large numbers and a diverse array of XML documents.
Other advantages include node-level updates (which reduce the cost of updating large documents),
links, and versioning.
Another advantage of XML databases is their ability to handle large documents, as well as large
numbers of documents. Both of these are traditionally difficult to query in an RDBMS due to the time it
takes to parse the documents and find the required data. XML databases solve this problem by parsing
and indexing documents when they are inserted. This allows documents to be queried without further
parsing and may even allow queries to be resolved only by searching indexes.

For those that are not using XML repositories and don’t plan to, the results shown in Figure 35 offer two
significant reasons for not using XML repositories are both cost related, either directly, at 27%, or staff
expertise requirements, at 33%.
Figure 35. Reasons for Not Using XML Repositories
Challenge of building XML knowledge, skills, and awareness 32.7%
Expense 26.5%
No significant channel or supply chain perceived need 16.3%
Clumsy XML authoring tools limit authoring in XML 10.2%
Technology is not mature 8.2%
I don’t know 6.1%

Question 81 GB Q "For those that are not using XML and don’t plan to, which of the f ollowing reasons have prevented XML repository adoption?""
Base = 49
A final advantage is more flexibility in handling schema evolution than is found in relational databases.
While schema evolution, or changes in the data model, is a normal thing, it can move slowly in the
relational world if the particular relational database lacks tools or functions to make changes to the
relational schema easier and more manageable. In the XML world, change moves more quickly, both
because XML is new and because XML exposes users to more sources of change. Examples of the latter
include external trading partners who control the schemas used to move data across organizational
boundaries, rapidly evolving fields like finance and biology, and long-lived fields like mortgage and
insurance contracts. Fortunately, some XML databases do not require fixed schemas and can easily
handle data conforming to multiple schemas or multiple versions of a schema.
Ironically, the strongest endorsement of XML databases to date is that the major relational databases
are adding native XML storage capabilities. This shows that the need for and application of native XML
data management has become well understood, and adoption increases continually.

XML Formats Can Mean Different Things
There is some confusion among some book publishers about what “XML formats” mean. The key is to
understand that there are two general applications within book publishing for the use of XML formats,
as follows:
• The content being created, produced, and managed (i.e., re-use) is in an XML format – the create,
produce, and store stage;
• The content being transformed into e-books or otherwise handed off to value chain partners
(such as aggregators) are in XML format, or derived from XML format – the transformational or
distribution/delivery stage.
Further confusion about XML formats can follow in either of these stages. For example, there are some
book publishers that see little need for any DTD or schema other than DocBook or NLM (National
Library of Medicine), which these publishers see as a perfectly fine starting point for whatever
customization may be required by the nature of the titles and content they most typically develop.
Other book publishers wish for XML schema development efforts similar to those undertaken in other
industries, such as DITA (technical documentation) or ATA (aeronautical industry), but addressing
various book publishing segments with DTDs and schemas more relevant to their content types.
This will likely continue as a debate for a long time, and, as more and more book publishers take on
XML workflows and content enriching processes, it is likely that new XML schema specific to types of
book publishing will emerge. Indeed, the Book Industry Study Group has launched an effort to examine
precisely this question by forming a Digital Standards Working Group for Content Structuring. Early
activities point to a broad effort to adopt or develop DTDs and schemas that will meet the widest range
of book publishers.
In addition, The Gilbane Group sees the need to explore in much more detail which specific XML formats
publishers are using. The question about XML formats on the production side is itself hardly a settled
matter. Eric Freese, Solutions Architect for Aptara, points out that when it comes to XML format,
“You’ll be looking at DocBook or NLM DTD, because these identify the pieces of the content, and the
semantic pieces within the content you need marked up. They can serve as a good, generic holder of
the information, including any markup clues that you may need for whatever styling you may want to
do to the content.” Freese notes, “Usually ePub would not be a good solution for storing the editorial
masters, because it is essentially XHTML, and there is just not the expressiveness there to be able to
do the kind of content manipulation and the management that most publishers want to do.” Freese
admits that one could use ePub by putting spans around everything, “but it gets ugly really quick.”
Freese sees ePub as an end-product format. “Do you want to keep your editorial master in paper and
re-type it every time?” asks Freese. “EPub is just like paper – another delivery platform; that is all you
should really think about using it for.”

Digital Publishing is Digital Printing
Digital printing is already very well established, and is seen as very much a part of digital publishing
programs among many book publishers. The reason? Digital printing makes a lot of sense. Many
publishers have mature digital workflows for print that support digital printing well. The notion of an
“all Adobe” workflow ending in print-ready PDF has been a mainstay for at least several years, for
example.
The theory of e-books enabling digital printing comes up against the reality that much of the digital
printing – often referred to by an active subset of this technology implementation, print-on-demand –
began to grow in practice well in advance of e-book publishing programs. The fact that a well-designed
digital workflow used to improve savings and support the creation of new digital publications and
revenues happens to be very applicable to digital printing is more of a coincidence than historical
consequence.
Figure 36. Perception of E-Books’ Support of Digital Printing
No 58.0%
Yes 31.0%

Question 73 - GB Q "Are ebook editions being published by your company because they can more
easily support digital printing options such as print on demand (POD)?"
Base = 100
One example of digital printing’s pre-e-book existence is John Wiley & Sons Global Digital Print (GDP)
Program, which started over a dozen years ago, and currently manages digital printing for over 12,000
of this publisher’s 75,000-plus print titles. “One of the things that people in the industry are tripping
over right now is the distinction between digital publishing in print and digital publishing in electronic
[form],” says Lynn Terhune, Global Digital Print Administrator/Corporate, for John Wiley & Sons. “In
the US we operate in a true-POD system, where the title is drop-shipped to the customer, and we also
participate in Amazon’s and Ingram Content’s distribution programs,” Terhune notes. She is quick to
point out that Wiley also uses digital printing for reasons other than that of GDP, which is to keep titles
in print. “On the custom side of digital printing, Wiley does have a pretty strong program called Wiley
Custom Select,” Terhune says. “There are custom titles, there are other titles stored in our warehouses
that are printed digitally.” Cost savings and additional revenue are two key objectives to digital printing
at Wiley’s GDP, but Terhune admits that getting exact numbers is still difficult, without getting the
finance department to account for savings from having POD be non-returnable, and distribution costs
and storage savings.

The custom book program Create, offered at McGraw-Hill, is another instance of what can drive print
on demand and other digital printing solutions. Chris Kaefer, Director, Content Strategy, McGraw-Hill
Higher Education, sees recent positive developments in the prices and technological capabilities to
carry off small press runs of titles that require high-fidelity images or other complex components. “On
POD or short run, there is a big differentiation in cost between black and white and color,” Kaefer notes.
“Today, within Create, you can have a custom book with as few as 25 copies requested, in color, at a
price point that is very palatable to everybody.” But Kaefer also points to custom publishing, saying,
“This is something that people will continue to drive toward: they want highly customized, low run
products.” For a print version of a Create project, what is delivered to the digital printer vendor is a set
of PDF files that are the result of what the participating instructor has selected, melded into print-ready
PDF. “Create is a platform that allows us to print otherwise out of print titles that an instructor orders,”
says Kaefer, “because we still have that content in our repositories.”
Figure 37. Reasons for Using Digital Printing
Maintaining backlist and out-of-print title availability 21.5%
Publishing new titles through digital short run printing, because traditional offset print
20.6%
runs require too high a run to be economical
POD/digital publishing as a means to reduce inventory liabilities, including returns

16.7%
control, incremental reprint options, and overstock risk management
POD as a print distribution alternative 12.7%
POD/short run digital printing as a just-in-time (JIT) warehouse function for distribution
10.5%
and fulfillment, integrated with title inventory and planning systems
POD/short run digital printing as custom publishing enablers 7.0%
Digital printing as time-to-market competitiveness advantage (“crash publishing”) 5.3%
I don’t know 5.7%

Question 74 - GB Q "Does your book publishing company use digital printing f or any of the f ollowing reasons?"
Base = 228
Andrew Weber, Senior VP, Operations & Technology, Random House, also talks about the publishing
house’s use of digital printers, including what some in the business refer to as Ultra Short Run (USR).
“We have titles that don’t require very large print runs to keep them active, where we can print 100-250
copies of titles digitally, and the economics are not as good as offset, but not as bad as printing one at
a time digitally.” The other application of digital printing at Random House is strict POD: “We have a
range of other titles which are at the end of their life, but we want to keep them active… in a more pure
print-on-demand configuration. We carry some of those in our warehouse, and we also make the files
available to Ingram, Amazon, and Baker & Taylor for them to print for their customers.”

There are some POD initiatives taking place at Wolters Kluwer Health, where Jabin White is Director
of Strategic Content. The biggest requirement for POD is the need to supply “pretty pages,” remarks
White. “Every way we have to getting to that point today is tied to an existing outsource compositor,
and that can make the economics of POD not work for us.” One challenge is simply getting the right
files from the original vendor to the POD vendors, in the sort of file format needed, such as high
resolution. “I could be sending Quark with embedded fonts, or print-ready PDF, instead of ePub, but it
is the same headache,” notes White, who looks to WKH’s implementation of Really Strategies RSuite
content management platform for publishing for the solution. “RSuite comes in where there’s always
been tension between needing final pages, but also needing to be able to ‘nudge’ them,” says White.
“I envision being able to come out of RSuite with a ‘closer-to-bluelines-than-has-ever-been-possible
version’ that opens up some POD possibilities. Once we have more content in RSuite, we’ll be able to
query RSuite, take advantage of the structure and semantic enrichment we’ll have in there, build a
custom publication, and get to pages a lot easier than we can today.” White sees POD as a particularly
good fit with STM publishing because the markets are finite, but high value.
An unmistakably important trend is the high level of use digital printing now enjoys, even while a
number of the reasons being cited range widely. Among the most common are keeping titles in print
and what The Gilbane Group calls “just-in-time” inventory, but custom printing has a strong showing,
and physical plant and other warehouse cost-related issues has some presence. Also, on the matter of
formats cited for POD and digital printer hand off, print-ready PDF is the ubiquitous choice.
POD and DAD (Digital Asset Distribution)

Digital asset distribution systems remain much-considered, but under-used by book publishing,
especially in terms of managing digital printing needs, despite the long-time practice of printer vendors
receiving and handing off title files from and to publishers. Perhaps one significant change is that digital
printing can demand many more orders, at, often, far smaller unit numbers, making file management
and distribution much more demanding relative to offset print jobs.
Another factor that may come into play in explaining why DAD hasn’t yet caught on is that book file
transfers, while often a pain in the neck, aren’t that hard to do, and the digital print vendor, just like
the offset print vendor (and often these are one and the same), is a motivated partner that supports
the book publisher’s effort to send the printer work. The Gilbane Group believes that DADs aimed at
e-book titles and e-book and digital publication files management and distribution need to be looked
at more closely, to see if there is sufficient market need.
Publishers and vendors need to more closely collaborate to make the DAD vendor offerings more
widely used. This can begin with a look at the marketplace’s perceptions of needs, benefits, or shortfalls
of such systems.

The Place for Printers
Book Business, in its February 2009 issue, carried an article by James Sturdivant, titled, The Industry’s
Future: Technologies and market changes are reshaping the book publishing landscape. Where are we
headed? One excellent point made by Sturdivant was “Many of the changes we can expect to see five,
10 or even 15 years down the road, experts agree, will be driven by expectations in a media market built
around consumer choice, rather than top-down, push-marketing models.” In terms of digital printing,
Sturdivant had these projections:
Any offset publisher [in 5 years] not offering POD as an option will
have to upgrade to meet the demand for flexibility from publishers.
Offset will continue to dominate front-list manufacturing.
[Within 15 years] offset printing will have declined significantly as

the price per unit and quality differences shrink for digitally printed
books. POD and electronic distribution will allow book distribution
models to more accurately meet demand, and this will include an
erosion of returns.
As we discussed in the manufacturing processes section for book publishers earlier in the report, book
manufacturing printers have already moved strongly to digital printing, and The Gilbane Group sees no
reason to disagree with the views widely held among print trade magazines and consultancies that the
opportunity for book printers in the years ahead will increasingly be found in digital. Benefits such as
customization, versioning, POD and short-run, inventory control, return reduction or elimination, and
the process efficiencies of the book publishers’ digital workflows merging automatically and frictionless
into digital printing and inline finishing workflows are already being well-proved by book publishers,
and becoming standard best practices.
What remains less clear of the years ahead is the answer to the question of whether or not traditional
book printers – even as they move toward more digital printing – will continue to have the large share
of book printing business, or find themselves sharing the expanded market for digital printing and
POD with new players that participate much more broadly in the digital book workflow and business
processes. Digital printing is already a real marketplace factor for book publishers. The types of
companies that will be working with the book publishers over the next few years remain an open
question, at present.
Digital Printing Books Surge… Amazon, Lightning Source, Google

Book publishers traditionally work with book printers, and the relationships are often long-established
and well-set. The advent of competitive digital printing has forced a large number of book printers to
expand their offset cababilities with digital, and, increasingly, effective workflow ingestion from book
publisher to printer – whether as part of a DAD hand-off or not – has become a key differentiator among
printing services. There are, however, other big developments in the world of digital book printing
and Amazon.com yet again takes a central role, this time in the form of the Amazon.com BookSurge
program. On March 31, 2008 the Amazon.com Books Team published this statement:

We wanted to make sure those who are interested have an
opportunity to understand what we’re changing with print on
demand and why we’re doing so. One question that we’ve seen is
a simple one. Is Amazon requiring that print-on-demand books be
printed inside Amazon’s own fulfillment centers, and if so why?
Yes. Modern POD printing machines can print and bind a book in
less than two hours. If the POD printing machines reside inside our
own fulfillment centers, we can more quickly ship the POD book
to customers – including in those cases where the POD book needs
to be married together with another item. If a customer orders a
POD item together with an item that we’re holding in inventory – a
common case – we can quickly print and bind the POD item, pick the
inventoried item, and ship the two together in one box, and we can
do so quickly. If the POD item were to be printed at a third party, we’d
have to wait for it to be transhipped to our fulfillment center before it
could be married together with the inventoried item.
The statement went on to emphasize “speed of shipping” as a key element to this dictate that Amazon.
com would be the sole digital printing vendor for POD titles ordered through them. “Simply put, we
can provide a better, more timely customer experience if the POD titles are printed inside our own
fulfillment centers. In addition, printing these titles in our own fulfillment centers saves transportation
costs and transportation fuel.” Amazon.com wasn’t insisting that book publishers use only Amazon’s
digital printing services exclusively, but any titles otherwise printed digitally would have to be handled
as inventory, not POD. “You can use a different POD service provider for all your units. In that case,
we ask that you pre-produce a small number of copies of each title (typically five copies), and send
those to us in advance (Amazon Advantage Program – successfully used by thousands of big and small
publishers). We will inventory those copies,” the statement also included.
Not surprisingly, Ingram Book Group (before the company changed its name to Ingram Content) issued
its own statement, relative to its Lightning Source efforts. “Publishers are telling us they feel Amazon.
com’s actions are not appropriate,” Ingram’s statement read, citing “free choice” as crucially important
to book publishers’ own considerations regarding “insourcing and outsourcing.”
Also not surprisingly, some book publishers, for whom POD is a central element of business, weren’t
happy to hear about the Amazon.com BookSurge situation, especially after “Buy It Now!” buttons
on Amazon book pages for POD titles from non-BookSurge sources started to vanish. Booklocker, a
Maine-based POD publisher, filed suit.
In a settlement dated December 16, 2009, Amazon agreed to allow Booklocker to continue to sell
through Amazon.com the POD books Booklocker published, creating, in one instance, an exception
to the BookSurge POD requirement announced in 2008. Booklocker did not bring a class action suit
against Amazon.com, and so the settlement applies only between Booklocker and Amazon.com.

Meanwhile, Lightning Source, at Ingram Content, remains the big player in POD, at least in terms of
volume. A February 2008 article by Patrick Henry in American Printer, titled Building Blocks, included a
number of interesting statistics about the company:
What’s the run length range for digital book printers? Lightning
Source (LaVergne, TN) can claim bragging rights on the low end. As
the production arm of Ingram Industries, the world’s largest book
wholesaler, Lightning Source has the power of a global distribution
network behind it – an advantage that almost makes this printer
a market segment unto itself. Using advanced digital printing
equipment from HP, IBM, Océ and Xerox, the company produces
1 million books per month from a database comprising more than
400,000 titles from about 4,300 publishers. The almost impossibly
small size of the average print run – just 1.8 copies – is a testament
to Lightning Source’s total mastery of the manufacturing process.
Although updated numbers are hard to verify, one source puts Lightning Source’s total at over 60
million book units produced, with 600,000 books in its database, and now more than 6,500 publishers
participating. Keep in mind, too, that Lightning Source has a second primary line of business: A
comprehensive e-book digital fulfillment system that provides a full range of services from digital
rights management to content delivery in multiple formats.
Enter Google.
An article by Norman Oder, in the September 17, 2009 issue of Library Journal, Espresso Book Machine
can print paperback in minutes, reported on Google and On Demand Books (ODB), the maker of the
Espresso Book Machine (EBM), having signed a deal to provide POD access to more than two million
public-domain titles (i.e., published before 1923) in the Google digital files. Oder points out that “The
deal also presages potential POD access to millions more in-copyright ‘orphan works’ should the
Google Book Search settlement be approved.”
The EBM, which its makers call “an ATM for books,” costs about $80,000-$100,000, but also can be
leased. It takes about five minutes to print a paperback described as of “library quality.” EBM users have
access to more than one million public-domain books through the Open Content Alliance (OCA), in
addition to titles by a growing number of publishers and self-publishers. Jason Epstein, former editorial
director of Random House and a co-founder of ODB, is quoted by Oder: “With the Google inventory the
EBM will make it possible for readers everywhere to have access to millions of digital titles in multiple
languages, including rare and out of print public domain titles.”

Norman Oder, in the same magazine’s May 6, 2010 issue, reported on new updates to the Google
Editions plans originally announced at the Frankfurt Bookfair, in 2009. The title of the article, Google
Editions, Bookstore in the Cloud, Will Go Live By July, wondered in its subtitle, “Another disruptive threat
to publishing?” The article reported on the talk given by Chris Palma, Google’s manager for strategic-
partner development, who spoke at a panel presented by Publishers Weekly and sponsored by the Book
Industry Study Group, held at the offices of publisher Random House. Here’s Oder:
Google Editions, the search giant’s “cloud bookstore” of titles

available on any device, is slated to go live in June or July, posing
an enormous challenge to existing digital bookselling models,
continued disruption in the publishing world, and – as was made
clear at a panel discussion in New York on May 4 – bypassing libraries
in the near term.
Google Editions is separate from the database intended to be

created from millions of out-of-print books scanned from libraries,
which certainly would be marketed to libraries, assuming the
settlement, pending before a federal judge, is approved. With a
sibling project, it’s not unlikely that Google will ultimately seek
a library market, though Google Editions will be marketed via
individual Google accounts.
Oder reported that Palma described web-based cloud computing as a third major step in computing,
after the mainframe/PC and the web. “Our market, and potential market, is not the people who’ve
bought Kindles or iPads,” Palma said, but rather the 1.8 billion people who access the internet around
the world.
Google Book Editions and a ‘New World Order’ in Book Publishing, by Calvin Reid, in the May 5, 2010 issue
of Publishers Weekly, also reported on the Google panel:
Indeed the panel focused on the implications of the Google Book

Editions, the much anticipated, much power-pointed and much-
delayed venture by Google that is designed to sell and provide access
to millions of books online no matter what device a consumer uses
to access them. Set to launch in June or July of this year – Google’s
Chris Palma guaranteed the program would launch by the summer
– Google Editions will have a dramatic effect on digital book market
(and the print one was well) offering a vision of a new book publishing
marketplace as a part of a “cloud computing platform” or a online
marketplace where books can be searched for, bought and stored on
the internet and read anywhere, any time, on or off line.

As to Google Editions and POD, the details are still unclear, even though the intention to be flexible in
meeting publishers’ own plans for it. In BEA 2010: Getting To the Details with Google Editions, Norman
Oder, in the May 26, 2010 issue of Library Journal, reported Google strategic partner manager Mark
Nelson’s answer to the question, “Will Google Editions be compatible with print-on-demand?” The
answer: “We do want to provide features for users; it will be up to the publishers.”
Google Edition’s response to POD interest on the part of book publishers, will, of course, wait upon
the book publishers’ desires, although Google may be the one making POD decisions for the million
or so “orphan” and public domain titles already available beyond any book publisher’s control. While
the specific situation of POD and Google Editions remains in flux at the moment, it stands, alongside
Amazon.com’s BookSurge, as one more potential disruptor of the traditional book publishing value
chain.
The Gilbane Group believes that such potential disruption does not negate the clear and important
benefits digital printing provides book publishers. At this stage, book publishers must realize that
there are many real benefits to digital publishing, and that the new partners that are emerging to
provide digital printing and POD capabilities to book publishers expand their business model choices
and opportunities. Who provides POD is far less important than whether or not POD provides book
publishers with expanded sales, new markets, and lower costs. Digital printing is already a well-proved
component of book publishing’s success; the real issue with Amazon.com’s BookSurge or Google
Editions involves marketing processes far more than production processes.
Calvin Reid’s article also sees the author writing that Palma outlined a world that now features more
than 51 million iPhone, iPods, and iPads; 100 million other smartphones; 5 million e-ink devices; and
more than 30 million netbook computers. Palma talked of Google’s plans to offer e-books for any
device or format including the ability to read e-books through a web-browser – HTML5, a new and
secure web standard that will offer a variety of functionality, including the ability to read books, that
will take place in a web browser like Google’s Chrome without any plug-ins. The Publishers Weekly article
also noted that Palma said that although Amazon also offers a cloud computing vision of the future
through its Kindle publishing platform, unlike Amazon, Google Editions offers an “open platform” to
book retailing.
The digitally connected market – to the tune of perhaps 2 billion prospective customers today – is the
central issue, and digital versus offset, or who runs the POD line, is not. The same holds true in regard
to e-book reader devices.
E-Reader Devices in Flux, But So What?
Repeat after us: What happens to specific devices or formats, such as Kindle or the iPad, will not be a
significant factor for book publishers.
Indeed, our survey shows relative calm among book publishers regarding e-book readers, with only
slightly less than 10% of publishers agreeing to this statement about e-reader confusion as a significant
barrier, “There is confusion within the marketplace about e-reader device targets – too many devices
and formats.” Barely 6% agreed to the related statement, “There is confusion within the book
publishing company about e-reader device targets, and a ‘winner’ can’t yet be picked.”

While we are confident that the days of e-book publishing are here, it is notable that slightly more than
20% of those taking the survey indicate that their book publishing company is not yet engaged with
e-books, as shown in Figure 38. On the other hand, 27.8% of book publishing houses responding to the
survey cite 200 or more e-books published in 2009. More than 20% of respondent answers in Figure 38
showed that their book publishing company published no e-books or other digital publications, and
about another third published less than 50 digital titles.
Figure 38. Book Publishing Companies’ E-Book Production Numbers
None 20.9%
Less than 50 32.3%
Less than 200 19.0%
Less than 500 13.3%
Less than 1,000 6.3%
More than 1,000 8.2%

Question 3 "How many digital titles did your company (include all imprints) publish in 2009?"
Base = 158

There will remain plenty of help for book publishers to deal with the format flux, and, as book publishers
move more completely into digital workflow – and especially grow in sophistication in regard to XML
content format within editorial and production processes – the difficulties to meet specific output
format demands will ease. This help may come from outsource vendors who continue to specialize
in and focus e-book format conversion, or from the growth of more capable and better established
e-book format standards (such as ePub, which is going through a new revision to expand its handling
of potential content-types and interactivity). This will also be helped by the likely de facto open format
capabilities of emerging devices that will be able to present several kinds of e-book formats through
e-book software (such as Blio, from K-NFB) and apps. The current usage of various digital formats is
shown in Figure 39.
Figure 39. Digital Formats in Use at Book Publishers
Portable Document Format (.pdf) 28.2%
ePub, IDPF (.epub) 21.8%
Kindle (.azw) 15.6%
HTML (.html) 11.9%
Mobipocket (.prc, .mobi) 9.2%
Plain text (.txt) 3.4%
Microsoft Reader (.lit) 2.4%
PostScript (.ps) 2.4%
FictionBook (.fb2) 1.4%
I Don't Know 1.0%
Other 2.7%

Question 5 "What digital publishing f ormat(s) is your company using? (Check all that apply)"
Base = 294

According to recent research from Informa Telecoms & Media, (Mobile Broadband Devices: From
smartphones and smartbooks to netbooks, note-books, USB modems and ereaders, 2nd Edition, May 27,
2010):
…e-reader [with embedded WWAN connectivity] sales are expected

to peak at 14 million in 2013, before falling by 7% in 2014 as the
segment faces increased competition from a wide range of consumer
electronic devices.” The relative decline, according to their analysis,
will be driven by a shift away from dedicated e-readers towards other
multifunction device types, notably mobile phones and tablet-form-
factor computing devices including the iPad. This is likely to lead to a
segmentation of the e-reader market into two groups; low price, low
feature models and higher price devices with advanced features.
It is largely about revenues, a not surprising conclusion to draw about the business of book publishing.
“Increased revenues through new products and markets,” comes in as the raison d’être of digital
publishing, at 22%, with “Increased sales” at 17%, as shown in Figure 40. Business process improvements
of various kinds actually overshadow direct revenue and sales business drivers, however, with cost
control looming large.
Figure 40. Respondents’ Reasons for Digital Publishing
Increased revenues through new products and markets 21.9%
Increased sales through improved discoverability, including

17.1%
“long tail” sales improvements
Customer satisfaction gains and increasing benefits in building
14.2%
direct customer relationships and feedback mechanisms
Lower costs through single-source, multiple output processes 11.7%
Time to market improvements 10.5%
Control over returns and inventory expenses 9.7%
Improvements in process efficiencies 9.4%
Improvements in business intelligence 5.1%
I don’t know 0.3%

Question 83 "What are the high-level business objectives f or producing digital content products within your book publishing company? "
Base = 351

This analysis seems quite sensible, in our opinion, in that the breakout mirrors two distinct classes of
content: the straightforward narrative (as in novels and memoirs), and the “enhanced e-book,” defined
by the incorporation of rich media and high levels of interactivity and connectivity. This second class
of content is still largely to happen but there are already many early examples and a long conceptual
history of this type of publication (think of Alan’ Key’s DynaBook concept from 1972, or The Voyager
Company’s CD-ROM based “Expanded Books” from the late 1980s and early 1990s).
The Informa Telecoms & Media research report, like many other analytical reports and news stories,
refers to Apple’s iPad as the “highest-profile competition for dedicated e-readers,” but the analysis
also rightly notes other multifunctional devices such as mobile phones, tablet computers, netbooks,
and other portable consumer electronic devices as probable contributors to the competition with
dedicated e-book readers.
There are several types of e-readers (e.g., Sony and Kindle) and multifunctional portable computing
devices (e.g., Apple iPad, smartphones, and tablets) vying in the marketplace, and this makes book
publishers nervous. This will shake out in a couple of years and standard formats will emerge.
Figure 41. E-Readers Galore!
Source: Outsell, Inc.
As January 2010’s Consumer Electronic Show (CES) well illustrated, there is a huge amount of activity
on the hardware side of content presentation. We expect to see many new devices over the next year
or two, even while IREX, a long-time e-reading device (relative, that is, to most other e-readers in this
still-young marketplace), has recently filed for bankruptcy, and yet other readers with origins in the first
big and largely failed e-book market efforts of a decade ago have long disappeared. Overall, we believe
the convergence of functionality that supports enhanced e-books among general-purpose mobile
communications and computing devices, with emerging standards for display, sale, and distribution
of e-book titles, will make platform issues for digital publishers largely moot.

Significant Barriers Remain
The good news is that e-books and digital publishing are doing okay within book publishing, generally
speaking. The bad news is that there are many significant barriers to e-books and digital publishing.
The way rights and royalties are being handled for digital publications – or, perhaps more to the point,
often not being handled – is one big barrier that is only likely to grow larger as more digital product
hits the streets. Another looming problem that is sure to add further pressures on rights and royalty
processes, including rights tracking and royalty contract support, can be expected as digital publishing
strives toward new products through “chunking” or making subsets from extant titles. Surprisingly,
the issue of digital rights management (DRM) seems to be an issue with more sound than fury, with
many publishers either reconsidering the use of DRM, even while remaining apparently happy with the
e-retailers themselves imposing DRM (such as Adobe Content Server for PDF formats), or, in the case
of online content, access control through authentication (e.g., log-in).
We sought hard to find signs regarding the issue of integration or interoperability between publishing
processes, especially as supported via technology platforms. While there are a surprisingly high number
of offerings for title information management and enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms aimed
at publishers, both the uptake of these and the actual integration of publishing processes through
these systems seem modest. Integration or interoperability will be, we believe, a major development
in the advancement of improved publishing processes’ efficiency and overall cost-reduction, but the
market education – as well as the hard work of figuring out how to achieve effective implementation –
largely remains ahead.
Very unsettled selling, pricing, and business models also provide significant barriers to book publishers
trying to make a go of digital publishing. The good news here is that while there is still much more to be
figured out, today’s market opportunity for book publishers is real and big enough to get them involved.
Arguably, the market opportunity may be more the result of subsidy than pure market forces, but the
matter is one of needing to get revenue coming in, and book publishers are seeing this happen.
Like business models – and very much related to them – are the very unsettled distribution mechanisms
and confusion about channels and value chain partners being encountered by book publishers. If any
early conclusion about this matter can be drawn, it may well be that book publishers are doing with
e-books and digital publishing what they’ve done with their print business over many decades, which is
to rely on partners – Ingram Content, OverDrive, Baker & Taylor, LibreDigital, etc. – to handle the actual
work of getting the e-books to e-book buyers. The irony may be that e-books are digital and in theory
easily distributed and sold, unlike physical books that require a lot of handling, space, and diesel.
Royalties and Rights: Acceptable Level of Confusion

Another finding through the study is that the ongoing confusion about business models may not
be a big factor in slowing e-book pursuit. This seems to be true even though there is a widely-held
frustration among book publishers regarding the often clumsy methods of searching for and reporting
on contracts and other central business documents related to royalty and rights issues for any title.

In effect, book publishers – almost without exception – wish for better mechanisms to make title
information available to them easily, especially when backlist titles are concerned. Despite the march
of technology into book publishing these days, the method for getting straight what royalty rates have
been promised to the author under different circumstances, formats, and unit volumes is often based
on sending someone in the office to look through file drawers or storage boxes for manila folders that
contain the actual hardcopy of the relevant contract.
This issue does produce a curious mix of complaint and compliancy today, with publishers wanting such
information better managed, but neither expecting such platform support from the vendor community
nor possessing a willingness to spend time themselves trying to solve the problem. We’ve found the
royalty tracking and clarity issue is a pain in the neck for just about everyone, it doesn’t have that
much power as a deterrent to developing an e-book, even while a practical resolution and technology
management solution for royalties seems to be on almost everybody’s wish list. We believe the reason
for this is that the additional revenue from e-book sales comes across as a pretty clear positive from not
only the publishers’ perspective, but also the authors’ and agents’.
“The rights and permissions issues have always been a real challenge,” says Chris Kaefer, Director,
Content Strategy, McGraw-Hill Higher Education. “Now we are creating an environment that is much
more granular from a customization perspective. But royalties is a tough nut to crack.” Kaefer admits
that like a lot of publishers, McGraw-Hill has been anticipating royalty issues for many years, “whether
it is the right to use an image in print or in digital, rights around font usage, and so forth.” Kaefer argues
that the royalties issue is interesting because it has always been written around the print-centric
product. “Now when I come bearing granular content, below the chapter level, when I’m starting to
take sections and combine them with material from other authors, [resolving royalty issues] is going
to be a really fun project.”
The handling of rights and royalties in e-books is a pain today, Jabin White, Director of Strategic
Content, Wolters Kluwer Health, Professional & Education, admits, even while he sees the resolution
of these barriers getting better. “We have been requesting electronic permissions for everything for
a couple of years, and our permissions process is no more broken or fixed than Elsevier’s…. Royalty
solutions are in flux, so today royalties are difficult, but there’s a project in play to make this that much
easier.” Neil L. Schmidt, Vice President Operations at Wolters Kluwer Health, agrees with White’s view
that Wolters Kluwer sees royalties as an evolving issue.
Schmidt points out that the issue of royalties is made more challenging within electronic publishing
efforts, where, he says, “there’s royalties on a title and there’s royalties on individual articles, and then
there’s royalties if someone is downloading a single paragraph.” Still, Schmidt points out, this is easy
enough to figure out on a book title and for journals, since the publishing company tracks sales, and
works on a typical royalty model as a percentage of sales. “The challenge in the electronic world is
when this involves a partial book or part of an article, and that challenge is in convincing the author
what portion of a book or an article translates into what payment,” Schmidt admits. “Quite frankly, I
don’t know of any software program that accurately tracks that, and the model is still evolving: Do you
do it through tracking the number of words used?”

What most concerns Schmidt is the complication of getting the author to understand that such
granular usage isn’t reflected in a book royalty, bur rather for some piece of the book. “What does that
arrangement look like?” asks Schmidt. “It’s not solved yet, and it is hugely cultural, the model is still
evolving right in front of our faces, but there are still a lot of mindsets in publishing from years ago. It is
solvable, Schmidt believes, but he sees that publishers are more interested in a solution, but that the
software vendors haven’t caught up.
Tod Shuttleworth, Senior Vice President and Group Publisher, Specialty & Global Publishing, at Thomas
Nelson, knows that his publishing company uses the Klopotek system. “[Klopotek] means that we
have better information than we’d ever had about royalties and contracts, and I assume that we are
integrating that with the metadata [for specific titles] as it makes sense, but I can’t tell you that for
sure because, honestly, it is more detail than I get into on a regular basis.” How much of a problem is
knowing what the royalties are for the print editions, and the different digital editions? “That is not a
problem at all,” says Shuttleworth. “For ninety-nine percent of the cases with our authors and their
agents, they are just so happy that we found these new revenues streams and that we’re developing
them, that they don’t care. Occasionally you get someone who wants to make a big deal about it, but
then you ask him, ‘Well, okay, we’re doing all this to find new life and a longer tail for your property, and
if you take these rights back, then what is your plan?’ And there is no plan. The fact that we’re finding
new sales through print on demand (POD), which is now a huge proportion of our production mix, as
well as e-book formats, most people are just delighted.”
DRM: Being Solved by the Supply Chain?

When it comes to digital rights management (DRM), things are even more up in the air among
book publishers. Almost all rely on their supply chain partners or licensees to implement DRM on
downloadable content, but also use access control to protect their online content. As Mark Tully,
Director of Architecture, McGraw-Hill, comments, “In regard to DRM or other efforts and requirements
to protect the content, McGraw-Hill Education tends to rely on two strategies: PDF titles may use
DRM, but the main body of web-based titles relies on access control.”
Chris Kaefer of McGraw-Hill Higher Education reflects a similar approach, when talking about DRM
as a feature that comes up with a number of their e-book products. “There are two versions of the
CourseSmart material,” Kaefer points out. “You can download content from CourseSmart to your
client or desktop, and there is a level of DRM around that.” The other version of interacting with the
CourseSmart material is to work online, where content control, such as limits on the number of pages
that are permitted to be printed, are in place. “We’ve discussed for many years how much protection
you put into your content, but still make it a good user experience,” says Kaefer. “On some of our other
products, we’re starting to hold the DRM back in order to make the user’s experience more comfortable
and simpler. It varies depending on the product, the target device, and the discipline that it is in. There
is no wholesale DRM that is applied across all of our digital products.”
Andrew Weber, Senior VP, Operations & Technology, Random House, is succinct: “Our terms of sale
require that the retailers supply DRM. The implementation of that is up to them.”

Mike Monaghan, Head, Publishing Technology Group, Oxford University Press, is concerned about
protecting OUP’s copyright and the investment that their authors have put into the content, and that
concern manifests itself in several ways. “We regularly look at the web for instances of web piracy,”
Monaghan says. “We ask our licensees to implement some form of DRM on the content that we license
to them.” But like many of the other publishers interviewed, OUP doesn’t use DRM directly themselves,
“because the distributor of the content adds it,” says Monaghan. “If we start distributing e-content
ourselves, we would have to seriously think about DRM, but we haven’t made any decisions on that
yet.”
“Historically, we had required DRM on everything,” reports Tod Shuttleworth, Senior Vice President
and Group Publisher, Specialty & Global Publishing, Thomas Nelson, “but … on a case-by-case basis
we’ll look at the situation and decide to take DRM off. We’re becoming more and more convinced that
– to quote O’Reilly – the bigger problem is obscurity, not piracy.” When Thomas Nelson is implementing
DRM, it is actually being done by their various digital supply chain partners. “Our position has been,
well, if DRM is a big deal for Apple, okay, fine,” he says.
Backlist and Front List Issues

The gulf between frontlist titles and backlist can be big, but not unbridgeable. Still, many of the barriers
for book publishers of e-books affect frontlist and backlist titles differently. Typical differences between
frontlist and backlist titles include the following:
• Frontlist titles have, for most book publishers, addressed with clarity the basic issue of electronic
rights;
• Frontlist titles tend to have contracts that are more easily accessible, retrievable, and
manageable;
• Blacklist titles can have legacy file formats that are more difficult to transform into digital
publications. In many cases, publishers may only have physical copies of older titles and will need
to create a digital format from the physical copy;
• Blacklist titles may prove more challenging in regard to locating the right versions of the title’s
production files.
Although only significantly old backlist titles may be unclear about the publisher’s electronic rights,
since publishers did start paying effective attention to this issue quite a few years ago, a number of
“old” titles remain valuable titles in the e-book realm, and there are some significant court cases still
playing out between e-book publishers and print publishers over who controls electronic rights. A far
more recent change – and far less pervasive one among book publishers – is that contracts for frontlist
and recent backlist titles tend to be more easily retrieved and managed than older backlist titles. This
ease of access is important not only because electronic rights have to be determined as book publishers
consider moving an existing print title into one or a number of e-book formats, but because contracts
and associated title business files are the first stop for rights assignments and conditions. For many
publishers, the practice of even simply using a spreadsheet to consolidate this kind of information
about the publisher’s titles is rare, never mind the use of title information platforms that are designed
to make this kind of title-related information available anywhere, any time, and in any number of
formats and reports.

Title file format – and, even more fundamentally, title file access – can be real deal breakers when it
comes to economically sensible backlist transformation into e-books. While the growth in the use of
digital asset management platforms and other content management systems among book publishers
may help relieve these problems, many book publishers remain far away from having well-integrated
title file asset management widely in place.
Integration and Interoperability
If distribution and supply chain options seem bewildering, these can seem quite staid when compared
to the issue of the integration or interoperability between and among the various publishing processes
that are crucial to getting content created, shaped, and to the user.
A Business Upgrade by Alison Clements, from The Bookseller’s Supply Chain supplement on February
26, 2010 is an article that looks at the long-term benefits of investment by leading publishers, bucking
the recessionary trend of cost-cutting, by spending money on new integrated software systems. In this
piece, the author presents a good list of the common problems an integrated system can overcome for
publishers, as follows:
• Not being able to access accurate up-to-date information when required, for example when
producing advance information sheets – staff are spending too long searching and cross-
checking;
• Lack of visibility and control of rising production and distribution costs – manual cost
comparisons, budgeting and forecasting are time consuming;
• Too much time and money spent maintaining a number of disparate systems, databases, word
documents and spreadsheets – each system requires backing up and updating individually;
• Difficulty in managing schedules and workflow – keeping track of numerous separate schedules
in order to meet deadlines can easily fail if one individual falls ill, for example;
• A complicated and laborious process for managing rights and sub-rights to control piracy;
• Limiting systems that are unable to succeed in and exploit the digital space;
• Inefficiency in sharing information such as ONIX with Nielsen, distributors, wholesalers and
retailers;
• Facing a constant challenge to comply with new industry standards such as ISBN 13, ONIX 3, BIC
2.1.
Here’s the theory that spurred this report in the earliest days: If the content is digital, the publishing
processes have a greater potential for interoperability through which book publishing can improve its
efficiencies, expand its products and markets, and lower its costs.
It is a nice theory.

We don’t want to bury the lead: While there have been plenty of efforts expanded on reaching the all-
digital processes paradise, there remains only modest real world accomplishment. There are vendors
that seek this promised land, and, fortunately, these companies offer value to book publishers even
though falling short of the ultimate destination. We were especially interested in gleaning the practical
advances on title information management (TIM) systems and enterprise resource planning (ERP)
platforms within book publishing as it moves, increasingly, to digital publishing.
Figure 42. Levels of Interoperability Among Publishing Processes at Book Publishers
There is a modest level of interoperability between and

among the various publishing systems in use at my 51.1%
book publishing company
There is little or no interoperability between and among

the various publishing systems in use at my book 20.7%
publishing company
There is high degree of interoperability between and

among the various publishing systems in use at my 16.3%
book publishing company

Question 84 - GB -Q "What level of interoperability exists among the book publisher’s publishing systems? "
Base = 92
A very practical approach to process integration was found at Hachette Book Group (HBG). Matthew
Bennett, Executive Director of Product Management at HBG, makes the useful point that book
publishers integrate their systems where it’s important to them, but that there can be a different focus
at a different book publishing company. “Here at Hachette, we have put a lot of time and energy into
integrating our metadata,” Bennett says. “For us, it’s very important that we have systems of record for
our content and the metadata associated with it.” Bennett points out that another big priority for HBG
is to keep key business systems in sync. “Some publishing companies may have focused more on the
ERP backend side of things,” he says, “and we certainly do integrate between our title management
and ERP systems and our warehouse management system. We wouldn’t be in business if we didn’t.” But
integration is a tough thing to quantify, Bennett argues, because it can be accomplished in a number of
ways that are not always transparent to the business, even as the integration efforts may accomplish
their goals.
“Does integration mean that it’s all live, so if I change something in my title management it’s available
in the warehouse system, or is overnight batch processing considered to be integration?” Bennett asks.
“We certainly have very strong integration across everything,” he notes. “We don’t have multiple re-
keying of data across our processes, and that’s important to us. But, it’s not all tightly integrated to the

point where if someone makes a change, everyone knows about it immediately.” At HBG, the in-house
title information management system is the key to their process integration. “All of our publishers
and publishing units use it. All title metadata is entered through it. Our ONIX feed is generated from
it. That’s our single system of record for all metadata. We have plenty of workflows internally to know
who needs to enter and approve what and when,” Bennett says. “It’s really as simple as that. Everyone
is working on a standardized system. There are required fields so that you can’t proceed through the
process or get a contract without having filled in various fields. In a nutshell, that’s how it all works.”
Several Steps Toward Integration: North Plains TeleScope Publishing Platform

Interestingly, HBG’s Bennett is now using the North Plains platform, although still early in the
exploratory phases. North Plains’ drive to create more integration within digital publishing processes
is a good match for HBG. Here is how North Plains puts its argument:
However, the reality is that most vendors and solution providers

tend to have strengths in one or more areas, forcing publishers
to manage multi-vendor relationships if they intend to operate a
complete e-book program. This can be very time-consuming for the
publisher, not to mention that weak points are exposed with every
new vendor solution integrated. Publishers are at considerable risk
of implementing disjointed “solutions” that have little promise
of providing any real cost savings or operational improvements.
What these so called solutions will do however is eat up an
incredible amount of the publisher’s time and provide little or no
enhancement to their overall creative workflow, distribution, or
asset monetization… The vendor should also have a true end-to-end
solution that facilitates every aspect of a publishers’ entry into the
e-book world so that they can easily integrate their online strategy
into their existing processes.
“We are witnessing the convergence of editorial, production, storage and distribution systems,
bringing a revolution in publishing technology that will free publishers to produce any format, at any
time, with massively reduced costs and timescales,” another line from a North Plains whitepaper
states. Organizations are leveraging TeleScope Publishing Platform (TPP) to address their creative,
operational, and workflow challenges, including:
• Disconnected and inefficient production processes;

• Lack of unified collaboration and sharing among all contributors (photographers, authors,
editors, designers, marketers, and distributors), international offices, third-parties, and business
partners;
• Wasted resources, both human and capital, due to needless searching for media assets,
recreating or repurchasing lost images, using incorrect versions, workflow bottlenecks, inefficient
file transformation and delivery processes, lack of usage tracking, and lack of production
automation;
• Implementing disaster recovery and archival plans;

• Embracing new technologies such as RSS feeds, user-generated content, and Web 2.0
applications;
• Identifying efficient ways to move images, video, audio, PDF, InDesign, PPT, Excel, Word, EPS,
GIF, and SVG files from where they are created and managed, into web pages, printed magazines,
mobile devices, and a host of other delivery points;
• By enabling secure access and management of all digital media content throughout an
organization, efficient, centralized, and connected publishing workflow environment is
established, right from the creative design stage through to production and distribution to all
channels.
North Plains isn’t shy about TPP claims, and includes the following list in many of its marketing
materials:
• Slash print book production times by up to 90%;

• Reduce production costs by up to 80%;
• Produce e-books at zero cost;
• Automate distribution to partners and open new channels;
• Sell e-content in a secure environment.
TeleScope Publishing Platform is tightly integrated, and while TPP may not cover every single
publishing process (no direct modules for royalties, for example), or provide enough functionality in
and of itself for any particular of its processes as may be needed by some publishers, TPP does offer a
clean platform for a lot of what is needed by digital publishers. That Adobe is a business partner, and
special efforts have been made by North Plains to integrate well with Creative Suite and InDesign (and
InDesign and XML) is itself noteworthy. North Plains TPP capabilities go well beyond this however, and
include the following components:
• Publish: Import production-ready manuscripts, instantly convert them to XHTML and compose
books. Then instantly output them into print PDF and multiple e-book formats. There are
additional packaging options from CD-ROM and SCORM through to instant online accessibility;
• Remix: Once the content is created, TPP Remix provides an Advanced Content Object
Management environment that moves it beyond books and documents into customized
interactive documents – allowing both publishers and end-users to create custom content in real
time;
• Distribute: Finished books are sent from TPP Publish module to TPP Archive for secure storage.
Once there, TPP Distribute creates multiple, simultaneous distribution events to all commercial
partner sites, aggregators, and fulfillment service providers. The book is then made instantly
available for sale on TPP Sell;

• Sell: The TPP Sell bookstore allows the publisher to sell books, merchandise, e-books, online
subscriptions, and subscription libraries. TPP Distribute passes the ONIX data and all format
fulfillment information to TPP Sell, and books are instantly available on the publisher’s booksite;
• Promote: From the moment files are ready from TPP Publish publishers can begin working
on marketing campaigns – creating portal pages for viral marketing strategies and multiple,
simultaneous sales channels;
• Digital Asset Management: TeleScope’s DAM system provides secure storage that is the
foundation for the TPP module suite. It provides the advanced administration, reporting, and
workflow capabilities for an end-to-end digital publishing solution. Publisher covers, graphics,
and media can be prepared and stored in TPP DAMS – ready for use by any TPP module.
TeleScope Publishing Platform was initially released in 2009, and the company has been diligent in its
revisions, including a new release in spring 2010 that provides enhancements for easier book design,
automated image management, font management, ePub preview, and imports Microsoft Word
manuscripts. The updated TeleScope Publishing Platform 1.2 now includes:
• Font Manager: Upload and manage a library of Font files directly in TPP Publish;
• Media Manager: Upload, access and manage rich media and image files for inclusion in e-book
or print versions. Media Manager automatically generates renditions of images in a variety of
specified formats for immediate use;
• Dynamic Book Designer: Graphical user interface allows for rapid iterative modification and
preview of design elements in book design templates;
• ePub Preview: Generate an ePub chapter on-the-fly to quickly evaluate the impact of document
design on ePub format presentation;
• Word Import: Import and convert manuscripts in Microsoft Word to a single-source, media-
neutral format for output to multiple-e-book formats;
• Page Extent Calculator: Dynamically calculate total page count based on the document design
style settings for typesetting and composition tasks.
The Integration versus Rich Functionality Balance

An important question publishers need to ask about integration solutions is whether such systems will
be rich enough in functionality to support the products the publisher will develop and the ways in which
the publisher will sell them. As publishers develop more digital products for more devices and channels,
their needs for title information management and related products grow in functional complexity. This
has put nearly all publishers who adopt such systems in the business of extending and customizing such
products for their use.
One specialized STM publisher’s experience is notable. Because of its large catalog (more than 12,000
SKUs) and numerous digital channels, it adopted Oracle E-Business Suite Financials to manage its
title information, order entry, inventory management, and portions of its fulfillment and distribution

processing. In this STM publisher’s analysis, more specialized systems were too limiting, and the
publisher was willing to take on the work of customizing the Oracle Suite to meet its needs. This choice
was driven partly by an organizational initiative to consolidate platforms, but it was also driven by
functionality and how the publisher saw its business growing in terms of the range of product offerings
and the distribution channels. Three years after the publisher made its decision, the publisher has a
successful, customized version of the Oracle Suite in use across the organization.
North Plains’ TeleScope Publishing Platform, in Figure 43, stands as a leader in publishing process
integration, including content ingestion, XML and other formats, e-book transformation, some
promoting, selling, and distributing functionality, and a solid DAM foundation.
Figure 43. A Glimpse of Integration to Come? North Plains TeleScope Publishing Platform
Source: North Plains
The tension between choosing to customize a general business process integration platform or to
build upon publishing-specific systems such as TIM platforms looks likely to continue for some time.
Offering from such companies as Firebrand Technology and Klopotek have some market penetration,
and there has been progress in expanding some TIM platforms’ capacity to handle e-book-related
issues, including, in some instances, e-book production. Typically, the capability expansion is through
adding more and more modules, which may or may not be designed to easily support integration with
second-party business platforms, such as SAP, Oracle Financials, or Microsoft Dynamics.
It is our view that e-book and related digital publishing efforts are still new enough that market clarity
is still to come in regard to the best route to integration. In part, we see our conclusion supported by
the modest adoption of current specialty publishing integration platforms even before e-books were
much of a real business factor. We’re respectful of the argument – heard from a number of publishers
we interviewed, and supported by our survey findings – that the culture of book publishing is one where
production and business approaches can vary quite widely among publishers, further frustrating the
efforts of TIM vendors to provide widely applicable solutions.

As the percentage of publisher revenues continue to grow from e-books, and as distribution and
e-commerce models settle out, the drive for better integration of publishing processes will increase.
It is too early to tell, we think, if book publishers will adopt TIM systems as the core of their future
integration efforts.
Rich Media and Enhanced E-Books
The basic model for e-books is pretty well set, especially in trade publishing, where narratives – fiction
and non-fiction – fit well into the Kindle-type (Sony and Nook, etc.) e-reader marketplace. Given the
growth of apps and software platforms that also allow ePub and other e-book formats to be accessed
on PCs, smartphones, and iPads and coming tablets, there is every reason to believe the many sources
proclaiming continued strong sales growth.
What is far less clear is what rich media and rich interactive titles will do in the marketplace, and the
reason for this doubt is a simple one: book publishers – especially in trade – have little understanding
as yet about what an “enhanced e-book” is, or of how to make a business out of publishing them. We
think that the most likely – or, successful – areas of “enhancement” activity will be:
• Incorporation of social media features tied to the e-books;

• Modest additions of rich media;
• Resurgence of indexes and other active link-based features.
Different Book Publishing Segments, Different Prices, Different Levels of Enhancements

The qualification of this view is very much book publishing segment-specific. Education publishing has
already a fairly robust history in the use and sale of rich media as part of their content offerings, and
STM and other professional publishing has already proved the value of such things as superior search
and retrieval in their online publications. Children’s books – with their robust illustrations and audience
expecting to being interacted with (albeit mostly by parents and babysitters) – are likely to emerge as
another rich media e-book success story, although as a category of trade publishing, the question of
price becomes more central to the success or failure of enhanced e-books.
The price question intersects with the book publishing segment question: what might sell well for $90 or
even $900 to a researcher or lawyer – because the expense of information and related benefits supplied
by the professional or STM publisher is offset by the cost of not having it – isn’t the same for trade
titles. If you’re publishing a general interest book – a trade title – for $49.95, you’re simply going to sell
far fewer units, no matter that it is printed, e-book, or stitched into a tapestry. Multimedia CD-ROMs
didn’t sell well for $49-$69, which were common prices simply because the titles were so expensive to
produce. While current trade book publishers are understandably worried about Amazon’s successful
efforts to produce market expectation of $9.95 per e-book as being too low to drive profits when
subsidies end, the right answer will never be that the sky is the limit when it comes to trade titles.

Only 12% of respondents claim to use “significant” amounts of rich media in digital publishing today,
as shown in Figure 44.
Figure 44. Level of Rich Media Use in Digital Publishing Efforts Today
We use little or no rich media within our digital publishing

43.0%
program
We use a modest amount of rich media within our digital

43.0%
publishing program
We use a significant amount of rich media within our digital

11.8%
publishing program
I don’t know 2.2%

Question 85 - GB Q "Which level of activity best describes the amount of rich media (images, audio, video, simulations, etc.)
currently part of the digital publishing program at your book publishing company?"
Base = 93
While professional and STM publishers have provided interactivity- and media-rich electronic titles
for many years, education publishing represents the most active area for enhanced e-books. This too,
is price and cost relative: where textbooks and their related materials may easily cost the student a
$100 or more, there is room for similar prices for online- or e-book-based alternatives. Furthermore,
education publishers have a long history of developing ancillary materials related to their textbooks,
whether in terms of tests, worksheets, audio-visual supplement materials, or other typical classroom
aids. For education publishers, textbooks have long required enhancements, and the move to digital
publishing is a difference of degree, not kind.

Fast forward five years, and over 86% of respondents anticipate using a modest or significant amount
of rich media in their digital publishing, as shown in Figure 45. We don’t expect that half of all digital
book publishing will involve “significant” rich media inclusion, except possibly via outside linking.
Figure 45. Level of Rich Media Use in Digital Publishing in Five Years
We will use a significant amount of rich media within

49.5%
our digital publishing program
We will use a modest amount of rich media within our

36.3%
digital publishing program
We will use little or no rich media within our digital

9.9%
publishing program
I don’t know 4.4%

Question 86- GB Q "Which level of activity best describes the amount of rich media (images, audio, video,
simulations, etc.) that you expect, in f ive years’ time, will be part of the digital publishing program at your
book publishing company? "
Base = 91
Past is Prologue: Where Are the Enhanced Titles?

With the exception of some strong interactive title publishing taking place within education publishing,
and to a lesser degree professional and STM publishing, the most telling fact pointing to the uncertain
future of enhanced e-books is the dearth of titles to date. Further strengthening this argument is the
fact that the starting date to pay attention to is not the announcement about Blio, or of the iPad going
on sale, but a couple of decades back.Yes, there’s little new – conceptually speaking – about multimedia
titles. In 1990, Robert Abel founded Synapse Technologies, an early interactive media company, which
produced pioneering educational projects for IBM, including Columbus: Discovery, Encounter and
Beyond and Evolution/Revolution:The World from 1890-1930. Columbus was known in its day as a stand-
out example of what we now call “expanded e-book.”
This title was designed to allow the student or teacher to branch from topic to topic in multimedia
content libraries, according to an article in T H E Journal (Technological Horizons In Education), (Vol.
19, 1992), as retrieved through Questia. “We want kids to become explorers, to take a first-person
voyage into the period 1200-1600,” Abel is quoted as saying. “They can learn about people, philosophy,
science, art, math, and key issues of the age. By moving through self-directed hyperpaths, they can
pursue the ideas underlying the facts, and find the ones that interest them.”

And while Abel’s Columbus was a path-breaker, it was hardly singular. Another IBM Business Partner,
AND Communications, developed The Illuminated Books and Manuscripts series, which was “designed
to bring powerful multimedia-based resources to the analysis and understanding of textual works,”
according to the same article. Based on what AND Communications called a “text augmentation” tool,
the works “illuminate” five classic works of literature: Shakespeare’s Hamlet, AlfredTennyson’s Ulysses,
Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, John J. Neihardt’s Black Elk Speaks, and the American
Declaration of Independence.
Figure 46 offers a look at an enhanced Columbus title from 1991.
Figure 46. “Columbus: Discovery” Multimedia Title, 1991
Source: Synapse Technologies, Columbus: Discovery, Encounter

and Beyond, 1991, developed for IBM Knowledge Systems
The way “text augmentation” is defined, as quoted in the article, is rather illuminating about “enhanced
e-books” concepts, too: “The system uses five levels of text augmentation. Together, these levels
provide a multi-faceted library of reference tools keyed by ‘hot buttons’ in the text that work like
footnotes. When activated, each level will highlight portions of the text as live buttons; using a mouse
pointing device, the student or teacher can then click on these buttons to bring up reference support.
References are delivered in the most natural possible manner – frequently through documentary
footage delivered in brief video clips.” The five levels of filters include:
• Definitions;
• Context (cultural and historical references for words and phrases);
• Interpretations (multiple oral readings and critical interpretations of sections);
• Method (analyses of literary devices and patterns);
• Link (universal themes and patterns in the work).

There are a lot of other examples of enhanced books from the CD-ROM multimedia era, including The
Voyager Company’s Expanded Books, numerous children’s titles turned CD-ROM, professional and
STM CD-ROM titles that provided video and simulations, illustrations and images, audio and, even,
read-out-loud.
Was the problem the media? CD-ROM and its higher capacity DVD and Blue Ray discs are still almost
ubiquitous, and especially compared to paper or VHS, a cheaper publishing medium. By 2000, the
installed base of multimedia-capable PCs was in the many hundreds of millions, and disc-online hybrids
had become a well-established model.
It wasn’t the media.
There are, of course, examples of enhanced e-books from today, and anyone making the e-book
conference rounds has likely seen many of the same titles. A current darling is The Elements: A Visual
Exploration by Theodore Gray, published by Black Dog & Leventhal (print edition) and Touch Press (iPad
app), and developed for the iPad by Skylark Associates. This title is available for the iPad in the App
Store, for $13.99, with the hardcover edition available in bookstores, with a $29.95 MSRP.
Figure 47. “The Elements,” a Contemporary Enhanced E-Book
Source: The Elements is an iPad app version of the print book by

Theodore Gray published by Black Dog & Leventhal (print edition)
and Touch Press (iPad app), and developed for the iPad by
Skylark Associates
The Elements, shown in Figure 47, includes over 500 rotatable 3D renderings of every element in
the periodic table. The app contains the full text of the print edition as well as integrated access to
the WolframAlpha computational knowledge engine. Readers can see multiple 3D samples of each
element, learn about its history, atomic properties, and uses, and even find current market prices.
Some elements also include video clips of scientific experiments, and the entire app can be viewed with
3D glasses for a deeper three-dimensional effect.Yes, spinning elements. Actually quite a striking title,
but then, so is the print edition, albeit you can’t see the backsides of elements and examples, and there
is no immediate linking in the hardbound version.

What has changed? Certainly, the platforms – iPad and netbooks – are more convenient, and Wi-Fi is
a godsend. But as the new millennium hit a decade back, there were somewhere around 900 million
installed PCs worldwide, and plenty of people were watching video and playing games and surfing the
web on them.
It isn’t the platform.
It is the content.
Getting good quality content in mono-medium (i.e., print) is tough enough, and far from cheap, unless
one insists on placing cost relative to rich media costs, in which case, producing text can be a whole lot
cheaper than producing video, animation, simulation, illustration, images, audio, music, and so forth.
But ask any book publisher if getting content and shaping its quality for a book – print or e-book – is
cheap, and any book publisher will let you know that getting content and shaping its quality is pretty
much the most expensive part of the publisher’s efforts.
Emerging Enhanced E-Book Platforms

In our opinion, one of the most interesting enhanced e-book creation and reading platforms is Blio,
a joint project of book distribution giant Baker & Taylor and Ray Kurzweil’s company, K-NFB Reading
Technologies. Although the capabilities of this platform offer publishers nothing new, the cost and
interface for the creation of the Blio version is low and as simple – in theory, anyway – as submitting a
print-ready PDF file to Baker & Taylor.
The result is an e-book that can highlight words, read out loud (using a synthetic text-to-voice option),
and otherwise be a page-turning facsimile to the original print title, and, not surprisingly, the title
gets distributed through Baker & Taylor, for the usual distributor percentage. Another benefit is that
Blio readers are – or will be shortly – available for standalone readers, PCs, iPads, and whatever other
devices look like they would be worthwhile to port over to, given a two-week notice.
Among the most interesting Blio-related news comes from Quark, which unveiled Digital Publishing
2.0 in June 2010. Quark has teamed with K-NFB Reading Technology and Baker & Taylor to ensure
Digital Publishing 2.0 delivers useful tools for digital content creation, digital content distribution, and
the digital e-reading experience for Blio e-readers, in addition to more traditional applications. Quark,
which has lost significant market share among book publishers over the years to Adobe InDesign, and
the fast move with Blio could prove a strong counterweight to Adobe’s momentum.
Don’t expect Quark to solve all problems for book publishers looking to publish enhanced e-books. If
the book publisher is going to add a lot of new material – whether embedded, such as video or audio
clips, or links to web-based resources, there is a lot to learn, or outside people to pay.

Not only are there lots of different audio and video formats (See Figure 48) – never mind the recording
and videography expertise that will be required – but there are a lot of audio and video metadata
issues, too. Record labels, and audio users like radio, TV, film, and the web have inconsistent metadata
schemes. All of these constituencies need, and to some degree have, different technical, administrative,
commercial, descriptive, and rights metadata that may overlap, intersect, or otherwise complicate
things.
Figure 48. A Sampling of Video Formats
Source: Wikipedia, “Comparison of video resolutions.”

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ File:Vector_Video _Standards2.svg)
Image metadata is similar, both in terms of formats – .jpeg, .tiff, .psd, to name a few – but these also are
carried by metadata container formats – Exif/TIFF, XMP, PSIR, IPTC-IIM – each of which has a variety of
semantic schemes, and each of which has many metadata properties, and, of course, there are more
inconsistencies than commonalities in all of these schemes.
Video metadata has PBCore and EBU Core, which focus on archiving; EBU P-Meta, which focuses on
video production; SMPTE MXF, which focuses on technical containers for video, including some basic
metadata; and IPTC and XMP, which are being adapted to video. And pretty much all of this comes from
the broadcast world.
Not only are there the content creation and format challenges, but video production can be expensive.
Also, if the publisher is dependent on the author or a third-party for creating and/or acquiring video
content, there can well be rights issues. Finally, publishers can be challenged to make multimedia—
especially video—work readily with their content in different distribution formats.

Publishers that check their technology ambition to concentrate on quality content and user experience
will be the publishers who push the concept of enhanced e-books into the success that’s been elusive
now for two decades.
Social Media as Enhancement

Oprah’s reading recommendations may remain the biggest fantasy for book publishers – well, trade
book publishers – to ever have appeared, with the promise of blockbuster sales associated with the
right mention. Special sales in the book clubs remain, to this day, a factor in a trade book’s P&L. Web-
based efforts like Shelfari are making a go of social media focused on reading, Amazon has its Reading
Lists, and Facebook its “favorite reads.” In various educational publishing efforts – typically those
within an online environment – student-to-student interaction is a built-in feature, including study
groups and notes sharing. The Gilbane Group has long seen social media within enterprises, whether
in the form of blogs, wikis, tweets, or other forms of collaboration.
We see that the social media experience is already establishing itself within e-books, and we believe
that social media will emerge as one of the key enhancements to e-books. Such enhancements will
support reader-to-reader communication and the development of self-identifying groups sharing
mutual interests, and thus, effective marketing and sales channels from publisher to customer. Social
media will likely emerge as a central component for e-book promotion and discoverability. Well-
designed and well-supported social media tied to specific e-book titles and to publishing efforts may
become a development and sales channel for customized books and e-books, including customer-
produced content such as reading group guides, custom editions, sequels, fanfic (fan fiction, derivative
work based on published novels and their characters and worlds), blogs, contests, author meetings,
and special selections.
Copia is an example of how this kind of social media enhancement might take place. Unveiled by
DMC Worldwide at CES 2010, Copia describes itself as “an open platform that combines content,
social networking, and e-commerce with an array of wireless e-readers to deliver an experience
around shared discovery. The Copia platform reinvents the way consumers experience content.” The
re-invention of which DMC Worldwide speaks of includes “new way[s] to discover, enjoy, share and
purchase books, newspapers, magazines and a wide variety of digital content.” Specifically, the Copia
platform includes:
• Social Networking Compatibility: Community profiles are linked to existing Facebook, Twitter, and
LinkedIn accounts, enabling users to share content across social media platforms;
• Collaboration Tools: Groups (including, according to DMC Worldwide’s intentions), can highlight,
annotate, and share reading content with other group members, including access to annotations
from the entire community;
• Multi-Dimensional Browsing Experience: E-book content can be displayed in various ways for users
to browse and find what’s most relevant; content can be browsed by community rating, tags from
users or publishers, notations, popularity, and price;

• Intuitive Search and Display Features: TheCopia.com offers multiple paths to discovery; users can
filter search criteria, search results are provided in dynamic content views, and users can toggle
between list views to expanded views across multiple content;
• Personalized Home Dashboards: Users connect to others via a home dashboard that displays
consumed content, and personalized reading recommendations from friends;
• Unique E-Book Profiles: Books are given community value scores that connect to user ratings
and reviews; social recommendations are powered by various user feedback and a proprietary
numerical system;
• Book Clubs Re-Envisioned: Users can create book groups to discuss and share reading experiences;
users can also set personal data metrics for reading goals, create milestones, and set challenges
among members to further reading as a social experience;
Figure 49. A Copia E-Reader, Showing a Reading Community Review Page
Source: Copia
The business model for Copia is interesting, although as yet untested, as TheCopia.com has only recently
gone into beta. The company seeks not just consumers for the e-books and community services it
offers, but also publishers that wish to integrate the Copia application engine for OEM brands “looking
to deliver content across their digital devices including e-readers, note-books, netbooks, tablets and
smartphones,” according to the company. Copia includes a hardware play, too, with Copia e-readers
that will be available for purchase online and at retail later this year.
Interactivity is a Click Away

The other e-book enhancement strategy that The Gilbane Group thinks is likely – if less glamorous
than Flash video or rotating 3D chunks of Beryllium – is in the provision of links to outside resources.
The technology for this is well-understood and easily enough implemented (as this is the underlying
architecture of the web – hypertext transfer protocol). And, of course, there is a huge amount of content
of every sort – from text to all kinds of rich media – already existing and available on the web.

In other words, embedding links into e-book content is technically simple, and because so much web-
based content already exists, the linking to such content is inexpensive, especially compared to the
costs of the publisher creating such content itself. There are still costs, of course, including the time
and effort of identifying web-based content that is both relevant and desirable to the reader. This
sounds pretty much like an editorial operation, right? Indeed, not every link must be external: table
of contents, indexes, glossaries, footnotes, and expanded images and other art program elements
(tables, figures) are all examples of traditional editorial features that have long been mapped to
hypertext applications.
There are challenges for publishers going this route, although as a practical matter many publishers –
again, more so in education, professional, and STM publishing – have long experience with publishing
titles with embedded links. Link maintenance and management is one problem that has not yet been
fully solved, and will require some ongoing attention by the publisher. Rights and permissions don’t
figure in if links are external, although the law is still somewhat ambiguous if sites are “captured” within
the title application itself, or if the link goes to a site that is itself in copyright violation. But such rights
checking too falls well within the editor’s traditional purview.
The other challenge of note has to do with reading devices, where connectivity is a concern, as is the
reading device’s ability to present the type of media being linked to. The original Kindle, for example,
offers a connection primarily for downloading distinct e-book titles, and does not have either a robust
interface for link-heavy content, or the screen to satisfactorily display a range of images or video. On
the other hand, there are internal links that can be active in Kindle, and newer models are promising
greater interactivity, although this might wait for ePub 2.1 to be finalized.
A Brief Glimpse into the Future
A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation: Seven Essential Processes to Re-Invent Publishing has
provided analysis about current trends and likely developments in e-book and digital publishing that
may prove useful guidance for book publishers seeking to develop their digital publishing programs over
the next few years. Some areas of development, like the use of digital printing, are already well along,
and some concerns, such as conflicting e-book devices and unsettled formats are more red herrings
than significant barriers for book publishers’ moving forward, where the issue of digital workflow and
XML format within production processes offer the key to specific and uncertain conversion targets.
We would be remiss not to look a further way down the road. In Outsell’s February 2010 CEO Topics
report, 2010 – The Year of Reckoning: Five Crucial Technologies for Information Publishing, by Marc
Strohlein, Outsell concludes that there are many “disruptive” technologies emerging of special interest
to information publishers. In this undertaking, Outsell selected five technologies that it believes
information providers need to factor into their business and product planning. These five technologies
are:
• Cloud computing;
• Mobile computing;
• Next generation business intelligence;
• Semantic technology;

• Enterprise 2.0.
We agree with our Outsell colleagues’ analysis that all five of the featured technologies will be important
in one way or another to information providers. In combination with the technologies highlighted in
this study, such as XML, these five technologies will form the bedrock for the next generation of content
selling, provisioning, and monetization. To this list we add – or redefine for book publishing specifically
– the following technologies breakout:
• Integration;
• Production flows, including XML;
• DAMs, DADs, and distribution;
• Devices.
Not that there isn’t some overlap with Outsell’s list above; for example, cloud computing and integration
can be part and parcel, especially considering the growth of Software as Service (SaaS) options from
publishing vendors of content management, production outsourcing, digital asset management and
distribution, and e-commerce options, to name only a few. Cloud computing and devices too overlap
with mobile computing.
While publishers have been experimenting with blogs, wikis, social networks, and the like (collectively
Web 2.0) and wondering where the money is, a parallel universe has been evolving in enterprises,
dubbed by Andrew McAfee “Enterprise 2.0.” For many publishers, that parallel universe may, in fact,
be where the money is.
Figure 50. Disruptive Technologies on the Horizon

Mobile Computing
Search Cloud Computing
Importance Web Analytics and Business Intelligence
Semantic Tech
High RIA Enterprise 2.0 Mobile-Cloud Computing
XML Singularity
Blogs Semantic Web
HTML 5/Silverlight/AIR
Location-Based Computing
Natural Language Processing
Open Source Software
Dynamic Scripting Languages RDF/SPARQL Augmented Reality-ARML
Micro-Targeted Advertising
Microblogs Agents
APIs Ontologies Wearable Computers
Taxonomies 802.11n
RSS
Mash-Ups E-Paper Visualization 3D/Holographic Displays
E-Readers Cloud-based Gaming
Netbooks RFID/RFID Dust
Virtual Reality/Communities
Wikis
Vertical Search REST
Micro Formats
Low
Today - 2 Years 2 - 4 Years 5 Years and Out

© 2010 Outsell, Inc. Reproduction strictly prohibited.

The Gilbane Group sees SaaS already well underway in the services for book publishers, especially in
the e-book distribution and marketing areas. Another important, but only recently emerging SaaS
service that bears close watching, is in the area of title information management and ERP alternatives
that may prove to be the entry for book publishers realizing significant new efficiencies from their
digital publishing migration.
The Gilbane Group welcomes the emphasis Outsell places on the total ecosystem in which the device
exists in its identification of “Mobile Computing” instead of the focus only on e-readers, netbooks,
smartphones, or tablets. Kindles may come and go, and today’s love affair with the iPad could end
up yet another footnote in tech history. But as we’ve stressed elsewhere in this study, the progress
book publishers are making in bringing content into digital and XML workflows, among other industry
developments, will largely offset the potential market-retarding effect of any specific e-reader device
failures over the next couple of years and forward.
We see Enterprise 2.0 technology as being important to information providers because, as the February
2, 2010 Outsell CEO Topics report put it:
• The tools enable and drive significant changes in the way the knowledge workers do their jobs,
most notably around the finding, sharing, and collaborative re-use of information;
• Enterprise 2.0 tools can and will become the gateways for external information to enter
organizations;
• The tools evolved naturally on the web and are seeing rapid uptake in business settings, very
much unlike knowledge management tools, which were generally force-fed to users with little
success.
Table 10 is from Outsell’s report on five crucial technologies. We would add into cloud computing:
e-book distribution and marketing services and some of the new SaaS-based ERP and TIM offerings
being made to book publishers. For book publishing, especially, it may make sense to add Apple to this
list of big players, both because of the value of the “cloud-connected” devices Apple produces (e.g.,
iPad), but also because of the apps approach and services such as iBook store.
Table 10. Major Cloud Vendors and Services

Company Cloud Service(s) Description
Google Google Apps, AppEngine, Google Gears, Complete stack of applications, tools,
Google Web Toolkit, Google Gadgets, G and services from the application layer to
Data, GAE Database storage and infrastructure
Microsoft Azure Complete stack of applications, tools,
and services from the application layer to
storage and infrastructure
Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2), Simple • IaaS: offers computing services on
Storage Service (S3), and SimpleDB demand
• Saas: offers on demand storage for
structured and Blob (binary large
object) content


Much of the coverage given to the issue of publishing processes integration in earlier sections of the
report could have as easily been labeled “Enterprise 2.0,” along with previous discussions of social
media’s growing role in book publishing’s success. Of interest in regard to a different sort of integration
is the carryover of technologies like “Enterprise 2.0” and “Cloud Computing,” with another of the
emerging technologies, “Business Intelligence.”
While business intelligence (BI) technology is not “publishing technology”, Outsell believes that the
ongoing evolution of BI and web analytic tools will shape the way that enterprises use purchased
content, and in turn, will drive requirements for how publishers package and deliver content. There
are some direct applications of this emerging technology for some segments of book publishing –
specifically professional publishing – that will mean information providers will have to package content
that can be embedded into BI applications, co-residing with information from internal enterprise
applications.
From better integration of transactional elements for content products, to usage and rights tracking
and more flexible business models, The Gilbane Group sees business intelligence emerging as a crucial
publishing advantage, based on large part in our prediction of advances in metadata tagging of content
that includes business rules. But tagging mechanisms – especially for more sophisticated concepts like
business rules – remains more of a future development then an immediate need for implementation
on the part of publishers.
Semantic technology is another of Outsell’s future technologies to pay attention to, and book
publishers – especially in the STM segment – have been in the forefront of these efforts for many years.
As Strohlein puts it, “Semantic technology covers a broad swath of applications, some more useful
than others. It goes beyond descriptive tagging and ‘whatness’ to encoding meaning extracted from
content to infer ‘aboutness’.”
From search engine optimization and improved support for automated custom publishing, to the
potential disintermediation of traditional retail channels by expanding the efficacy of “discoverability”
of content, semantic tagging will have a great impact on publishing. The main questions remain,
however, what tools and processes need be available, and when will such advances become widely
and cost-efficiently implementable? The Gilbane Group has long advocated rich tagging strategies, but
even we temper the theory with the practical constraints of addressing who does it, how is it done, and
what particular benefits can be derived from it. At some point in the next couple of years or so, these
questions will have answers, and the consequences for publishing will be profound.

Blueprint Case Studies
Wolters Kluwer Health: Digital – and the Right Partner – First
The reputation of Wolters Kluwer Health (WKH) for providing the very highest level of intelligence to
life science and healthcare professionals is long established. Professionals and students rely on WKH
textbooks, reference products, and journals. The publisher’s bibliographic and reference databases,
drug information software, point-of-care tools, web-based information systems, and online continuing
education products also support the delivery of health information via interactive formats. Second only
to Elsevier in size among scientific, technical, and medical (STM) publishers, WKH’s focus is medical-
only, unlike Elsevier.
Wolters Kluwer Health is best known for its Ovid and Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins brands. Lippincott,
Williams & Wilkins, referred to most often simply as LWW, is a book and journals publisher, serving
medical, health, and nursing professionals with titles for clinicians and the academic markets,
including teaching universities, along with journals for the academic and clinical markets. “There are
approximately 280 journals published by LWW,” reports Neil Schmidt, Vice President, Operations. “We
also have about 3,000 active book titles.” Wolters Kluwer Health’s other brands include medical and
drug reference tools such as Facts & Comparisons and electronic information providers such as Ovid,
UpToDate, Medi-Span, and ProVation Medical.
A number of WKH’s core publishing programs were leading efforts in electronic publishing decades
ago. Ovid, for example, started as an online provider of The National Library of Medicine’s MEDLINE
database, but has since grown into a wide range of other databases and other products. Early on, Ovid
used – and continues to use – an SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) format, as WKH
strived to incorporate new imprints and services for its customers. Further enhancing content that
must be delivered through fast-expanding channels and in a moving-target of media devices, WKH
continues to evolve its product lines.
Wolters Kluwer Health, headquartered in Philadelphia, Penn., is part of Wolters Kluwer, a market-
leading global information services company that addresses professionals in the areas of legal,
business, tax, accounting, finance, audit, risk, compliance, and healthcare. Wolters Kluwer had 2009
annual revenues of $4.8 billion, and employs approximately 19,300 people worldwide, in over 40
countries across Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and Latin America.
Challenge
Neil Schmidt points out that the Ovid side of Wolters Kluwer Health is not a publisher, but an aggregator
of strictly electronic content. The content is provided by LWW from its books and journals, along with
content supplied in electronic form from other publishers. “Currently,” says Schmidt, “Ovid has over
4,000 electronic books on its platform.”

Medical professionals have to purchase a subscription to Ovid. “There are multiple versions of titles,
and we’ve been moving toward the media-neutral environment, which means that we create content
to be displayed and previewed in the way that the user wants to view it,” Schmidt points out, “including
creating content to be hosted on many devices, including Kindle, iPhone, and iPad.” There is also the
traditional PDF that a subscriber may wish to download to his or her hard drive, so that it can be read
later. “It’s all about the search and user experience that makes searching on Ovid a rich and rewarding
experience,” Schmidt says.
The VP of Operations’ responsibilities begin at author submission, right through the publication’s
production, whether print or electronic. “We get the content ready to be published in the form that it
wants to be used in by our customers,” Schmidt says. Wolters Kluwer Health takes the content from
the participating publishers and prepares it for display on the Ovid platform. The editorial side takes
on title and author acquisitions for books. According to Jabin White, Director of Strategic Content, at
Wolters Kluwer Health, Professional & Education, “The front list for WKH is about 150 book titles, and
about 80% of these titles are new editions of previously published works. We have many cornerstone
titles; one example is the oncology text Principles & Practice of Oncology, or PPO, which started back
in the 1970s, and changed the way that cancer is treated.”
Wolters Kluwer Health does something digital with all print titles being published, although many are
only put on Books at OVID, which had been the online strategy for a few years at WKH. “We’re actually
doing other things with electronic publishing now,” says White, although the “default playbook” is to
send the titles to Books at OVID. But there is a definite shift from the way WKH had worked in its early
days on the web, according to White, in the efforts to identify revenues from digital content, with the
company moving some of the P&L responsibilities to new positions that reflect the creation of new
digital products. Some of these digital products are for e-reader devices and smartphones, and have
WKH rapidly working to convert content into ePub.
Part of White’s responsibilities is to build better infrastructure, which means conversion is currently
being done, according to him, “after the deal is made,” and executed by a conversion vendor who then
sends on the files to whoever had licensed the content. “We’re talking small numbers still,” says White.
“We’ve got less than 100 titles in ePub.” Wolters Kluwer Health talks to “all the obvious players who
want e-books – Amazon, Apple,” and there are also what White calls “pocket deals” which are more
specific to a particular niche. At this point, however, “every one of these outputs is a separate thing,”
admits White, but the company is actively working toward building the workflow that will support
creating content in LWW XML. It is from the XML format that content is then transformed into ePub,
VitalBook (for the VitalSource platform), or any other format that may be required.
The journals side of things can be quite different, where there are relationships between WKH and
professional societies, with WKH publishing titles for the societies; at least half of all journals operate
editorially in this manner. The other half of the journals are proprietary, where WKH is the publisher
and editorial driver, but these, like the others, must meet rigorous production deadlines. One of the
biggest challenges for WKH is getting production workflows to be more effective, while at the same
time supporting the growing list of formats the digital publishing world now demands.

Meeting the Challenge
Wolters Kluwer Health uses, within its production process of content creation and preparation for
publishing, services from Aptara Corporation. Within the in-house production department, EMC’s
Documentum is used to track content through the production cycle, but “it has been customized to fit
our business needs in our journal production process,” notes Schmidt.
Especially in the journals publishing program, Documentum has been the incumbent control system,
and Aptara is linked to Documentum through RSS feeds in order to pass content being worked on
by Aptara directly and electronically, complete with e-mail notification generation to the relevant
WKH workers. The services Aptara provides Wolters Kluwer Health are full range, from copy-editing
to composition, and from metadata tagging to file conversion. “All of our vendors – including Aptara
– help us move authors’ content into an XML environment for production,” Schmidt says. The tagging
requirements reflect the different specialties of the content and the way WKH intends to serve that
content to the market. “Ovid has a proprietary SGML tagging format that it uses, and Aptara adapts
well to the changing digital requirements of the publishing world. Aptara just did a nice little suite of
projects for our pathology network in our e-journals program, in the ePub format. They can handle
most mobile and device formats used in the market today.”
Digital-First, XML-Early
In regard to WKH books, conversion is usually done as one-off instances, says White, and his team will
send to Aptara what they have for the title. “If the title is from after May 2009, we have XML,” White
says, “but if it is before, then it can be a crap shoot. We sometimes send PDF, we’ve got Quark files…
it is nasty.” For many publishers, e-book format confusion can seem like a barrier, but WKH shrugs off
this concern. “I’m still naïve enough to go for the ‘Big Enchilada,’ that is, going for XML-first content
creation and management,” says White, referring to the content workflow ideal that has content itself
being created in XML, as opposed to the more common real-world implementation – sometimes called
“XML-early” – where content is created in whatever authoring tool the content creators use (such
as the ubiquitous Microsoft Word), but then is converted to XML format as early in the editorial and
production process as possible.
“If you take the example of Aptara,” says Schmidt, “we just give them the content and have them
prepare it for whatever formats we want. They have the technology and capability to handle it. It makes
sense to use them because they are the ones taking the content, composing it, copy-editing it from
the beginning, and putting it in electronic format right from the point of author submission.” These
sort of capabilities from outsource vendors have only been widely available over the last couple of
years, Schmidt points out, and it has made all the difference. “We call it ‘digital-first,’ putting content
into a digital format as soon as possible, and we’re moving forward with the NLM (National Library
of Medicine) XML standard, requiring all our vendors to be in that standard.” Like White, Schmidt
would like to think of WKH as being all XML-first, but there are some remaining outliers among the
publications. “The majority of our work is already in XML format,” Schmidt says.

The WKH digital publishing culture is still evolving, according to White. OVID’s content is in OVID SGML,
but White is rebuilding the process to make the data that feeds into the OVID book engine and on to the
various customer-facing solution sites flow through more easily. “Right now,” says White, “if the book
content is going to a solution site, we’re doing a post-compositor XML conversion, and then sending it
to OVID.” Since last May [2009], White has been enforcing conversion into the LWW DTD, and then to
the OVID Document Type Definition, or DTD. “Now we have a little more richness and we’re trying to
put in some systems to allow us to do that more easily,” says White. The new systems include RSuite
CMS, from Really Strategies, and White’s group is working on an XML repository to hold title files.
Mapping the Metadata

At WKH, composition is now completely outsourced, along with other pieces of the editorial and
production process to support the changing digital model. “The copy-editing is outsourced, and we’re
pretty lean in what used to be called ‘developmental editing.’ Those responsible for this area in-house
are now called product managers,” reports White. “Those guys basically outsource a lot, and their role
now is more one of ‘traffic cop’ internally, and they have a network of freelancers for the developmental
editing type work, the copy-editing is all outsourced.” White also describes four-person design groups
that do templates. They’ll do a sample chapter and send that over to the compositor, who does the
actual composition and page building. It is all external, artwork, medical illustration; it is all freelance,
supervised by the design group internally.”
“One thing that is demonstrative of some of the issues that we face,” says White, “is that every title has
a different story in terms of collecting the metadata,” and he thinks that currently this is more difficult
than it should be. White says, “The content itself is kind of the easy part, comparatively – you send the
PDFs to the vendors, and they take care of the rest – but we had these Excel spreadsheets that we were
passing around for collecting the metadata in the flavor that CourseSmart wanted, and then different
metadata for the ePub titles, and these weren’t necessarily the same. So finding the right people to fill
in the right fields was as much of a pain as finding the content itself.”
This is an area where applying RSuite CMS will have the most impact, thinks White. “Having a bulletproof
system that has everything we need in terms of content and metadata,” from which it can be sent out,
is the overall objective of the new implementation. “I’ve said this hundreds of times,” remarks White,
“but it is as much about the people and the processes as it is about the [software] systems.”
The types of metadata include ONIX, which WKH “does struggle with,” according to White, but the
group is also pursuing a Firebrand Technologies initiative to address this. “CourseSmart wants specific
information – copyright, image permission, full-text location, book cover display handling, yes/no
fields regarding other display options on that licensee’s site – things like that. These questions aren’t
that difficult. The difficulty is finding the person internally who has the answer,” complains White. “First
Bob has to have the spreadsheet, and then Bob’s got to send it to Sally, who has to answer this other
question, and without infrastructure everything takes longer than you think.”
Step one in solving these problems, White maintains, is having a place to collect and store the metadata.
He sees the solution in a central repository for the metadata that anyone who needs to contribute can
access, with the proper permissions. White uses the DeVita textbook [PPO] as an example. “Here’s

the DeVita, Ninth Edition, and it is stored here, and I need this person to fill out this piece of metadata,
and I need that person to fill out that piece of metadata,” White explains. “I need to send both of these
people to the same place, not an Excel spreadsheet as an attachment to an e-mail.”
The current process gets even clumsier as it is repeated for every output WKH deals in, such as
CourseSmart, VitalSource, ePub, or others. “It is a little bit about the commonality of metadata,” says
White, “but more about not getting in our own way because of a lack of systems.” White points out
that there are what he calls “nuances” or differences in the required information that is dependent
on output formats. The other half of this problem, even if a common metadata standard did exist, is,
according to White, the tremendous amount of work required internally, because WKH does not have
a mature system for handling metadata collection. “We’re custom building every piece of metadata
that is required,” says White.
“My goal is to get everything we have into a centralized, controlled location,” declares White. Wolters
Kluwer Health, he points out, also uses Semedica, from Silverchair, for the semantic enrichment
so central to medical publishing. “That’s it, soup to nuts,” remarks White, “RSuite CMS, repository,
semantic enrichment. It’s not rocket science.”
Lessons Learned
Today, for most publishers, it remains “a pain,” White believes, to get the files needed for e-book or
other forms of digital publishing, and so costs may remain too high for e-book publishing to make
economic sense. “I’m not particularly involved in [P&L] decisions for e-books,” admits White, “but
those making these decisions are of the mind that we have to be there, but it is not, ‘Damn the costs!’”
White sees this as part of the motivation for the systems-level work he champions, in terms of building
the infrastructure needed. “The unspoken thing is that I’m going to be reducing these costs,” he says,
reiterating the barrier that backlist title files present, along with the challenges of dealing with the
many output formats these files must take on.
Within WKH, non-strategic processes are outsourced using six outsource editorial production vendors
to help the publisher be prepared for the digital transformation the market demands. “There are not
enough strong vendors out there to handle the various requirements of journals publishing,” Schmidt
believes. The advantage in cost savings is one important reason why companies like WKH outsource
publication production, but there are also the technology benefits of doing so. “Aptara has a platform
that converts content and tags it for loading into various production platforms. They’ve made a huge
investment in their technology,” remarks Schmidt.
What does digital publishing contribute to revenue at WKH? “If you’re talking about Ovid,” reports
Schmidt, “then we are all electronic. That is now becoming a requirement of journal publishing as well,
and we are transforming to meet those requirements. Ovid has been doing this for 20 years, and the
expectation is to do more with technology to drive growth.” WKH has been migrating to digital for
quite some time, and the growth prospects are proven. Says Schmidt, “This is not the Google world.
You are a professional, you want deep precision searching that delivers the right answers. This is critical
in the health care industry: ease of use deep vertical search; getting the right answer at the right time,
the first time.” If you are a researcher or medical practitioner, Schmidt points out, and you’re looking
for cutting edge information, you want peer-reviewed content with a basis in solid research.

“WKH has recognized this convergence of old and new, and we’ve taken steps to ensure content is
delivered in the way our readers and researchers need to consume it,” says Schmidt. “The journals
business is farther along than books in the e-transition, but the important thing is that we’ve taken
what is considered a traditional publisher and have begun the transformation to digital publishing in a
media neutral environment,” he remarks.
Will print ever go away? “None of us believe that,” says Schmidt, “but digital has changed our world.”
Gilbane Conclusions
Wolters Kluwer Health presents a great example of the state of digital publishing. One of the early
users of SGML, with Ovid, this huge publishing company is facing the issue of new digital formats
such as ePub and new revenue opportunities afforded by partnering with the right service providers,
such as Aptara. One of the most important goals WKH has pursued is to bring XML into the editorial
and production process as early as possible, and has done so through the use of Aptara’s manuscript
conversion processes. By outsourcing much of its publishing processes, WKH builds its production
workflow capabilities while keeping its core competencies of being a premier publishing house.
Efforts are underway at WKH to further rationalize the various demanding workflows reflecting
different product types and delivery formats, and it remains to be seen how the implementation of
Really Strategies’ RSuite CMS publishing content management platform and XML repositories will
affect the current advantages WKH enjoys with vendors like Aptara. That Aptara’s technology engines
are likely to continue to drive efficient conversion of publication formats, and that WKH’s expansion
and control of metadata management is likely to drive new content products and market opportunities,
suggests that the prospect of ongoing mutual benefit in the customer/vendor relationship is strong.
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McGraw-Hill Higher Education: Going All Out Digital Starts with XML-Early Education
With revenue at almost $6 billion and a net income of $730 million, The McGraw-Hill Companies have
been a leader in providing trusted information and analysis for well over a century.
A major part of The McGraw-Hill Companies and its 21,649 employees, McGraw-Hill Education [MHE]
is a global education company that spans the full spectrum of lifelong learning from early childhood
development to professional development. With offices in 33 countries and materials in 65 languages,
the company partners with schools and universities around the world. Through both textbooks and
advanced digital platforms, the company provides students and professionals with the instructional
framework and pedagogy to learn effectively and achieve better results.
One of four main divisions of MHE is McGraw-Hill Higher Education [MHHE], which serves the growing
demand for postsecondary instruction. In addition to publishing some of the world’s most respected
textbooks, it has developed McGraw-Hill Connect and other digital learning platforms that customize
learning around the needs of individual students. The company believes, from its most recent annual
report, that “the digitization of education is the opportunity of the century for personalizing and
improving learning for students, regardless of distance and time.”
McGraw-Hill Higher Education has put its belief in digital into practice, and today offers college students
new editions of McGraw-Hill LearnSmart, the company’s all-digital, adaptive study program that tailors
study materials around students’ individual needs. For college faculty, the company has launched
McGraw-Hill Create for digital custom publishing. Using this web-based platform, instructors can build
custom course materials from a selection of nearly 4,000 McGraw-Hill books and thousands of articles,
case studies, and other resources. In addition to Create, the Connect platform provides a powerful
online learning assignment and assessment solution. McGraw-Hill conducted in-depth research to
create a new learning experience that meets the needs of students and instructors today. The result is
a reinvented learning experience rich in information, visually engaging, and easily accessible to both
instructors and students.
Challenge
Christian Kaefer is the Director of Content Strategies for McGraw-Hill Higher Education. The position, he
notes, is much more focused on the content development area than IT. “McGraw-Hill Higher Education
typically publishes between 800 and 900 core textbook titles each year,” says Kaefer, not counting
ancillary or supplemental material. McGraw-Hill Higher Education spans the complete spectrum of
disciplines, but the focus is across the four areas of business/economics, science/engineering/math,
humanities/social sciences/languages, and career.

Kaefer has only recently moved into his new position, but in the 10 years prior, he focused on content
models and metadata models across the various education divisions at McGraw-Hill. Now, specifically
for MHHE, Kaefer is the key driver for XML workflows and the continuing development of content
models, and is involved with authoring and composition tools and services, quality assurance, and
archiving. “In my new position,” Kaefer says, “I’m really focusing on working with production to
continue to remove the separation between print and digital products and move towards a content
production environment where we see print and digital simultaneously.”
While there are always exceptions, notes Kaefer, “generally speaking – and assuming that all the
licensing and digital rights are in place – most of our textbooks will end up as a digital product.”
McGraw-Hill Higher Education is a member of the CourseSmart consortium, and Kaefer points out
that by agreement MHHE is required to have all textbooks available on CourseSmart. “This is a simple
e-book process,” Kaefer says, “where we provide the PDF and an XML-based table of contents.”
Today, Kaefer says, referring to how book jobs are delivered to printers, “everything is print-ready
PDF.” McGraw-Hill Higher Education produces “the various flavors of PDF,” as Kaefer puts it, along
with ePub formats that are supported by various devices.
Kaefer also notes that the publisher is careful to select the right content for the simpler e-reader
devices that are black and white text-only, with small screens. “Certainly, when you look at the
Science, Engineering, Math space,” says Kaefer, “or once you get into textbooks that have a lot of
color, readers like the Kindle just don’t work.” Kaefer says the iPad seems like a “great opportunity,”
and he lauds the move toward big screen, color capability, whether in the iPad or other devices that are
emerging. “Those types of devices are the ones we’re focusing on for the future, from an educational
publishing perspective,” noting that color and bigger screen sizes are “key drivers for us.” People are
experimenting with device configurations, Kaefer says. “It is an interesting time. Everyone is making
guesses and taking whacks at it, to see what works.”
Moving to “XML-Early”
“Within the educational publishing world today,” remarks Kaefer, “I think that ‘XML-early’ is the most
dominant approach being used in editorial and production workflows. Certainly, for us this is the case,
because it is difficult to ask the authors to work in XML, for many reasons.” However, Kaefer admits
that there can be problems with XML-early because of challenges around tools like Adobe’s InDesign,
and its limited ability to manage the XML well, especially depending on what type of publication is
being produced.
A colleague of Kaefer, Mark Tully, works as Director of Architecture for McGraw-Hill Education. “My
team supports the content creation process and the applications that facilitate that for the business,”
Tully remarks. “The applications include digital asset libraries, including rich media for some of the
more traditional book content – most of the content captured for the Higher Education publishing
efforts.” Tully’s team also supports the publishing workflow tool that is currently in use, and is part of
the effort to create the next generation of these applications. As an application architect in the digital
publishing and enterprise content management team, Tully, over the last year or so, has been focused

on refining the current content creation workflow, mostly for MHE. “The tool we had been using wasn’t
performing to our expectations and we started looking for a replacement,” Tully says. “During this
search we realized that there was a real opportunity to bring a larger portion of the workflow into one,
or a series of integrated systems to achieve greater cost savings, better quality of product, and faster
time to market.”
Tully found that the other departments within McGraw-Hill Education came to very similar conclusions,
which have driven MHHE’s XML-early goals. One thing that has become increasingly important is
multi-channel distribution. “In order to do this, you’d need to create XML up front,” says Tully. “That’s
not easy to do with InDesign.” Tully’s experience is that trying to do this automatically, after the fact,
doesn’t provide quality output and includes too much manual work and QA. “Our thought process is
that we need to create the XML up-front. In doing so, you can reduce the amount of QA that goes on in
the background and get some cost savings as well.”

McGraw-Hill Higher Education uses a full-range of outsourcing to support its XML-early initiatives,
which depend on many factors. “We have an author who writes the manuscript, and then from there
it goes to a full service vendor for the balance of the production process,” says Kaefer. “Other models
include any number of variations, balancing the need to outsource certain production aspects while
keeping some in house.”
“Within Higher Education, Aptara is one of our content technology vendors,” says Kaefer. “With
efficient platforms and procedures for taking in and handing off work, they do a lot of digital product
development and creation work for us, as well as composition. Aptara is a primary player in helping
MHHE achieve XML-early, by converting content into XML format after the editing and copy-editing
work is complete, and before composition.”
“Today, manuscripts come to us in various formats,” explains Kaefer, “from paper to PDF, and anything
in between.” MHHE manages the editing and copy-editing work, and then sends the copyedited
manuscript to a composition vendor such as Aptara, who then takes the manuscript and creates it
in XML. “At the point that the manuscript becomes XML, it validates against our DTD. DTDs may be
old school, but what the hey,” laughs Kaefer, “I like DTDs and they meet our needs.” Because Aptara
optimizes its own workflows to accommodate XML-first or XML-early in its processes, Kaefer notes
that the content can get poured into InDesign, and, after a number of revision cycles, the XML can be
extracted back out.
Working with the other MHE efforts, Tully tried Microsoft Word, but discovered that the combination of
tools that they were using with Microsoft Word was somewhat limiting. “They [editors and production]
came back to us with their experiences with blogs and WordPress, with which they’d had great success,
especially the web editor, and the wiki features and the whole Web 2.0 feel. They asked if we could do
something similar for the book creation process,” says Tully.

Thinking Logically
Tully describes a “light bulb moment” when his team identified the thing that is common across all
titles and components: the concept of a lesson. “There’s some version of the same content across the
editions, even while there may be additional content for the digital products [such as rich media]. While
something written for the student edition, for example, might not be able to be re-purposed word-for-
word for a website, it can be re-purposed with minimum effort,” Tully says. By turning their traditional
editorial and production process on its side and creating content for all the editions at once, it forced
the editorial and production teams to approach the content logically, with greater re-use the result.
Instead of using Microsoft Word, Tully’s team has started providing a rich text editor in a template that
reflects book processes and elements like chapters, and where the editors put, for example, the title
in one section of the template and the main body in another part, and so forth. “We had previously
assumed that the editorial and production people would never go for that, but now they are saying it
is great. Not only does this approach work for them, but it is beneficial in that it gives us the XML we
need and the ability to create content once and be able to distribute it through multiple channels,” Tully
notes. The template approach captures metadata automatically, and is designed to take away much of
the heavy tagging demands, while providing the ability to place tags inline.
Another advantage of this approach, especially with McGraw-Hill Education’s School Group, is that
much of this work is outsourced, and this editorial platform is used to capture the structure – and
instructions – for the outsourced authoring that happens. When an external freelance author is writing
his or her content, the web interface shows two panes, one with the blank template, the other with the
instructions from the editorial team on how to approach the content for the section or chapter. “We’re
still proving this approach out,” says Tully, “but the editorial team has been very enthusiastic.”
Lessons Learned
Kaefer sees MHHE developing more digital products as they move forward. “We are not necessarily
going to create more formats to support the number of growing devices,” he says, believing that the
multitude of devices will converge around a limited number of standards that will be widely supported.
“What we are doing is looking at our content and no longer talking about it as textbook content, but
as core content and asking ourselves what can be created out of it. The textbook is just one spoke on
the larger wheel,” content that is used to create more products for the student and the instructor.
“This is where I see continuous growth and activity creating digital products, which will be the primary
distribution type,” Kaefer reports.
Kaefer points to McGraw Hill’s new Create product as an early example of how new digital products will
come about. “The Create product allows you, at a granular level, to customize what today is still called
a ‘textbook,’ but we already call it a ‘project,’ because we allow the instructor to not only select from
more traditional materials, but build something new that may include non-textbook components, and
deliver to the instructor something way beyond just a customized textbook,” he says. Create aims to
deliver a complete customized experience.

The Create offering at McGraw-Hill, among other developments, has helped drive interest in print
on demand (POD) and other digital printing solutions across the company. Kaefer notes that POD
has worked for quite a while for simple text, but sees only recent developments in the prices and
technological capabilities to carry off small press runs of titles that require high-fidelity images or
other complex components. “On POD or short run, there has been a big differentiation in cost between
black and white and color,” Kaefer notes. Within McGraw Hill, a lot of effort has been undertaken with
print vendors to make more digital printing options available. “Today, within Create, you can have
a custom book with as few as 25 copies requested, in color, at a price point that is very palatable to
everybody,” Kaefer notes. “This is something that people will continue to drive toward: they want
highly customized, low run products.”
For a print version of a Create project, what is delivered to the digital printer vendor is a set of PDF files
that are the result of what the instructor selected, melded into a print-ready PDF. The Create platform
also serves MHHE’s own needs to keep titles in print or handle out-of-stock problems. “Create is a
platform that allows us to print otherwise out of print titles that an instructor orders,” says Kaefer,
“because we still have the content in our repositories.”
One of the current challenges in digital publishing, according to Kaefer, is content synchronization.
“The thought is that because content is digital it should be easy to maintain and update,” says Kaefer.
The reality, he argues, is that most big publishers do not have large, closed-loop publishing systems,
meaning that changes made at the core content level don’t necessarily get distributed across all the
publisher’s digital products. Even though the source content might reside on a publisher’s servers,
different digital products, such as e-book formats, may be created by various vendors, and these
vendors may not be fully tied into the publisher’s publishing system. “When we make a change at that
core content level, there is no system in place to make sure that all those usages of that core content
are automatically updated,” explains Kaefer. “This challenge is partly technology, partly workflow,
partly business process, and that is a big hurdle.”
Tully says that adding metadata is a top priority. “In the relative scheme of things, it’s a known problem
that is easily solved as opposed to some of the other challenges. We don’t talk about it a lot, but it’s
going to be an important part of what we are doing. In terms of using metadata effectively to create new
products or revenue streams, I’m looking to metadata to associate content with state standards.”
Rich media – images, video, audio, etc. – are recognized as media that give titles greater flexibility, and
are another priority for Tully’s team. “You can make the pages more engaging. It is a significant driver
for the titles partly because you can update digital media/web-based media on the fly. As a result you
get a better product at a much lower cost,” Tully says.
Gilbane Conclusions
McGraw-Hill Education is impressive in its use of XML, especially when looking at the efforts within
MHHE to bring all editorial and production processes into an “XML-early” environment. Its partnership
with outsourced vendors has been instrumental in this progress. McGraw-Hill Education has been using
XML for about seven years, and less than 30% of its titles are in XML. Mark Tully’s efforts to build and
implement rich XML editorial interfaces will be effective in raising the percentage of content in XML.

McGraw-Hill Education’s ongoing progress with XML-early, whether in-house or through outsourcing,
will be a critical prerequisite for developing tighter integration between core XML content and the
various digital transformations in editions and products. Without such integration, the prospects for
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John Wiley & Sons: When Digital Means Print
John Wiley & Sons traces its history back to 1807, when Charles Wiley, then 25 years old, opened a small
printing shop at 6 Reade Street in lower Manhattan, New York City. Wiley has seen vigorous growth
and dramatic change since the early 1990s. In financial terms, revenues increased from less than $300
million in FY1990 to over $1.6 billion in FY2008, with more than 5,100 employees.
The names of publishers and imprints acquired over the last two decades are a veritable Who’s Who
of the publishing industry across almost all key segments. Today, Wiley is made up of three divisions:
Scientific, Technical, Medical, and Scholarly (STMS), Professional/Trade (P/T), and Wiley Higher
Education (WHE).
Wiley’s Scientific, Technical, Medical, and Scholarly business, also known as Wiley-Blackwell, serves the
world’s research and scholarly communities, and is the largest publisher for professional and scholarly
societies. Wiley-Blackwell’s programs encompass journals, books, major reference works, databases,
and laboratory manuals, offered in print and electronically. Through Wiley InterScience, the division
provides online access to a broad range of STMS content through licensing agreements.
The second division is the Professional/Trade (P/T) business that serves professionals and consumers
alike, producing books, subscription content, and information services in all media, in targeted
categories. Wiley’s P/T portfolio of global brands includes For Dummies, Frommer’s, Betty Crocker,
Pillsbury, CliffsNotes, Webster’s New World, J.K. Lasser, Jossey-Bass, Pfeiffer, and Sybex. Subject areas
include business, technology, architecture, professional culinary, psychology, education, travel, health,
religion, consumer reference, pets, and general interest.
Wiley Higher Education, Wiley’s third division, serves undergraduate, graduate, and advanced
placement students, lifelong learners, and, in Australia, secondary school students. This division
publishes educational materials in all media, notably through WileyPLUS, their integrated online suite
of teaching and learning resources. The higher education-oriented part of Wiley has programs targeting
the sciences, engineering, computer science, mathematics, business and accounting, statistics,
geography, hospitality and the culinary arts, education, psychology, and modern languages.
Wiley’s increasingly direct digital relationships with customers lets the publisher better see how users
interact with its content, providing valuable feedback that guides the divisions in developing better
products and solutions, helping push developments in digital publishing forward for all.
Challenge
One of the most interesting applications of digital publishing at Wiley may at first seem less glamorous
than other of the publisher’s digital efforts, but the numbers tell the tale. Like every other book
publisher, John Wiley & Sons faces significant print-related costs and logistical challenges. For new

books destined for high print runs, unit prices for a title and the gross margin result can be just fine, but
as a publisher controlling well over 75,000 titles, Wiley has tough decisions to make about titles with
low stock numbers that don’t sell high numbers.
As digital printing technologies began to emerge from their early years as expensive solutions that
offered limited quality, Wiley investigated what the improving digital printers could do for it. Lynn
Terhune, Global Digital Print Administrator for Corporate at John Wiley & Sons, found herself wrestling
with meeting many challenges, including:
• Out of print titles;

• Lost orders and revenue due to low stock;
• Back order cancellations;
• Reprint decisions on low-selling titles aborted due to prohibitive offset print costs;
• Minimum quantity reprint decisions;
• Growing pressures on distribution center space requirements.
“In my opinion, one of the many things that people in the industry are tripping over right now is the
distinction between digital publishing in print and digital publishing in electronics and where they can
and will end up cohabitating in the future,” says Terhune. “I represent digital publishing for Wiley on
the print side.”
Terhune coordinates with all of the Wiley divisions – Higher Ed, Professional and Trade, and STMS – in
her role as the manager of Wiley’s Global Demand Print [GDP] Program. “Our US program is essentially
what people today think of as POD [Print-on-Demand], but we wanted to name it something different
because it is more than just POD,” notes Terhune. She is involved with all of the Wiley locations, which,
in addition to a number of editorial offices, include several distribution centers in the US, as well as in
the UK, Canada, Australia, and Singapore. Terhune works with inventory and manufacturing managers
in each of the three Wiley divisions on a day-to-day basis. As Administrator for GDP, her responsibilities
include continuous refining of criteria for title inclusion in the program, as well as evaluating the
associated costs and vendors digital print providers. “My role is to represent Wiley with the vendors
overall, negotiating any pricing, and make visits to the manufacturing facilities. Attending equipment
and trade shows and trying to keep up with this digital printing revolution is in Wiley’s best interest. It
helps us to better advise internally and hold discussions about equipment with our vendors,” Terhune
says.

“Most of our digital print vendors – whether for POD, meaning drop ship, or ultra-short run [USR] –
have HP Indigo equipment,” Terhune observes. “We’re HP’s customer’s customer.” Lightning Source
has been using the HP Indigo portfolio of equipment to manufacture covers for Wiley for years, notes
Terhune, naming one of their well-used digital print providers.

HP Indigo digital printing platforms’ dominance in the market – especially HP Indigo presses used
primarily for color books and cover jobs, as well as high quality and short run mono books – is such that
if Terhune is evaluating a new vendor and that vendor doesn’t have any HP Indigo equipment, or if they
are not producing the covers on an HP Indigo press, then that piques her interest. “I like to know what
equipment they are running and it’s always good to see samples,” she says. “The HP Indigo for book
cover manufacturing is a known quantity. I’ve seen hundreds of samples, and we have not had any
issues – except one specifically that I recall. We have produced over 1 million covers off HP Indigos in
just the last two fiscal years and I am extremely pleased with the consistency of the color and quality.”
Terhune notes that HP and Océ North America are a strong combination in the industry, with HP for
covers and Océ for text.
Systematically Managing Books

“We have a proprietary book project management system at Wiley. It interacts with our ordering system
for our distribution and fulfillment,” says Terhune. Wiley made the decision to accommodate the POD
program within its book systems because they knew early on that taking as many manual transactions
out of the process was key. It did not want to incur the same transactional costs for printing one book as
for 10,000. Much of the process leading up to choosing a title for Wiley’s Global Demand Print Program
can be done by an inventory manager or assistant simply by inputting an ISBN into the system to bring
up the title’s parameters. Basic title criteria in place in the system include the following:
• Trim size
• Page count
• Text presswork
• Cover colors / special effects
• Binding style
• Halftones
• Prior sales units
“The system will warn the user that there is a piece of the title that does not fit the vendor’s
manufacturing capabilities. A perfect example of a system warning is page count minimums and
maximums,” describes Terhune. This “criteria evaluation” goes on behind the scene, and then once
through that part of the process, there are other screens through which the user can look at unit costs,
adjust retail pricing, approve the gross margin, and send metadata – including information that would
normally be found on a purchase order – to the selected digital print providers. This element of Wiley’s
book system also tracks the title assets, such as text file and cover file.
The transmittal of the print order is automated as a B2B electronic communication to the vendor and
back to Wiley & Sons as needed. “All of our orders go through standard EDI [electronic data interchange]
language,” notes Terhune. Once the title is live, any order from a customer – whether direct through
Wiley.com or other of the publisher’s many channels – is split off for fulfillment. GDP titles route directly
to the digital print provider, where the title is printed and drop-shipped directly to the customer.

“Right now, Wiley has approximately 12,500 titles in our Global Demand Print program,” says Terhune.
“It is a mixture of Wiley-owned US and UK titles. In the US we operate in a true-POD system, where
the title is drop-shipped to the customer, and we also participate in Amazon’s and Ingram Content’s
distribution programs.” The UK follows the ultra short run model, where Wiley consolidates the orders
and pulls product back to the European Distribution Center for distribution to our customers. Both
models are appropriate for their markets and we use the same files and the same vendors (or their UK
partners) to gain efficiencies. “Each Wiley division has their own specific needs based on their product
and customer mix. Each group handles and manages their inventory differently,” says Terhune. “All
the inventory managers have been working with me on this program for years. They know the criteria
and vendor capabilities, but each division bases it [the digital print decision] on sales differently. A
Professional and Trade book will look at titles that are selling between 500 and 750 units a year to include
in the program, whereas another Wiley title with different physical characteristics and a different price
point won’t meet the same criteria.
Seeing the File Format Forest

In terms of file formats for John Wiley & Sons titles, just remember the history of desktop publishing,
Terhune suggests, and you’ll have a good idea of what Wiley can face. “Our recent title files are stored
in our digital repository, and these files are accessible and easy to get to our vendors,” she notes, “but
keep in mind Wiley has been growing for quite a while, acquiring other publishers. So we often require
older files that we obtain from the previous print vendors that are not necessarily in perfect shape for
our current digital print providers.” There have been plenty of times when a book file was not available
or usable, and Terhune had to secure the physical copy internally, or, on occasion, end up ordering a
used copy, and send it out to one of their vendors to scan.
“What we are looking for is a vendor that can take our metadata, take our text file and cover file, and
make minor corrections to the text or cover file – there might be a price change, there may be a barcode
update,” says Terhune. An example of a common change requirement done with all of Wiley’s backlist
titles going into the GDP program, is taking ‘Printed in the US’ or ‘Printed in the UK’ off of the copyright
page, in order to distribute in print across different countries. One likely avenue toward a better
solution to Wiley’s need to make small changes in GDP title files may be the outsourcing route, where
a number of companies with long publishing experience such as composition are now adding digital
asset distribution services to their portfolios. “We tried working with a digital asset delivery company
about two years, ago, but they didn’t have the bandwidth to set up the system for us,” Terhune notes.
The unsuccessful effort did pay dividends, according to Terhune. “We did document our workflow and
write a very detailed use case, and we are now back in the process of reviewing other vendors.”
Lessons Learned
Making changes to existing titles in-house would probably have held the digital program back, Terhune
believes, and thinks that one result would have been many more titles going out of print. “Over the last
twelve years, we’ve had to put band-aids on things just to keep the program moving forward,” Terhune
notes, “from living through digital printing being seen as terrible quality, to now being completely
accepted, especially because the economy is driving it that way. Of course there have been leaps
forward in quality improvement.”

Some digital printers are expanding their graphics and pre-press capabilities. “If there is a small reprint
correction, sometimes a manager will email [the digital printing vendor] customer service and ask, ‘Can
you make this change on page 46?’,” Terhune notes. “Some of our vendors will do that, while others
require a complete file swap-out replacement, where we make the change and post the new PDF.” A
digital printer typically doesn’t want to deal with small changes, or managing different files.
Terhune expects progress in small changes for GDP titles to continue, however, and takes heart from
a recent conversation with one vendor who talked of their efforts to build programming to check and
accept any kind of file and do any kind of correction. Terhune reports, “They are writing workflow and
gateways to check for any kind of possibility because they don’t want to turn any business away. The
digital printing industry is getting so competitive.”
Much of the work needed to impose corrections and ingest title files is very similar to pre-press
workflow, including changes and approvals. “For many years our program focused on titles that few
cared about, and that we were just keeping in print,” says Terhune. Managers became comfortable
with not seeing proofs or waiting to give approval on POD titles; when the aim was simply keeping
an existing title available for sale – titles that have already been produced – there wouldn’t be a lot of
call for quality assurance. From the very beginning of the GDP program we would not allow any major
reprint corrections, but, says Terhune, that is really changing as digital print capabilities and quantities
increase. Another anticipated change by Terhune: “I haven’t had a major issue in file versioning yet, but
I think that as the quantities [of titles in the digital print program] grow, it could open that possibility.”
POD Benefits Pile Up

“All the publishers want to get is the best quality product out of the vendors and to their customers as
possible,” says Terhune, but there have been some other very significant benefits for Wiley from the
GDP program. Terhune’s list of POD/USR benefits for the publisher includes:
• Additional sales revenue: content kept available and in print;

• Not having to tell an author the work is going out-of-print;
• No minimum quantity reprints;
• Reduced distribution center space requirements;
• No POs to cut and no individual invoices to issue;
• No estimates for individual titles and no vendors to follow-up with on specific orders;
• No bound book dates to watch;
• Minimal inventory to monitor and no more out of stock situations due to exact quantity supplied;
• Improved customer service;
• Improved cash flow;
• Reprint requests replaced by largely automated processes;

• Product supplied in a timely manner;
• Time to market reduced due to file sharing;
• No more film flat storage charges;
• Reduction in shipping costs and inter-company freight;
• In the US market, POD titles are not returnable.
Terhune also has impressive numbers that reflect an often-overlooked GDP benefit, which is title sales
uplift that can occur because of improved title visibility and exposure from the distribution channels.
One example she cites is the Comprehensive Intellectual Capital Management: Step-by-Step, by Nermien
Al-Ali, which published in February 2003, with a first printing of 2,000 units, of which around 900 were
written-off and destroyed. The title went into the GDP program in December of 2005, and has sold 178
units in the past three fiscal years.
Another example is a Spanish title, Milenio: Mil años de literatura española, by Bárbara Mujica, published
in August 2001, and conventionally printed and reprinted in 2005. The book saw slow sales in 2006,
when it was placed in the GDP program, and has enjoyed a sales uplift of 2,414 units for the past 3 years
(FY), along with 468 comp copies; the best news: sales in 2008 (FY) have been 600 units greater than
in all of 2006.
The numbers of units sold through the GPD program have seen very strong growth trends over the last
three years, and FY 2010 looks to be on target to outstrip FY 2009’s total of 579,005 units.
Flexible Printing and Custom Printing

“One of the things that I would like to do and to have more resources for is to offer our customers more
E+P [electronic and print] options, where, if the customer is buying an electronic book, that customer
can easily click on a button to by a print version too,” states Terhune. She notes that these kinds of
offerings aren’t prevalent yet, but hopes they are coming.
On the custom side of digital printing, Wiley does have a robust program called Wiley Custom Select,
and most material involved in this program is printed digitally, but not as part of the GDP effort. “The
whole ‘chunking’ idea has been talked about a lot, but it just seems to be a nightmare of royalties and
tagging,” says Terhune. “I don’t think that it is that far along in Wiley, but then maybe it is on the custom
side and I’m just not close enough to it.” She wonders at what cost a publisher might face to go back
to existing titles and tag them to accommodate the granularity required. “Cost is a big issue,” Terhune
notes. “I am not close enough to the Custom side of the business to know what the current challenges
are, but I know that the whole ‘chunking’ idea has been discussed. It just seems to be a nightmare with
royalties and tagging,” says Terhune. She wonders at what cost a publisher might face to go back to
existing titles and tag them to accommodate the granularity required. “Cost is a big issue,” Terhune
notes.

Figuring Costs… and Savings
Cost savings related to digital printing hasn’t been an easy thing to quantify within Wiley, says Terhune,
in part because of the traditional way Wiley has looked at costs. “Costs have been looked at through
both the gross margin approval process and through the inventory accounting system. The inventory
accounting system only holds the unit cost – paper, printing, and binding,” Terhune explains. “Publishers
are still looking at titles and comparing unit cost to unit cost.” She notes that updated financial modeling
is needed to account for additional contributions like non-returnability, obsolescence, and distribution
cost reduction or for savings from logistical demands of “storage, pack, and ship,” which don’t get
quantified. “We’ve been trying to keep our unit costs for digital printing down. The way we launched
the digital printing program – because we knew that the unit costs were going to de different – is that
we launched it outside the gross margin process and outside our inventory accounting system, just to
get it up and active and not to have any one publisher hurt by that higher cost,” Terhune says. Now that
the company has more competitive digital print costs, Wiley pulled the program back into the standard
gross margin process.
“As part of our Corporate Citizenship initiative, we started quantifying how much shipping and freight
we are saving, and how much CO2 reduction we experience because we have [title] files in the US and
the UK that we are printing more locally,” reports Terhune. “We’ve been surprised by the numbers in the
US about how much CO2 we’re reducing because of file sharing and due to shipping direct to customer,
instead of from vendor to Wiley DC [distribution center] to wholesaler to bookstore to customer.”
Gilbane Conclusions
Digital printing is the unsung hero of the digital book publishing revolution. The questions of cost
savings through digital printing remain difficult to answer, especially when taking into account that
cost reductions in some departments may come from adding tasks – and costs – to other areas within
the publisher, such as operations for order monitoring. But as digital printing becomes a standard
practice for book publishers, and publishers adjust accounting systems to include it, we expect that
the intuitive sense of cost-savings and additional revenue gains many have for POD will be strongly
and unquestionably proven.
The quality of digitally printed books can be astounding these days, although there remain plenty of
pitfalls to avoid, such as not undertaking adequate quality assurances if a book required scanning to
make the digital file. We don’t expect that every publisher will pursue the benefits of digital printing for
their backlist as strenuously as Wiley has with the GDP program. Nevertheless, we see many areas for
additional digital printing’s growth, including more first printings for many books that aren’t aimed at
blockbuster status; arguably, the present economics of digital printing make first print runs competitive
in the low-to-mid thousands of units.
Other opportunities for digital printing already being pursued by some publishers include many
variations of custom publishing, as well as education and professional ancillary and supplement
materials, and for print-optional journals. Simple logistical benefits from digital printing can accrue,
such as using POD as a stop-gap measure before an offset reprint is finished. As Wiley’s GDP program
shows, the real question isn’t how much cost-savings digital print can offer book publishers, but how
many different ways digital printing can both improve cost savings and add to the publisher’s bottom
line.

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Hachette Book Group: Sticking to Standardization and Best Practices
Hachette Book Group, a leader in the publishing industry, can trace its history back to the founding of
Little, Brown and Company in 1837. The company is owned by Hachette Livre, second largest publisher
in the world and a subsidiary of Lagardère, a French media and communications firm. Hachette Book
Group was formed in 2006, after Hachette Livre acquired Time Warner Book Group from Time Warner.
HBG publishes under the divisions of Little, Brown and Company, Little Brown Books forYoung Readers,
Grand Central Publishing, FaithWords, Center Street, Orbit, and Hachette Digital.
Hachette Book Group publishes approximately 650 adult books, 150 young adult and children’s books,
and 100 audio book titles each year. The company has had a record number of books on the New York
Times bestseller list. HBG also provides distribution, fulfillment, and sales services to third-party
publishers such as Harry N. Abrams and Chronicle Books. Hachette Book Group is headquartered in
New York with offices in Boston, Toronto, Nashville, Tennessee, and Lebanon, Indiana.
Challenge
Matthew Bennett is Executive Director of Product Management for HBG. From planning through
production, Bennett looks across the entire publishing process from an IT perspective. Internal
and external systems used by HBG fall into his realm of responsibility and include things such as
title management, business intelligence, marketing tools, online reader widgets, and digital asset
management (DAM).
North Plains’ TeleScope digital asset management platform is one of the systems that falls under
Bennett’s umbrella. Hachette has been using the North Plains DAM product for several years and is
now expanding the use of that product line to include the TeleScope Publishing Platform (TPP).
Sixty to seventy percent of HBG’s adult trade titles go straight into ePub, the only e-book format the
publisher produces, and these e-books are created at the same time as the print editions. Hachette’s
audiobooks, however, are not currently managed within the North Plains DAM system. “It’s becoming
more feasible to do so,” says Bennett, “but the bottom line is that most of the audio production
companies are still working directly onto CD and not sending the raw digital files for us to ingest into a
DAM. Those uncompressed files are very large, so you have storage constraints as well.”
Bennett notes that HBG has been using the North Plains TeleScope distribution tools to “distribute
some of our art and cover images to our trading partners, like Amazon, through the ONIX process, the
industry standard for distributing metadata and images.” For distribution of book content, though,
HBG uses LibreDigital, which also provides marketing components, such as online ‘look inside the
book’ type of widgets and other marketing services that help promote e-book content out onto the
web.

“There are other benefits to our partnering with LibreDigital, which also has core competencies in
backlist data conversion, OCR, scanning – digitizing physical content – and it was a faster ramp to get
up and running with LibreDigital,” says Bennett. “LibreDigital has the industry relationships and the
broad distribution channels already. If we were to do it ourselves we’d have to fully manage the process,
which is no small task for the distribution of our content.” One example of steep learning curves with
dealing with the retail supply chain is asset transmission failure, explains Bennett. “You have to have
the reporting and you have to know which accounts aren’t receiving what they are supposed to, and at
this point, this is all handled by LibreDigital.”
“North Plains certainly has some technology components that we can consider using for digital asset
distribution,” says Bennett, but HBG continues to use an outside service for content distribution to the
major e-book retailers, rather than develop that capability in-house. “This arrangement works well for
us.” Everything is subject to change, of course. “Dynamics in publishing are changing so rapidly,” notes
Bennett.
The ePub titles are sold through retailers that LibreDigital distributed to, such as Amazon. Digital rights
management (DRM) isn’t part of the Hachette e-book production process. Like many other trade
publishers today, DRM responsibility falls to the retailers, where Adobe’s Content Server-based DRM,
according to Bennett, has emerged as an industry standard model.
Making the Buy vs. Build Bet

“A few years ago, everything just started to happen together. Everyone realized that e-books would
probably be here to stay, and we started to look at our infrastructure,” recalls Bennett. Like other book
publishers, Hachette began to wrestle with the question of how best to integrate various publishing
platforms and processes. Bennett notes that “This is something we ask ourselves quite often: Is
publishing so unique?” But Bennett feels that publishing does include some very specific processes, and
that a number of these have not been handled well, in standard solutions, like SAP. “There are some
very specific processes within publishing that haven’t been dealt with well.” One example of book-
specific needs includes handling 100% return models that trade publishers like HBG work under.
Bennett says that HBG often tends to build its own solutions because in some areas “our business is
very simple, so it makes sense to do that. Where it gets complicated, there are no very good industry
solutions that address our needs. It’s always the buy vs. build analysis and typically the build comes out
ahead because we do have a lot of institutional knowledge.”

Still, Bennett knows that there is a tension in the buy-versus-build struggle, where the challenge of
building or adopting vendors’ platforms has no easy resolution, even with specific publishing-centric
solutions such as those found in Firebrand Technologies or Klopotek, to name just two examples. “A
publisher does many things a certain way and then has to adapt existing platforms,” says Bennett.
When it comes to internal process tools, as Bennett calls them, HBG usually leans toward building its
own, since designing and building the system isn’t the “hard part.” For specialized or commoditized
services like business intelligence and digital asset management, however, HBG will “buy best in
breed around those things.” The costs, says Bennett, are typically about the same. “It’s just a matter of
figuring out where you want to expend your energy,” he says.

In addition to Bennett’s efforts to define and deliver on best practices for integration of publishing
processes, he also sees a great value in publishing turning to XML as early in the editorial and production
stage as possible.
Focus on Best Practices for Integration

The publisher has integrated its important systems, although Bennett acknowledges that different
publishers can have a different focus to some degree. “Here at HBG, we have put a lot of time and
energy into integrating our metadata. For us, it’s very important that we have systems of record for
our content and the metadata associated with it,” says Bennett, who notes that keeping systems like
TeleScope and its home-built title management platform in sync is a top priority.
That’s not to say that Hachette doesn’t focus on integration among other systems such as title
management, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and warehouse management; they do. “We certainly
do integrate between our title management and ERP systems and our warehouse management
system,” Bennett reports. “We wouldn’t be in business if we didn’t, but integration is a tough thing to
quantify because it can be accomplished in a number of ways that are not always transparent to the
business.” Bennett maintains that HBG has strong integration across all systems. “We enter data once
for every one of our fields. We don’t have multiple re-keying of data across our processes, and that’s
important to us.”
Everyone at HBG must use the same systems, observes Bennett, and he knows that the business users
may be giving up some freedom and flexibility in doing so. “The company has made a global decision
to standardize,” says Bennett. That standardization flows through the integration of data and the
business; its operation and culture. HBG has stood behind this decision, and Bennett, for one, has “seen
a lot of positive come from it.”
When Time Warner acquired Little, Brown, Bennett notes, referring to some of the major acquisition
activities that later helped form HBG, the two large publishers had their own warehouse and title
management systems. “It took quite some time to unravel them, to move everyone over and to change
the processes and culture, and it was challenging” says Bennett. Bennett points to the work of CEO
David Young coming in and standardizing the new publishing entity in title management. “He really
believes in the IT best practices around data entry, data management, single source, etc.,” reports
Bennett. “He’s stood behind it.”
Furthering XML-First
With the exception of children’s books, all of Hachette’s content is created in XML before it’s composed
and printed. “We use an exclusively XML-first process,” asserts Bennett. HBG’s authors, unbeknownst
to them in most cases, basically provide the XML by using XML-based word processors like OpenOffice
or Microsoft Word, following to a greater or lesser degree style guides supplied by the publisher.
“Anybody can save as or export XML,” says Bennett, “We’re just using the existing tools available to
us.” Of course there’s still work to be done here, Bennett admits, and cleaning the source XML prior
to export is a necessary part of the production process. This must be done so that the XML can “flow
into the rest of our process correctly,” explains Bennett. “It’s just a matter of us mapping the tags to
our systems. There’s always some work that has to go on to correctly tag words, phrases, or passages
in our books.”

In the end, HBG produces “core XML content” that it can convert to ePub, POD, or flow into InDesign
to create print PDFs or some other format.
Lessons Learned
Bennett considers XML standards, such as DocBook, and the development of those specific to
publishing to be “the kind of thing that evolves as it’s needed.” And unfortunately, it’s difficult for
industry standards organizations to keep up with that evolution. “You could spend a lot of time sitting
around thinking about what you might need,” points out Bennett, and “half the time you get it right …
or you can build what you need when you need it.”
Digital Printing: No Sweat

“We do POD titles,” says Bennett. “It’s more of a production activity than an IT activity.” HBG uses
a variety of POD vendors, including TextStream (formerly Replica Books) and Lightning Source.
Essentially, all HBG has to do when ordering digital printing is to provide the vendor a title in a standard
format—print PDF—along with a pre-defined set of specifications of trim size, paper, and other and
related production definitions. “[POD] is becoming increasingly easier as we create all of our content
in XML and publish out to ePub. We can use that same XML file to create print PDFs and whatever specs
are required,” notes Bennett.
Bennett doesn’t have an exact sense of how big POD is becoming at Hachette, but he knows that there
are a number of titles that Hachette otherwise doesn’t continue to print, but keeps on the POD list.
A Single System of Record

As for metadata and tracking associated with titles, HBG employs a simple solution. They have a “single,
home-grown, title management system” that is used by all of its publishers and publishing units. “In
a nutshell,” says Bennett, “that’s our single system of record for all metadata. All title metadata is
entered through it. Our ONIX feed is generated from it. It’s really as simple as that.”
Everyone at HBG is working on this standardized system that uses required fields that must be filled
in before proceeding through the process. Title management is an example of an internal system
that HBG decided to build in-house. “We went the custom route,” explains Bennett, because of all
the reasons mentioned earlier, “culture being at the top of the list.” It goes back to the way various
processes have been done in the past and how they continue to be done now, and to Bennett, it can
seem that every publisher is different. “It gets very complicated,” Bennett reflects.
Gilbane Conclusions
Standardizing the publishing processes and strictly enforcing best practices surrounding standardization
is something that has worked well for HBG. In many cases, acquisitions of imprints and the systems
that go along with the acquired titles give rise to difficult implementation challenges and barriers to
interoperability among publishing workflows. HBG has been successful in unraveling those issues and
changing the processes and the culture.

Hachette chose to expend a lot of energy moving toward standard processes. The company has
adopted packaged software solutions, such as TeleScope, to meet some of its needs.Yet, HBG has also
built and uses a home-grown title management system that supports its processes. All told, HBG finds
itself in a very good place at the moment, thanks to these systems of record that it has created and
continues to stand behind, especially in regard to effective – and efficient – management of metadata
across all its titles, for print and digital.
HBG’s experience with XML content in its workflows is interesting, and in no little part because of its
refreshingly simple view of getting to XML. Only a couple of years back, HBG took what the author
provided in whatever was the author’s format of choice, and then took on an additional full stage of
process to convert the content to XML, a situation in which many book publishers still find themselves.
The challenge to get to XML has lessened greater in just the last two years, with OpenOffice and
Microsoft Word now basically being used as XML-based word processors that allow editorial and
production at HBG to extract XML from the source. The level of XML-first application is expected to
expand the automation of editorial and production processes even further.
Featured Vendor
North Plains, founded in 1994, provides digital and media asset management, and end-to-end
publishing solutions. The company offers centralized digital asset management (DAM) software for
the production, management, distribution, and archiving of digital media, content, and metadata.
North Plains’ TeleScope platforms, hosted or installed, offer solutions for digital asset management,
marketing content management, broadcast automation, video-on-demand, publishing automation
and e-learning. The TeleScope suite of products include: Publishing Platform, Enterprise, Professional,
Studio, and OnDemand.
The TeleScope Publishing Platform (TPP) is an integrated, end-to-end publishing solution that enables
publishers to manage the entire digital publishing process. The TPP provides modular, scalable and
flexible design options, allowing publishers to address specific business and workflow challenges upon
which they would like to improve.
Some of the benefits the TPP offers publishers include:
• Providing a complete solution, eliminating integration efforts with other products and services;
• Streamlining processes for content creation, collaboration, management, and distribution;
• Providing secure and centralized access to entire digital libraries;
• Reducing production costs and time-to-market;
• Uncovering and capitalizing on new distribution channels;
• Providing secure environments for selling e-content;
• Supporting e-reader and other consumable formats.

North Plains also offers training, customer services, and professional publishing services such as project
delivery and digitization programs, including e-book production.
The company serves corporate marketing departments, advertising and marketing services companies,
media and entertainment companies, print and publishing companies, and educational and nonprofit
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North Plains Systems Inc.
510 Front Street West, 4th Floor
Toronto, ON M5V 3H3
Canada
416-345-1900
http://www.northplains.com/

Appendix A: Blueprint Study Methodology
Book publishers of all stripes are struggling to generate money from backlists and current content,
even as digital markets may threaten existing print-based business models. It is no longer a question
whether publishers should embrace the internet, digital publishing, e-commerce, consumers, and
social media, but rather the question is how best to do it.
The Gilbane Group’s goal was to develop a thoroughly researched assessment of the current state of
digital publishing adoption and implementation by focusing on four key questions:
• What innovative applications or services are in place today that have created significant value to
publishing organizations?
• How are successful organizations measuring the effectiveness of their publishing technology
initiatives?
• What impediments are organizations and their partners facing in adopting new technologies and
best practices in order to transform to a more competitive publishing company?
• What role can vendors, solution partners, integrators, and other firms play in helping
organizations?
We worked in partnership with the sponsors of our multi-client study to develop and validate answers
to these questions using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, and relied on our
sponsors to arrange introductions to their key reference accounts – customers who have deployed
innovative solutions using their platforms, tools, services, and applications.
We investigated, in a systematic manner, how our sponsors’ content platforms, tools, services, and
applications are being deployed. We began by cataloging the capabilities of our sponsors’ content
technologies – assembled from a review of product data sheets and interviews with key product
marketing managers. We then interviewed both the technical and business leads for projects within
the reference accounts. We used the questionnaire that we’ve developed to enable us to characterize
the size, scope of deployments, and outcomes, together with open-ended questions through which
we gathered an experiential assessment of the projects. We gather sufficient qualitative information
from the reference accounts to develop comparative case studies.
Finally, we compared and contrasted the business and technology drivers among the multiple
deployments across a range of organizations. Based on our wide-ranging industry expertise, our
insights into industry trends, and what we learned through these interviews, we mapped the technology
landscape for content-centric solutions and document our analysis. In addition, we identified the key
business drivers and critical success factors demonstrated by the vendor-nominated customers.

We supplemented the overall analysis with a series of case studies, describing how various reference
accounts approached and solved business problems by deploying tools, applications, and solutions. We
wrote the case studies using a predefined template and included The Gilbane Group summary of the
strengths, competitive capabilities, and lessons learned.
We developed a web-based survey aimed at high- and mid-level book publishing professionals for
quantitative perspectives on the state of digital publishing across all seven publishing processes
described in this study. See Appendix B for a discussion of survey results.

Appendix B: Survey Results
The analyst team for A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation: Seven Essential Processes to Re-
Invent Publishing developed a research mechanism in the form of a web-based survey, which was visited
by 1,273 individuals, with 208 participating, and 105 completions at the time the data was pulled. Since
each question of the survey stands alone, we’ve used for analysis, when appropriate, the larger number
of answers, not just those who completed all answers.
Comparisons of the same questions between the smaller group (those having completed the entire
survey) and the larger group showed no significant differences, but we feel that the larger pool of
respondents makes the results that much more reliable.
The survey’s targets included those responding to the survey posting to the following groups:
• The Gilbane Group clients and prospect contacts drawn from among the analysts, via direct
e-mail invitation;
• The Gilbane Group blog and Twitter postings about the survey;
• The membership of the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), our research partner in the study, via
BISG Bulletin posting;
• LinkedIn professional groups posting, including Book Publishing Professionals; Content Strategy;
Digital Conversion (DigiConv); E-books, E-book Readers, Digital Books and Digital Content
Publishing; POD - Print On Demand Publishing; Publishing Brainstorm; Tools of Change for
Publishing; STM Publishing Group; Publishing Professionals; and several others.
In addition, there were a number of re-blogging and re-tweets, as well as various conference
announcements, including Gilbane San Francisco and BISG MIP.
The basic structure of the survey was an introductory section, seven sections that reflect, per section,
one or another of the seven publishing processes as defined by the Blueprint study, and a concluding
section investigating a variety of goals and barriers to digital publishing. Respondents were directed to
one of the seven process tracks depending on the specific process they noted as reflecting their main
area of involvement within their book publishing company. Other logic branching was used so that
respondents would not have to see questions that their earlier answers indicated was not of relevance
to them.

The survey began with a qualifying description for the desired respondent, as follows:
Please note: This survey is for high- and mid-level book publishing
professionals. If this does not describe you, please do not take this
survey.
Thank you for participating in The Gilbane Group (a division of

Outsell, Inc.) web-based survey of book publishing professionals.
This survey is one of the research mechanisms for our upcoming
study A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation: Seven
Essential Processes to Re-Invent Publishing. The study will be
published in June 2010, and all participants in this survey will have full
access to the full-length study through The Gilbane Group website.
This survey, which will take most participants between 12-to-18

minutes to complete, seeks to gain a clearer picture of e-book and
related digital publishing efforts underway among the full spectrum
of book publishers. Furthermore, the analyst team at The Gilbane
Group seeks to identify a number of “pain points” or barriers
encountered by book publishers when it comes to developing or
expanding digital publishing programs, including areas such as
royalties, digital format choices, and distribution problems.Broadly
speaking, A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation: Seven
Essential Systems to Re-Invent Publishing is a professional education
effort, and its utility will rely, in large part, on the active and open
participation of the book professionals on the front lines of the
digital transformation of books.
This message proved successful in its intention to support appropriate qualified participation,
according to our interpretation of view/participate numbers, with only about 25% of visitors to the
introduction message going on to participate in the survey. Subsequent drop-out analysis shows
questions throughout the survey being evenly represented as drop-out points right through until near
the very end, suggesting that there were no particularly troublesome questions causing respondent
kick-out. We believe, rather, that it was the time demand of the survey that probably led to people
stopping before all questions were considered. Indeed, the average completion time was 18 minutes,
on the high side of our time estimate. We knew this time requirement was demanding of participants,
but the drop-out analysis shows that many of those participating answers most questions, providing
this survey with a very significant number of respondents.
Appendix B: Survey Results provides additional background about the survey for readers wishing to
understand the basis for statistical validity and to judge soundness of the findings. Furthermore, this
appendix provides the results of specific questions that may not otherwise be specifically cited in the
body of the Blueprint study, along with our interpretation and analysis.

Introductory Section of Survey
The introductory section sought to capture the following information:
• Type of respondent;
• Type of book publishing company (segment);
• Size of book publishing company (print titles);
• Size of book publishing company (e-book titles);
• Type of digital publishing undertaken at the book publishing company;
• Level of use of digital rights management (DRM) by the book publishing company;
• Role of respondent within book publishing company;
• Publishing process involvement of the respondent.
The intents of this section were several. First, we hoped to gain deeper insight on how book publishing
views its level of activity in regard to e-books and digital publishing more broadly, and specifically to
capture some sense of which segments of book publishing were providing respondents. The other,
very practical purpose was to force self-identification by the respondents in terms of the publishing
process.

Publishing Processes Sections
At the close of the first section of the survey, respondents were either directed to one of the seven
publishing processes sections, or, if the respondent noted that he or she was not directly involved in
digital publishing at his or her book publishing company, to the concluding section of the survey. The
seven publishing processes were as follows:
• Planning;
• Editorial and production;
• Rights and royalties;
• Manufacturing;
• Marketing and promotion;
• Sales and licensing;
• Distribution and fulfillment.
Most of the respondents self-selected, shown in Figure 51, as either planning or editorial and
production, at 34% and 29%, respectively, while the third largest category was “Other.” Text entries
revealed that the “Other” category was mostly planning and editorial and production by other names.
Promotion and marketing was the actual third process category represented in significant numbers.
The respondent numbers for publishing processes “Rights and Royalties,” “Manufacturing,” “Sales and
Licensing,” and “Distribution and Fulfillment” were too low to provide a statistically significant result,
and except where such topics were addressed within the introduction section or the concluding section
discussing goals and barriers, the results are not reported or used.
We are not surprised that planning and editorial and production provided the lion’s share of respondents.
Our thinking is as follows:
Most book publishing professionals currently involved in e-book efforts come from these two
processes;
• Rights and Royalties and Sales and Licensing book publishing professionals, outside of these
aspects in planning and editorial and production, are back-office focused;
• Manufacturing is a very print-centric process, while e-books and digital publishing generally are
content transform processes similar to other production responsibilities;
• Promotion and Marketing processes, were fairly well-represented among the respondents, but,
judging from the “Other” text entries, identify more with editorial processes;
• Distribution and Fulfillment processes are, in these early days of e-book and digital publishing,
largely being handled by supply chain partners.

Figure 51. Respondents’ Self-Identification with Specific Publishing Process
Publishing program
33.7%
planning
Editorial and production 28.4%
Promotion and marketing 11.6%
Sales and licensing 3.2%
Rights and royalties 2.1%
Manufacturing 1.1%
Distribution and fulfillment 1.1%
Other 18.9%

Question 7 "Which one of the following book publishing processes best describes your involvement within the
book publishing company?"
Base = 95
As Figure 52 shows, the majority of respondents come from small- and mid-size publishers; at 17%, big
book publishers (1,000+ titles) are fairly well-represented.
Figure 52. Respondents’ Identification of Size of E-Book List
Less than 50 39.5%
Less than 200 19.8%
Less than 500 16.8%
Less than 1,000 6.6%
More than 1,000 17.4%

Question 2 "How many print titles did your company (include all imprints) publish in
2009? "
Base = 167
Planning Processes
CEO, other C-level, or Publisher make up about half of the Planning processes respondents, but it is
interesting to note that “Director or Manager of Digital Publishing” itself is strongly represented, as
shown in Figure 53. This suggests several things to us:

• Interest is high regarding e-books and digital publishing, even at large book publishing
companies, but also across different levels of book publishing professionals;
• The strong showing for “Director or Manager of Digital Publishing” suggests many large book
publishing companies responded to the survey.
Figure 53. Position Title Breakout for Planning

CFO, CTO, CMO or other C-level
20.4%
executive
Publisher 18.4%
Director or Manager of Digital Publishing 18.4%
CEO or President 10.2%
Editorial Director 6.1%
Acquisitions or Senior Editor 4.1%
Product Director or Manager 4.1%
Information or Systems Architect 4.1%
Business Analyst 2.0%
Marketing Director 2.0%
Other 10.2%

Question 8 - PL "Which one position best def ines your role within your company? "
Base = 49
We were curious to try to quantify title information management, royalty, and ERP systems, and
we found many we expected, but “I don’t know” and “Other” were the big winners, with “none” and
“custom systems” the main entries filled in. We kept hearing about Microsoft Office being used as
planning platform, and now we believe it, as this was selected by about half of the respondents. The
other half use a variety of custom-developed and general ERP (e.g., SAP, Oracle, Great Plains, Microsoft
Dynamics ERP) or title information management (TIM) platforms, along with custom-developed
software from title planning purposes. The question of publishing business platforms we sought to
answer, but the survey – supported by what we heard through our many interviews – shows that the
book publishing industry has no well- and clearly-established tools sets as yet.
We were very interested to learn when digital publishing is being planned by book publishers, and
we did learn that a healthy majority of book publishers are now thinking about digital titles very
early in the planning processes, akin to how book publishers have always treated print projects. Two-
thirds of respondents report that digital publishing titles are being considered right from planning
and acquisition, which suggests to us that book publishers are moving away from an early reactive
stance regarding e-books. (Question: “Are digital editions considered at the stage of title planning and
acquisition?”)

We also wanted to learn if the planning for digital publishing was now part of the planning cycle of the
print editions. While this could be construed as countering the previous question, the answer actually
re-enforces the state of digital publishing being already well-integrated with the overall publishing
program at many book publishers. Still, close to half of book publishers responding to the survey
sometimes or always handle digital editions post-print edition.
Book publishers are planning digital versions right along with the print titles, but how many are now
planning only digital titles? A little more than a quarter of book publishing respondents noted that
digital-only titles are published, but about 75% reported that digital-only titles are rarely or never
undertaken. We expect to see more digital-only publishing in the years ahead, but wonder how much
of the current digital-only publishing today is from the education publishing segment, with online
materials.
Editorial and Production Processes

Publishers, VP or other senior positions in editorial or production, and senior-level editors and directors
and managers of digital production, were among the respondent categories scoring big, shown in
Figure 54.
Figure 54. Position Title Breakout for Editorial and Production

CFO, CTO, CMO or other C-level executive 20.4%
Publisher 18.4%
Director or Manager of Digital Publishing 18.4%
CEO or President 10.2%
Editorial Director 6.1%
Acquisitions or Senior Editor 4.1%
Product Director or Manager 4.1%
Information or Systems Architect 4.1%
Business Analyst 2.0%
Marketing Director 2.0%
Other 10.2%

Question 16 - EDPR "Which one position best def ines your role within your company? (Check only one)"
Base = 27
Digital asset management (DAM) is a good idea, but not, apparently, a well-established one among
book publishers. Only about 40% of respondents claim DAM usage at their book publishing company,
but almost 30% still rely on file management, and only about 10% use content management systems
to control asset access, which is less than half the number using custom solutions.

DAM’s day is yet to come, it would seem, and if more evidence is needed, those who admitted to DAM
use cited MediaBank, from Wave Corporation, as the leader, but it was equal to “Other”; Documentum
(EMC) and OpenText tied with “I don’t know,” and the many rest almost didn’t register at all. Custom
systems developed in-house, file management platforms, and a little bit of content management
systems seem to be how the majority of book publishers’ editorial and production processes handle
production asset management of storage, organization, workflow, and revision control.
Book publishers across all segments have been using outsource services for many years, especially
as staffing budget constraints became unavoidable. The outsourcing and off-shoring service sectors
have greatly expanded, and for print-related activity, the activity spans most parts of the editorial and
production processes. Less than 3% of respondents noted that their companies don’t use outsource
services at all, and project management stays in-house to some great degree, and quality assurance
even more so.
Book publishers use outside services for e-books less than for print, but the big exception is for
“title/document conversion,” not surprisingly, since conversion represents something of a black-
box technology that individual book publishers aren’t likely to keep current and developing as well
as specialist outsource services. Another factor to consider is that some supply chain partners to
book publishers handle e-book transformation for the publishers, in effect cutting out the outsource
vendors.

Trans-Publishing Processes: Goals and Barriers to Digital Publishing
In the final section of the survey, we set ambitious goals, including:
• Current thinking about e-book and digital publishing, and to see if these are seen by book
publishers to be two distinct endeavors;
• Book publishers’ own sense of activity regarding e-books and digital publishing and their
expectations regarding growth of e-books and digital publishing activity;
• Barriers or “pain points” to e-books and digital publishing activity as identified by book
publishers;
• Expectations and business drivers for e-books and digital publishing activity as identified by book
publishers.
There are two main conclusions to draw from revenue-sizing answers about current conditions. The
first is that revenue from both e-books specifically and digital publishing generally remains modest,
with about 80% of respondents reporting that their book publishing company makes 15% or less from
the digital efforts today, and 34% bringing in 5% or less revenue. However, 41% of publishers’ revenue
from digital publishing to account for 25% or more of gross revenues in five years’ time.
The second finding is that the “e-book-specific” and more general “digital publishing” breakouts by
revenue share are very similar, suggesting that most respondents don’t perceive significant differences
between e-books and digital publishing. We suspect that the small shift toward improved revenue
shares from digital publishing may represent education publishers, of whom a number of very large
publishers have moved into online learning environments in big ways, with non-e-book types of digital
publishing, adding to the overall revenue picture. But, really, that is just a guess. (See Figures 2, 3, and
4 for graphs showing results on “e-book-specific” gross revenue shares.)
Is the small shift toward higher revenue shown in Figure 55 reflecting higher education publishing’s
growth in online learning environments, or professional and STM online content offerings? Makes
sense, but it is only a theory.

Figure 55. Digital Publishing Gross Revenue Percentages Today
There is no revenue from digital publishing activities 23.4%
Less than 5% of gross revenues are from digital

33.6%
publishing activities

13.1%

6.5%
More than 25% of gross revenues are from digital

12.1%

Question 69 - GB Q "What is the current level of activity, measured as a percentage of overall gross
revenue, of overall digital publishing activities at your book publisher?"
Base = 107
Like the current snapshot of e-book and digital publishing revenue, the same questions asked about
what will be the revenue contribution in five years, shows pretty similar responses for e-book-specific
and digital publishing general versions. When it comes to digital publishing five years into the future,
almost without exception book publishers expect some revenue, and over 40% expect at least a quarter
of their company’s gross revenue to come from digital publishing, shown in Figure 56.
Figure 56. Digital Publishing Gross Revenue Percentage Projections in Five Years
There is no revenue from digital publishing

1.9%
activities

7.7%

24.0%

16.3%
More than 25% of gross revenues are from digital

41.3%
I don’t know 8.7%

Question 71 - GB Q "What is the predicted level of activity, measured as a percentage of overall gross revenue, of
overall digital publishing activities at your book publisher in f ive years’ time?"
Base = 104

Appendix C: Blueprint Sponsors and Vision Statements
Aptara: Driving Digital Innovation in Publishing
Aptara helps content publishers harness the rapid emergence of new media for a competitive
advantage. For more than 20 years, our content development capabilities and technology innovations
have helped publishers move to world-class digital content production for highly efficient multi-
channel publishing.
Taking source content from any format and transforming it for distribution through any medium –
from e-readers and smart phones, to tablets, PCs, and print – Aptara continues to help leading global
enterprises unlock new top-line revenue growth in an evolving digital- and mobile-centric content
marketplace.
As a progressive industry advocate and thought-leader, Aptara’s deep relationships with major
publishers, distributors, and device manufacturers are driving innovation across the content production
and publishing industries.
Aptara
Address: 3110 Fairview Park Drive, Suite 900, Falls Church, VA 22042
URL: www.aptaracorp.com
Phone: 703-352-0001
Business Description:
Aptara is a worldwide company that operates four divisions of an electronic content transformation
service. It delivers technologically advanced and integrated content transformation solutions that
enable customers to uncover new digital revenue opportunities and turn static data into digital
content. Aptara provides book and journal services, conversion and technology services to publishers,
information aggregators, professional societies, government agencies, universities, libraries, and
major corporations. Aptara converts paper, microfilm, and early-generation electronic content into
updated formats.
Target Publishing Processes:

Editorial and Production; Distribution and Fulfillment

BISG: Informing and Empowering the Book Industry
Book Industry Study Group is creating a more informed, empowered and efficient book industry supply
chain for both physical and digital products.
BISG is committed to the development of effective industry-wide standards, best practices, research,
and events that enhance relationships between trading partners.
BISG’s vision is to become the book industry leadership organization in a time of great transformation
by helping to build and support a new industry network enabling new opportunities for profitable
growth.
Book Industry Study Group (BISG)

Address: 370 Lexington Ave., Suite 900, New York, NY 10017
URL: www.bisg.org
E-mail: info@bisg.org
Phone: 646-336-7141
The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) is the leading US book trade association for supply chain
standards, research, and best practices. For over 30 years, BISG has been working on behalf of its
diverse membership of publishers, retailers, manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, librarians,
and others involved in both print and digital publishing to create a more informed, empowered, and
efficient book industry supply chain for both physical and digital products. BISG actively promotes
book industry standards and best practices while providing a unique forum for industry professional to
collectively address issues affecting the efficiency and effectiveness of the US book trade.

Hewlett-Packard Company: Imaging and Printing Business
Hewlett-Packard’s Imaging and Printing Business leads the publishing industry through a transforming
market, and supports industry players in capturing new business opportunities in a changing world. We
leverage our innovation and leadership culture to drive our customers’ business growth and market
development, through solutions addressing the needs of all industry players, including publishers and
printers, distributors and retailers, authors and readers.
In an age when the publishing industry is undergoing major changes, new challenges and opportunities
emerge for all industry players. These drive digital book printing as one of the key strategies adopted
by industry players to improve turnover and profitability. Digital printing is instrumental in addressing
the increasing impact of traditional industry inefficiencies, such as returns, inventory, and excessive
printing, while also mitigating their environmental impact. It enables industry players to leverage
emerging needs, such as meeting market demand for fast lead-time and for broad title availability –
capturing the long-tail opportunity. And it facilitates capturing new business opportunities, such as
custom publishing, personalized books, and more.
HP Indigo W7200 Digital Press
Catering to these needs, HP has established a best in class portfolio of digital book printing solutions.
Innovative, revolutionary HP technologies, based on HP Inkjet and Indigo ElectroInk technologies, are
the core of end-to-end printing solutions that integrate best of breed partner solutions. These end-
to-end solutions are the platform facilitating and driving book publishing in the digital age, providing
books with publishing industry quality and digital printing versatility.
Establishing strategic partnerships with our customers is the vehicle driving joint business growth for
our customers, their customers and us. We custom tailor solutions to the business and operational
needs of our customers and their customers, enveloped and supported by the wider HP’s technology
innovation, software and IT infrastructure. We work closely with our customers to continue to address
the evolving business needs and to tap market opportunities.
HP T300 Color Inkjet Web Press

Our solutions have already been adopted as a key growth engine by
publishing market leaders – publishers and printers alike. Industry
leaders and game changers have identified HP as their partner for
growth, delivering quality output with strong business partnership.
Continuing to support our customers in their business growth, we
increasingly drive market development in a transforming publishing
world.
– Glen Hopkins, VP/GM Printing Technology Platforms, Global Media

& Solutions Business, Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company (HP)

Address: 3000 Hanover Street, Palo Alto, CA 94304
URL: www.hp.com
Phone: 650-857-1501
Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) is a global provider of products, technologies, software, solutions, and
services to individual consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and large enterprises,
including customers in the government, health and education sectors. The Company’s offerings span
multi-vendor customer services, including infrastructure technology and business process outsourcing,
technology support and maintenance, application development and support services, and consulting
and integration services; enterprise information technology infrastructure, including enterprise
storage and server technology, networking products and resources, and software that optimizes
business technology investments; personal computing and other access devices, and imaging and
printing-related products and services.
Target publishing process:

Manufacturing

MarkLogic: Revolutionizing the Way Today’s Enterprises Consolidate, Discover, and
Distribute Information
Founded in 2003, the company is led by pioneers in search engine technologies, database management
systems, and business intelligence, who saw that traditional ways of managing information using
relational databases and search applications were no longer sufficient. The increasing volume and
variety of information that enterprises have to manage required a radically new approach. Hence, the
development of the company’s groundbreaking product, MarkLogic Server.
Based on patented innovations, MarkLogic Server enables customers in industries including media,
government and financial services to develop and deploy rich information applications at a fraction of
the time and cost as compared with conventional approaches.
MarkLogic is headquartered in San Carlos, California with field offices in New York, Washington,
London, Boston, Austin, and Frankfurt. The company is privately held with investors Sequoia Capital
and Tenaya Capital. For more information, to download a trial version, or to read the award-winning
Kellblog, written by MarkLogic CEO Dave Kellogg, go to www.marklogic.com.
MarkLogic
Address: 999 Skyway Road, Suite 200, San Carlos, CA 94070
URL: www.marklogic.com
Phone: 650-655-2300
Mark Logic Corporation provides information access and delivery solutions for the acceleration and
creation of content applications. It offers MarkLogic Server, an XML server to store, manage, enrich,
search, navigate, and deliver content; and MarkLogic toolkits for the integration of Microsoft Office
PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and SharePoint. The company also provides consulting services, such as
digital asset distribution, custom publishing, vertical content delivery, training, and support services.

Editorial and Production, Distribution and Fulfillment

North Plains Systems Corporation

Address: 510 Front Street West, 4th Floor, Toronto, ON M5V 3H3, Canada
URL: www.northplains.com
E-mail: contact@northplains.com
Phone: 416-345-1900
North Plains provides digital asset management solutions. It offers solutions for the production,
management, distribution, and archiving of media content. The company's TeleScope application
platform offers on-demand solutions for digital asset management, marketing content management,
broadcast automation, video-on-demand, publishing automation, and e-learning. It also offers
professional services, training, and customer services. The company serves corporate marketing
departments, advertising and marketing services companies, media and entertainment companies,
print and publishing companies, and educational and nonprofit institutions.


Océ North America, Production Printing Systems: Delivering Productivity across the
Enterprise
As the offset-to-digital migration redefines the book publishing industry and publishers and printers
transform the supply chain, Océ has become a leader in the digital book printing market. With Océ
technology, books can be printed on demand as orders come in based on a sell-then-print model or in
shorter runs – before orders are placed – minimizing risks of overprinting, returns, and remaindering.
Of the top 20 digital book manufacturers, more than half have Océ solutions as part of their digital
platforms, using Océ continuous feed and cutsheet digital systems to print millions of books per year.
Today, the list continues to grow as book printers and publishers realize that they can put a digital
business model in place quickly to generate tremendous returns. And for more and more book printers,
the company helping them drive efficiency is Océ, offering unparalleled workflow advantages and the
resources they need to expand market opportunities.
Océ digital book solutions encompass everything from end-to-end digital book factories that accept
plain paper at one end and produce fully finished books at the other to single-system continuous feed
and cutsheet printers that produce book blocks for near-line or offline finishing. With Océ PRISMA®
pre-press and workflow software, book printers can receive and accept jobs over the web, intranet,
network, or via e-mail or CDs. They can scan hard copy originals, eliminate hard copy proofs, guarantee
front-to-back registration, combine and edit multiple PDF files, impose pages on the fly, and accept
print files from non-Océ workflows and printers.
From job ticketing to pre-press document preparation, Océ PRISMA software simplifies book
production, enabling better control, efficiency and quality. And when it comes to finishing, whether a
book printer opts for cutsheet or continuous feed technology and perfect binding or any other type of
binding, Océ can configure a solution that makes the best use of their investment.
Océ focuses its extensive experience, resources, and assets on integrating the components customers
need to streamline their document production, management and printing requirements. Our
organization proudly combines a heritage of highly robust products and leadership in production
printing with a long-standing focus on innovation, scalability, field-upgradeability, investment
protection and environmental stewardship.
Based in Boca Raton, Florida, the Océ Production Printing Systems division provides production-class
solutions for graphic arts print providers, direct mail facilities, service bureaus and production print
facilities in complex corporate and commercial markets. Océ hardware, software, and professional
services deliver the rock-solid reliability, application versatility, and cost-effective performance that
define production class. These key advantages, together with an unparalleled emphasis on customer
satisfaction, a “built-to-last” approach and continuing innovation set Océ apart as an undisputed leader
in the digital book printing and publishing industry.

Océ North America Production Printing Systems
Address: 5600 Broken Sound Boulevard, Boca Raton, FL 33487
URL: www.oceusa.com
Phone: 800-523-5444
Océ Printing Systems provides digital production printing and document management solutions. It
engages in the production, sale, and service of printers. The company offers transaction documents
solutions, as well as digital publishing services of manuals, books, and newspapers. The company's
solutions are based on its advanced software applications that deliver documents and data over
internal networks and the internet to printing devices and archives locally and throughout the world.
Supporting the workflow solutions are Océ digital printers and scanners, considered to be among the
most reliable and productive in the world. Océ also offers a wide range of display graphics, consulting,
and outsourcing solutions.

Manufacturing

Really Strategies, Inc.: Eliminating Barriers for Publishers to Create and Deliver Content
to the World Market
For 10 years, Really Strategies has worked with publishers to bring strategy, content, and technology
together. We began as a niche consulting group working with STM publishers, providing XML/DTD/
metadata modeling services, content management analysis, workflow re-engineering, and project and
program management services. At the turn of the century we recognized XML as the primary building
block for publishers to streamline the management, production, and delivery of content. But it’s not
only the technology that enables change; it is also the people and processes that manage technology,
which is critical for success. By focusing on publishers needs, Really Strategies has been able to serve
a broad range of publishers, media companies, government organizations, and technical publishers.
All trying to improve efficiencies and eliminating barriers to publishing and delivering content to the
world market.
Having built a series of custom content management systems (CMS) for customers, we recognized
there was no product on the market dedicated to the specific needs of publishers. So we built one.
RSuite is the only content management system built specifically and exclusively for publishers. RSuite
is designed to manage any content (XML, Word files, PDF, images, etc.) and provide publishers a view
of that content via reporting, workflow, search, and many other features. Publishers have traditionally
struggled with the ability to store and find both in-progress and finished products; however, with
RSuite’s browse and search capabilities, publishers are able to re-use and repurpose content for new
product development and licensing opportunities. RSuite allows a publisher to address the pain points
within its publishing process quickly by leveraging the robust workflow which includes both automated
(out-of-the-box) action handlers and manual review tasks. Workflows can be quickly setup and updated
to shorten time-to-market activities. Because of the flexibility of design and ease of extending RSuite,
many publishers have integrated best-in-class third party editorial and composition tools to meet their
end-to-end publishing system needs.

In June 2009 Really Strategies acquired DocZone, a SaaS XML CMS
for technical publishers. Technical publishers traditionally need to
create and manage a series of specifications, training documents,
and marketing material. Having a centralized end-to-end publishing
platform has allowed the technical publishers to focus on the content
rather than managing the technology that managed their content.
Today DocZone serves many Fortune 1000 companies to efficiently
manage their technical publishing program. DocZone has provided
a flexible toolset while being able to adapt to varying publishing
needs of technical publishers. Inherent in the technical publishing
process is the need to publish to many output formats (e.g., HTML,
PDF, ePub) which is an automated step within DocZone and is a
byproduct of the publishing process rather than an afterthought and
difficult workflow step. Ease of use is the theme behind DocZone and
any technical publisher can be up and running in days. DocZone has
proven to eliminate barriers to allow technical publishers to create
and deliver content more efficiently to the world market.
– Barry Bealer, CEO and Co-Founder
Really Strategies, Inc.

Address: 2570 Boulevard of the Generals, Suite 213, Audubon, PA 19403
URL: www.reallysi.com
E-mail: info@reallysi.com
Phone: 610-631-6770
Really Strategies, Inc. helps publishers, media companies, and other content-centric companies to
plan and implement content solutions and systems. It helps to bring strategy, content, and technology
together to analyze, architect, and implement appropriate tools and technologies. The company’s
solutions and services include XML editorial tools, XML repositories, content management systems,
and editorial and production systems, as well as workflow reengineering, technology evaluation,
DTD and schema development, functional and technical requirements development, and electronic
product development strategy. It also offers consulting and software as a service services, as well as
RSuite CMS, a content management system that facilitates the creation, management, re-use, and
distribution of XML, media files, and other document formats.


Appendix D: Digital Book Publishing Industry Directory
Adobe
Address: 345 Park Avenue, San Jose, CA 95110
URL: www.adobe.com
Phone: 408-536-6000, 800-833-6687
Adobe Systems Incorporated (Adobe) is a diversified software company. The Company offers a line of
creative, business, web, and mobile software and services used by creative professionals, knowledge
workers, consumers, original equipment manufacturers, developers, and enterprises for creating,
managing, delivering, and engaging with content and experiences across multiple operating systems,
devices, and media. It distributes its products through a network of distributors, value-added resellers
(VARs), systems integrators, independent software vendors (ISVs), and OEMs, direct to end users and
through its own website at www.adobe.com. It also licenses its technology to hardware manufacturers,
software developers, and service providers, and offers integrated software solutions to businesses of
all sizes.

Editorial and Production, Rights and Royalties, Distribution and Fulfillment
Aequor Technologies, Inc.

Address: 33 Wood Ave S, Ste 500, Iselin, NJ 08830
URL: www.aequor.com
E-mail: info@aequor.com
Phone: 732-494-4999
Aequor Technologies, Inc. provides information technology consulting services. It offers software
application services, such as software development, maintenance and support, re-engineering
and migration, software testing, and application integration services. The company also provides
technology practices, including open source, digital media, and security and compliance practice; and
ecommerce services, such as B-to-B, website personalization, content management, electronic bill
presentment and payment, web-enablement of legacy applications, systems re-engineering, systems
migration and upgradation, and business intelligence/data warehousing services. In addition, it offers
contact management and technical evaluation services, as well as engagement models. Target markets
include media and publishing, banking and financial services, insurance, life science and healthcare,
manufacturing, public sector and government, telecom, and retail.

Editorial and Production, Rights and Royalties, Distribution and Fulfillment

Amazon.com
Address: 1200 12th Avenue South Suite 1200, Seattle, WA 98144-2734
URL: www.amazon.com
Phone: 206-266-1000
Amazon.com, Inc. operates as an online retailer in North America and internationally. The company
operates various retail websites including amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, amazon.fr,
amazon.co.jp, amazon.ca, and amazon.cn. Its product categories include books; movies, music, and
games; digital downloads; electronics and computers; home and garden; toys, kids, and baby; grocery;
apparel, shoes, and jewelry; health and beauty; sports and outdoors; and tools, auto, and industrial.
The company serves its consumer customers through its retail websites and focuses on selection,
price, and convenience. It also offers programs that enable seller customers to sell their products on
its websites and their own branded websites. In addition, the company serves developer customers
through Amazon Web Services, which provides access to technology infrastructure that developers
can use to enable virtually any type of business. Further, it manufactures and sells the Kindle e-reader.
Additionally, the company offers co-branded credit card programs, fulfillment, and other marketing
and promotional services, such as online advertising.

Promotion and Marketing, Manufacturing, Distribution and Fulfillment
Appingo
Address: 333 Moody Street, Suite 201, Waltham, MA 02453
URL: www.appingo.com
E-mail: info@appingo.com
Phone: 781-547-5980
Appingo offers complete production service for publishers. Appingo's services include project
management, technical composition, information graphics, photo research, rights finalization, and
comprehensive publishing services. It also produces journals and directories, teacher supplements,
workbooks, and instructional materials of all kinds. Its vast experience in publishing includes work
on college textbooks, kindergarten through twelfth grade primers and ancillary materials, custom
magazines, and professional journals.

Editorial and Production, Rights and Royalties

Apple
Address: 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA 95014
URL: www.apple.com
E-mail: media.help@apple.com
Phone: 408-996-1010
Apple Inc., together with subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and markets personal computers, mobile
communication devices, and portable digital music and video players, as well as sells various related
software, services, peripherals, and networking solutions. The company sells its products worldwide
through its online stores, retail stores, direct sales force, third-party wholesalers, resellers, and value-
added resellers. In addition, it sells various third-party Macintosh, iPhone, and iPod compatible
products, including application software, printers, storage devices, speakers, headphones, and
various other accessories and peripherals through its online and retail stores, and digital content and
applications through the iTunes Store.

Distribution and Fulfillment
Aptara
Address: 3110 Fairview Park Drive, Suite 900, Falls Church, VA 22042
URL: www.aptaracorp.com
Phone: 703-352-0001
Aptara is a worldwide company that operates four divisions of an electronic content transformation
service. It delivers technologically advanced and integrated content transformation solutions that
enable customers to uncover new digital revenue opportunities and turn static data into digital
content. Aptara provides book and journal services, conversion and technology services to publishers,
information aggregators, professional societies, government agencies, universities, libraries, and
major corporations. Aptara converts paper, microfilm, and early-generation electronic content into
updated formats.

Editorial and Production; Distribution and Fulfillment

Argosy Publishing
Address: 109 Oak St Ste 3, Newton, MA 02464-1493
URL: www.argosypublishing.com
E-mail: sales@argosypublishing.com
Phone: 617-527-9999
Argosy Publishing is engaged in typesetting for the printing trade, commercial art, and graphic design
and publishing and printing of books.

Attributor
Address: 1775 Woodside Road, Suite 100, Redwood City, CA 94061
URL: www.attributor.com
Phone: 888-300-9114
Attributor, Inc. provides a web-wide content tracking and monetization platform that enables publishers
to build value with their content wherever it appears on the internet. It offers text monitoring, which
is used to identify new sales leads and revenue-sharing opportunities, monitor licensed uses, derive
links, and better search engine placement; image monitoring and monetization that finds copies of
the client images across the web and discover new syndication opportunities; and video monitoring
that supports various types of content, including text, images, and video. The company also offers
TrueAudience, a technology that enables publishers to quantify the audience viewing publisher content
off their destination site. Target markets include publishers and distributors of digital content.

Sales and Licensing

Atypon Systems, Inc.
Address: 5201 Great America Parkway, Suite 510, Santa Clara, CA 95054
URL: www.atypon.com
Phone: 408-988-1240
Atypon Systems, Inc. provides software, hosting, and systems development solutions to the
information industry. Its products include Atypon Premium, a hosted e-publishing solution that helps
clients in managing the process of delivering and managing content online; Atypon Link, a hosting and
delivery platform that offers an outsourced e-publishing service for publishers; and PDFplus, which
embeds reference links within PDFs, and enables information providers to offer users the linking
functionality of HTML. The company also offers eRights suite of products, which includes RightAccess
that provides authentication, authorization, product segmentation, and delegated administration
features for various types of digital goods and services; and RightCommerce, which allows companies
to implement multiple pricing models and reach customers at various stages of the sales cycle. Target
markets include commercial information providers, not-for-profit information providers, and university
presses.

Rights and Royalties, Promotion and Marketing, Distribution and Fulfillment
Author Solutions, Inc. (ASI)

Address: 1663 Liberty Drive Suite 200, Bloomington, IN 47403
URL: www.authorsolutions.com
Phone: 812-339-6000
Author Solutions, Inc. operates as a book publishing company. It helps authors to publish, promote,
and sell their books. The company also develops a publishing services platform that provides small
and medium-sized publishers the flexibility and speed-to-market advantages. Its platform includes an
automated front office with publishing rules baked in, integrate production workflow, file management,
accounting, a website with shopping cart, and CRM capability. The company also provides author
marketing products and services, including publicity, media relations, online services, and live event
opportunities.

Planning, Editorial and Production, Rights and Royalties, Manufacturing, Promotion and Marketing,
Sales and Licensing, Distribution and Fulfillment

Autonomy Interwoven
Address: 160 East Tasman Drive, San Jose, CA 95134
URL: www.interwoven.com
Phone: 408-774-2000
Autonomy Interwoven provides enterprise content management solutions for business and enables
organizations to unify people, content and processes to minimize business risk and sustain lower costs
of ownership. It delivers industry-specific solutions that reduce business process cycle time from initial
collaboration through design, production, sales, marketing, legal review, IT, and service.

Editorial and Production
AVATAR
Address: 1 Westferry Circus, Canary Wharf, London E14 4HD UK
URL: www.avatar-software.com
E-mail: avatar@littlejohnllp.com
Phone: 020 7516 2200
AVATAR is a fully integrated, module based business management system, specifically designed to
meet the evolving needs of publishers and distributors. It has been developed and is supported by
Littlejohn, one of the UK's top 30 firms of chartered accountants, based in London.

Rights and Royalties

Aysling Digital Media Solutions
Address: 1327 Jones Dr #107, Ann Arbor, MI 48105
URL: www.aysling.com
E-mail: support@aysling.com
Phone: 888-702-0082
Aysling brings the latest technology to clients through WoodWing's Enterprise content publishing
platform, Dataplan’s Planning Suite, and Drupal’s open-source WCM system. This allows both
traditional and non-traditional publishers to plan, create, and deliver content to their audience faster,
more efficiently, and with less expense.

Azurn/Value Chain International Limited

Address: 6/1632 High Street, Glen Iris, Victoria 3146, Australia
URL: www.value-chain.biz
Phone: 61 3 9885 3822
Value Chain International Limited provides business enterprise information management services. It
offers publishers and companies with digital content to collect, collate, aggregate, add value, repurpose,
and distribute information; integrates product information distributed in functional groups; address
account aggregation and management challenges using XML and web services standards; product
catalogues available through multiple channels, such as ecommerce sites, procurement systems, and
print media; helps educators communicate, collaborate, aggregate, report, and develop a secure and
transparent learning environment; and automates the aggregation, management, and distribution of
media and metadata.

Editorial and Production, Manufacturing, Sales and Licensing, Distribution and Fulfillment

Baker & Taylor, Inc. (Blio)
Address: 2550 West Tyvola Road Suite 300, Charlotte, NC 28217
URL: www.btol.com
E-mail: info@btol.com
Phone: 800-775-1800
Baker & Taylor, Inc. distributes books, videos, and music products to libraries, institutions, and retailers.
It offers acquisition, audiovisual, before on-sale shipping, collection development, continuation,
customized library, information, MARC, Spanish language, bookstore, Internet retail, merchandising,
ordering, and web hosting services. The company also produces publications that are information
sources for making purchasing decisions.

Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Address: 122 Fifth Avenue, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10011
URL: www.barnesandnobleinc.com
Phone: 212-633-3300
Barnes & Noble, Inc. operates as a bookseller in the US. Barnes & Noble, Inc. conducts the online part
of its business through barnesandnoble.com LLC.


Blackboard Inc.
Address: 1899 L Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20036
URL: www.blackboard.com
Phone: 202-463-4860
Blackboard Inc. is a provider of enterprise software applications and related services to the education
industry. Its various software applications are delivered in its four product lines: Blackboard Learn,
Blackboard Transact, Blackboard Connect, and Blackboard Mobile. Blackboard Learn, the Company’s
web-based teaching and learning platform, is the new version of Blackboard Academic Suite. Blackboard
Transact is the successor to the Blackboard Commerce Suite, and can be used for on and off-campus
commerce management, online e-commerce and payment management, meal plan administration,
vending, and laundry services. Blackboard Connect is the Company’s alert and notification platform for
its communications and notification system solutions.

Blue Toad
Address: 6236 Kingspointe Parkway, Suite 10, Orlando, FL 32819
URL: www.bluetoad.com
E-mail: sales@bluetoad.com
Phone: 407-992-8744
BlueToad, Inc. is an online digital publication company. The company converts print PDF files into
enhanced online digital publications that use flash-based, page-flip technology to simulate the look
and feel of traditional paper publications.


Blurb
Address: 580 California, Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94104
URL: www.blurb.com
Phone: 415-362-2067
Blurb, Inc. provides a book publishing and marketing platform for bloggers, artists, marketers,
photographers, travelers, entrepreneurs, and poets. It offers BookSmart, a bookmaking software
designed for Mac or PC users to publish their books. The company also provides bookstore and online
marketing tools that enable authors to read, make, share, sell, and promote their books.

Editorial and Production, Rights and Royalties, Manufacturing, Promotion and Marketing, Sales and
Licensing, Distribution and Fulfillment
Book Manager (Scott Moore Ltd.)

Address: The Cottage, Back Street, Gislingham, Eye, Suffolk, IP23 8JH, UK
URL: www.scottmoore.co.uk/products.html
Phone: 01449 782001
Scott Moore Ltd has been supplying computer systems to the book trade since 1988. BookManager is
a flexible and powerful solution for retail, trade, and mail order.

Rights and Royalties, Promotion and Marketing, Sales and Licensing, Distribution and Fulfillment
BookDaily.com (ArcaMax Publishing)

Address: 729 Thimble Shoals Blvd, Suite 1-B, Newport News, VA 23606
URL: www.bookdaily.com (www.arcamax.com)
Phone: 757-596-9731
BookDaily.com is owned and operated by ArcaMax Publishing, Inc., provider of internet e-zine services;
and internet marketing and advertising services.

Promotion and Marketing

Book Industry Study Group (BISG)
Address: 370 Lexington Ave., Suite 900, New York, NY 10017
URL: www.bisg.org
E-mail: info@bisg.org
Phone: 646-336-7141
The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) is the leading US book trade association for supply chain
standards, research, and best practices. For over 30 years, BISG has been working on behalf of its
diverse membership of publishers, retailers, manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, librarians,
and others involved in both print and digital publishing to create a more informed, empowered, and
efficient book industry supply chain for both physical and digital products. BISG actively promotes
book industry standards and best practices while providing a unique forum for industry professional to
collectively address issues affecting the efficiency and effectiveness of the US book trade.
BookNet Canada
Address: 215 Spadina Avenue, Suite 310, Toronto, Ontario, M5T 2C7
URL: www.booknetcanada.ca
Phone: 416-362-5057
BookNet Canada is a not-for-profit agency serving Canadian publishers, distributors, and booksellers.
BookNet runs B2B trading services, sets technology standards, performs market research, and
manages book sales reporting data.


R.R. Bowker LLC.
Address: 630 Central Ave., New Providence, NJ 07974
URL: www.bowker.com
Phone: 888-269-5372
As an US ISBN and SAN agency, R.R. Bowker is one of the world's leading companies that maintains
title, publisher, and bibliographic information. It serves public, academic, research, and government
libraries. The company also offers a range of reference and reporting products and services. R.R.
Bowker provides supply chain services for publishers and booksellers. It offers products under the
AquaBrowser, Books In Print, Pubnet, PubEasy, and PubTrack brands.

Bradbury Phillips International Ltd.

Address: 29 Aubert Park, London, N5 1TP, UK
URL: www.bradburyphillips.co.uk
E-mail: info@bradburyphillips.co.uk
Phone: 020 3340 3913
Bradbury Phillips International is the publisher of the Bradbury Phillips Rights Management,
Permissions, Agents’ Accounts, and Authors’ Royalties software.


Canto
Address: 221 Main Street, Suite 460, San Francisco, CA 94105
URL: www.canto.com
E-mail: info@canto.com
Phone: 415-495-6545
Canto Software, Inc. develops and delivers digital asset management solutions. The company designs
and develops Canto Cumulus, a digital asset management software that allows work groups to find,
share, and publish files. Additionally, it provides brand management workflow working solutions under
the BrandAssistant brand name.

Editorial and Production, Manufacturing
Censhare
Address: Paul-Gerhardt-Allee 50, 81245 München, Germany
URL: www.censhare.com
E-mail: info@censhare.com
Phone: 49 89 568236-0
Censhare AG is primarily engaged in publishing of software and other software consultancy and supply.
The company provides information and process management solutions.


Chicago Distribution Services/BiblioVault
Address: Chicago, IL 60628
URL: www.bibliovault.org, www.chicagodistributioncenter.org
E-mail: dcollins@press.uchicago.edu
Phone: 800-621-2736, 773-702-7020
BiblioVault operates under the umbrella of Chicago Distribution Services. BiblioVault helps scholarly
publishers preserve and extend the value of their books, providing long-term secure storage of digital
book files for member presses, as well as a wide range of scanning, printing, transfer, conversion, and
distribution services.

Production, Manufacturing, Sales and Licensing, Distribution and Fulfillment
codeMantra
Address: 600 W Germantown Pike, Plymouth Meeting, PA 19462
URL: www.codemantra.com
E-mail: cminfo@codemantra.com
Phone: 610-940-1700
CodeMantra provides data and content management solutions.

Editorial and Production, Manufacturing, Distribution and Fulfillment

Cognizant
Address: 500 Frank W.Burr Blvd., Teaneck, NJ 07666
URL: www.cognizant.com
E-mail: inquiry@cognizant.com
Phone: 201-801-0233
Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation is a provider of custom information technology
consulting and technology services, and outsourcing services. Its IT consulting and technology services
include business and knowledge process consulting; IT strategy consulting; technology consulting;
application design, development, integration, and re-engineering, such as complex custom systems
development, data warehousing/business intelligence, customer relationship management (CRM)
system implementation, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) system implementation; and software
testing services. The company’s outsourcing services comprise application maintenance, including
custom application, CRM, and ERP maintenance; IT infrastructure outsourcing; and business and
knowledge process outsourcing.

Promotion and Marketing, Distribution and Fulfillment
Connotate
Address: 100 Albany Street, 2nd fl; New Brunswick, NJ 08901
URL: www.connotate.com
Phone: 732-296-8844
Connotate Technologies Inc. provides business intelligence solutions to collect and transform
information from the web and enterprises into user-empowered on-demand applications and
actionable intelligence. The company offers Agent Community GEN2, an information access, analysis,
and automation platform that provides enterprise users with tools for idea generation, personalized
monitoring, precision harvesting, data mash up, integration, and automation. Its products include
Data Edition, a solution for mining, extracting, aggregating, and normalizing data from structured
or unstructured sources, including XML, HTML, databases, and PDF files; Intelligence Edition, a
solution that enables informed decision-making through real-time business, competitive, and market
intelligence; and On Demand Library that provides a collection of user-generated agent applications.
The company also helps its clients in creating customized intelligent agents that monitor, mine, extract,
mash up, and aggregate data from the web and enterprise sources.


Content Data Solutions
Address: One Progress Drive, Horsham, PA 19044-8014
URL: www.contentdsi.com
E-mail: marketing@contentdsi.com
Phone: 800-872-2828
Content Data Solutions, Inc. operates as a software and systems integration company. It provides
content management, publishing solutions, and services. The company produces print and web
directories from a single source, develops a subscription-based website, catalogs publications, creates
web and CD/DVD training manuals, and develops digital asset management system. Its services include
pre-press, data conversion and preparations, web design/hosting, CD/DVD development, digital
publishing, and records management solutions.

Copia (DMC Worldwide)

Address: 105 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
URL: www.thecopia.com
E-mail: info@dmcww.com
Phone: 212-889-0200
Copia, developed by DMC Worldwide, is a social e-reading experience, combining marketplace,
community, collaboration, social networking, and e-reading devices.


Copyright Clearance Center
Address: 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923
URL: www.copyright.com
E-mail: info@copyright.com
Phone: 978-750-8400
Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. provides copyright licensing solutions for the academic institutions and
corporations. It provides content licensing and permission, annual licensing, pay-per-use permission,
corporate licensing and permission, academic licensing and permission, international licensing and
permission, and rights holder licensing and permissions services.

Sales and Licensing, Rights and Royalties
Cybergraphix
Address: 383 State Route 511, Nova, OH 44859
URL: www.cybergraphix.com
Phone: 419-652-2200
Cybergraphix, Inc. offers web development, multimedia, and document management solutions. The
company offers digital signage, video editing and conversion, document imaging, programming,
digital video disc and compact disc duplication and authoring, and animation services.

Manufacturing

CyberWolf, Inc. (ACUMEN Book)
Address: 1596 Pacheco, Suite 203, Santa Fe, NM, 87505
URL: www.cyberwolf.com
E-mail: sales@acumenbook.com
Phone: 505-983-6463
CyberWolf provides technology solutions to publishers. Products include: ACUMEN Book business
management system; PowerWeb Book e-commerce platform; and the CyberWolf Download Service.

Planning, Promotion and Marketing, Sales and Licensing, Distribution and Fulfillment
Data Conversion Laboratory, Inc.

Address: 61-18 190th St., 2nd Floor, Fresh Meadows, NY 11365
URL: www.dclab.com
Phone: 718-357-8700
Data Conversion Laboratory, Inc. provides content conversion services to publishers, industry,
government, libraries, and documentation developers. It prepares and converts content for electronic
distribution and web by converting it to structured formats like XML, SGML, OeB, and HTML. The
company offers paper and PDF sources to SGML/XML, proprietary and non-proprietary electronic
source data formats to SGML/XML, SGML to SGML, SGML to XML, DTD's and schemas, structural
and content-based DTD, and simultaneous conversion to multiple DTDs and schemas services, as
well as QA and process review services for in-house systems, and legacy conversions and software for
recurring data streams.


Delphax Technologies, Inc.
Address: 6100 West 110th Street, Bloomington, IN 55438
URL: www.delphax.com
E-mail: info@delphax.com
Phone: 952-939-9000
Delphax Technologies, Inc. engages in the design, manufacture, sale, and servicing of digital print
production systems, and related spare parts and supplies. It provides digital printing solutions that can
personalize, encode, print, and collate documents for publishing, direct mail, legal, financial, security,
forms, and other commercial printing applications. Delphax Technologies also provides the CR series
system, which accommodates a range of substrates from ultra lightweight paper to heavy stock, to
publishers, direct mailers, and transaction document printers; the Imaggia II series that contains sheet-
fed digital presses; and finishing systems, which support post-printing activities, such as batching,
stacking, slitting, cutting, folding, and binding. In addition, it offers various pre-press software and
hardware solutions for use with its printing equipment, which provides the data integration tools
necessary to manage the print production process.

Manufacturing
diacriTech
Address: 661 Boylston Street, 2nd Floor, Boston, MA 02116
URL: www.diacritech.com
Phone: 617-600-3366
diacriTech, LLC provides book, journal, and multimedia publishing services for publishers in North
America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Its portfolio includes mathematics, school, science and medical,
and technical books. It offers publishing services, such as project management, page composition,
illustrations/art, editorial, copyediting, language translation, cover and interior design, and indexing.
The company also provides XML and data conversion services, as well as data capture services from
manuscripts, database, print, PDF, and other media. In addition, it offers business process outsourcing
services, such as data entry, forms processing, document management solutions, conference and
medical transcription, data validation, web mining, outbound call center, order processing, and billing;
and consulting services.


DMC Worldwide (Copia)
Address: 105 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
URL: www.dmcww.com
E-mail: info@dmcww.com
Phone: 212.889.0200
DMC Worldwide develops, manufactures, and distributes consumer electronics products. The company
provides end-to-end business solutions including product development, sales channel marketing, and
supply chain management. DMC Worldwide develops Copia, a social e-reading experience, combining
marketplace, community, collaboration, social networking, and e-reading devices.

DNAML Pty Limited

Address: Suite 4, 4th Floor, 189 Kent Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
URL: www.dnaml.com
Phone: 61 2 8248 5111
DNAML Pty Limited, a software-development company, specializes in e-publishing solutions. It
offers DeskTop Author, an electronic publishing software that allows to create and/or sell page
turning electronic publications; DNL e-book Security and Distribution System for publishers, authors,
distributors, and retailers; and Desktop Communicator, an electronic catalog software that allows
to create and distribute updatable eCatalogs, digital brochures, personalized newsletters, and
membership alerts. The company also offers products in the field of electronic publishing, based
around its document-authoring systems, publishing conversion tools, distribution solutions, and
reseller systems.


E-BookServices (EDX Electronics)
Address: EDX Electronics (P) Ltd., 14, Main Patel Road, West Patel Nagar; New Delhi 110 008, India
URL: www.e-bookservices.com
Phone: 91 98 100 50809
E-BookServices, an outsourcing company that specializes in preparing digital content, provides
multilingual publishing-related services to publishers, authors, and translation agencies. The company
provides multi-lingual typesetting, OCR and scanning, multi-lingual DTP, XML coding/tagging, format
conversion, e-Book creation, and text extraction for translation.

Eastman Kodak
Address: 343 State Street, Rochester, NY 14650
URL: www.kodak.com
Phone: 585-724-4000
Eastman Kodak Company provides imaging technology products and services to the photographic and
graphic communications markets worldwide. It operates in three segments: Consumer Digital Imaging
Group (CDG); Film, Photofinishing, and Entertainment Group (FPEG); and Graphic Communications
Group (GCG). The CDG segment offers consumer digital capture and devices. The FPEG segment
comprises traditional photographic products and services. The GCG segment provides digital and
traditional prepress equipment and consumables and imaging services.

Manufacturing, Distribution and Fulfillment

Easypress
Address: The Surrey Technology Centre, 40 Occam Road, The Surrey Research Park, Guildford, Surrey,
GU2 7YG UK
URL: www.easypress.com
Phone: 44 1483 685 250
Easypress Technologies Limited develops and sells cross-media publishing software that enables
publishers to create, manage, and publish content in multiple media. The company offers Atomik
Xport, a solution that enables to convert QuarkXPress content into extensible markup language (XML)
format; Atomik Roundtrip, which facilitates users to import XML into QuarkXPress and re-export it;
EasyEPUB, an online service or an enterprise application that enables publishers to create e-books; and
Atomik XML Publisher, a solution that facilitates the user to transfer content to and from QuarkXPress
documents in XML format. It also provides Atomik Dynamic Publisher, an online collaborative document
and workflow management system that enables remote clients and internal editors to collaborate with
their document designers within an integrated web-based environment; Atomik Quantum Publisher,
which takes publishing to the next level allowing Adobe InDesign documents, books, brochures, and
magazines to exist in various print and digital formats, as well as reflects changes in the Adobe InDesign
document in the alternative delivery platform; and Atomik Import that enables QuarkXPress users
to create print document from XML content. In addition, the company offers a range of consultancy
services in the areas of cross-media publishing and integrating print publishing into XML workflows;
and provides software maintenance services and customized training packages.

EasyRoyalties
URL: www.easyroyaltiesusa.com
Royalty software from Easy Royalties is a product of JDC Software Ltd. and is distributed in the United
States and Canada by Kensai International Ltd. It is an affordable and powerful software solution for
small to mid-sized publishers, designed to meet the needs of publishers that have complex royalty
accounting requirements or are just beginning to distribute digital content.


e-book Architects
Address: 1002 Red Cliff Dr., Austin, TX 78758-5125
URL: www.e-bookarchitects.com
Phone: 512-939-3466
Business
Description: e-book Architects is a full-service e-book conversion, consulting, and services company
serving the needs of authors and publishers.

ebooks Corporation
Address: 62 Bayview Terrace, Claremont, Western Australia
URL: www.ebooks.com
Phone: 61 8 9385 5851
eBooks Corp. distributes commercial e-books from book publishers. It operates ebooks.com, an
e-book store, which sells popular, professional, and academic digital books from various publishers.
The company also provides a growing collection of scholarly and professional texts to institutions and
companies internationally. In addition, the company provides marketing and fulfillment services to
book publishers and retailers.

Distribution and Fulfillment, Promotion and Marketing, Sales and Licensing

ebrary
Address: 318 Cambridge Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94306
URL: www.ebrary.com
E-mail: info@ebrary.com
Phone: 866-4-EBRARY
ebrary, Inc. provides e-content and technology services. It offers Title Preview, a software-as-a-service
(SaaS) marketing tool that enables publishers, aggregators, corporations, societies, distributors, and
individuals to market their digital content and increase leads. The company helps libraries, publishers,
and other organizations to disseminate information to end-users by improving research and document
interaction. Its platform is used to archive, manage, and share digital content, such as theses and
dissertations, reports, historical books, manuscripts, and other documents in PDF. The company's
platform is integrated with existing websites of publishers, as well as helps publishers to sell e-books
online through various business models, including subscriptions, perpetual ownerships, and micro-
transactions. It also offers On-Demand Libraries, which allow customer relationship management and
SaaS providers to package their services with custom and branded collections of relevant e-books; and
a subscription database. In addition, the company offers ClickOne that satisfies the SEC's summary
prospectus rules; and a subscription database in medical technology.

Manufacturing, Sales and Licensing, Distribution and Fulfillment
Eclipse
Address: 4th Floor, 21 Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH16 3TP UK
URL: www.eclgrp.com/businessdynamics/
E-mail: sales@eclgrp.com
Phone: 0203 058 1000
The Eclipse Business Dynamics Royalty and Rights Management System (ERRMS) integrates
seamlessly with Microsoft Dynamics GP. The system is an automated, end-to-end royalty accounting
program that includes flexible reporting solutions and an excellent audit trail to clearly demonstrate
regulatory compliance and reassure rights-holders of royalty accounting accuracy.


Edwards Brothers
Address: 2500 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104
URL: www.edwardsbrothers.com
Phone: 734-769-1004
Edwards Brothers, Inc. manufactures and supplies books and journals in the United States and the
United Kingdom. It specializes in short, medium, and ultra-short runs for publishers, authors, scholarly
societies, industrial firms, and universities. The company offers prepress, printing, and bindery services.
It also provides printing services for catalog and commercial documentation markets.

Ehaus
Address: G16 Shepherds Building, Rockley Road, London W14 0DA UK
URL: www.ehaus.co.uk
E-mail: support@ehaus.co.uk
Phone: 44 020 3393 8290
Ehaus is an independent web design and development company, offering web design and development
services, content management systems, and online e-commerce shopping systems.

Promotion and Marketing, Sales and Licensing, Distribution and Fulfillment

Endeca
Address: 101 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142
URL: www.endeca.com
E-mail: sales@endeca.com
Phone: 617-674-6000
Endeca Technologies, Inc. offers information access software. The company’s information access
platform aids information-based problem solving in various business processes, including e-commerce,
marketing-campaign analysis, product design and parts reuse, knowledge management, and customer
service. The company also offers intranet and knowledge management, enterprise search, website
search, analytics, sales and marketing, customer service, online retail, B2B ecommerce, and online
media solutions. In addition, it offers consulting, education, and support services. The company serves
retail, manufacturing and distribution, media and publishing, financial services, healthcare and life
sciences, hospitality, and professional services industries, as well as the public sector.

ePublishing, Inc.
Address: 720 North Franklin, Suite 401, Chicago, IL, 60654
URL: www.epublishing.com
E-mail: service@ePublishing.com
Phone: 312.768.6800
ePublishing is a Platform Developer and Internet Professional Services Company. The company
offers web development, web design, and hosted solutions for businesses, publishers, and media
companies.

Editorial and Production, Promotion and Marketing, Sales and Licensing

Ether Books Ltd.
Address: Woodlands, Churchland Lane, Sedlescombe, Battle, East Sussex TN33 0PF UK
URL: www.etherbooks.co.uk
E-mail: info@etherbooks.co.uk
Phone: 44 142 487 1658
Ether Books publishes directly to mobile phones.

Exeter Premedia Services

Address: 154/40, Eldams Road, Teynampet, Chennai 600018, Tamil Nadu, India
URL: www.exeterpremedia.com
E-mail: info@exeterpremedia.com
Phone: 91-44-23452921 / 23452922
Exeter premedia services provides high technology services and media support solutions to a full range
of publishing and media clients. Exeter offers a composite SGML/XML service to book and journal
publishers and provides a complete set of prepress, e-publication, and project management services
to corporations and commercial printing enterprises.


FastPencil
Address: 3131 Bascom Avenue Suite 150, Campbell, CA 95008
URL: www.fastpencil.com
E-mail: support@fastpencil.com
Phone: 831-332-5816
FastPencil, Inc. operates a social self-publishing platform that allows authors to write, share, publish,
and sell their books. It provides design, custom cover, interior page review, custom interior book design,
editorial review, copy editing, line editing, content editing, and publishing services. The company offers
Color Book Creator, a platform for projects, such as children's books, cookbooks, comic books, and
coffee table books. Its platform also enables the authors to access friends, readers, and partners to
share knowledge, chat, and gather feedback from reviewers and editors, as well as to collaborate with
other authors.

Editorial and Production, Promotion and Marketing, Distribution and Fulfillment
Firebrand Technologies/NetGalley
Address: 44 Merrimac St., Newburyport MA 01950-2574
URL: www.firebrandtech.com
Phone: 800-779-7345
Firebrand Technologies develops software and technology solutions for the publishing community,
including consumer trade book publishers, academic and educational publishers, journal publishers,
audio publishers, distributors, trade partners, industry representatives, and other service providers

Planning, Rights and Royalties, Promotion and Marketing, Distribution and Fulfillment

Flat World Knowledge
Address: 1 Bridge Street, Suite 105, Irvington, NY 10533
URL: www.flatworldknowledge.com
Phone: 877-257-9243
Flat World Knowledge provides free, open, online books. The company has recently signed two
deals with college bookstores: one with Barnes & Noble College Bookstores, which operates 639
college bookstores across the US, and the other with NACS Media Solutions (a subsidiary of NACS,
the National Association of College Stores). In addition to distribution and purchase arrangements,
the NACS agreement also includes several pilots of POD services. Flat World Knowledge will provide
bookstores with digital files of its college textbooks which, since Flat World textbooks are openly-
licensed, instructors can remix, reorder, add, and remove content. The bookstore can then print and
bind the textbooks as high-quality paperback books.

Focus Information Technology Services Ltd.

Address: Unit B205, Faircharm Trading Estate, 8-12 Creekside; London, SE8 3DX UK
URL: www.focusservices.co.uk
E-mail: info@focusservices.co.uk
Phone: 0208 469 4000
Focus IT Services is a software developer for the book industry. The company develops software
applications designed to help companies manage their accounting procedures more efficiently. These
products cut across a sub-section of the trade industry such as warehouse distributors, publishers,
government offices, hotels etc.

Planning

Follett Digital Resources
Address: 1391 Corporate Drive, McHenry, IL 60050
URL: www.follettsoftware.com
Phone: 800-323-3397
Follett Digital Resources, part of Follett Software Company, helps districts of all sizes track and use
information and resources more efficiently. The company provides software and services for publishers
and educators.

FYI Business Solutions

Address: 3799 US Highway 46 East, Parsippany, NJ 07054
URL: www.fyisolutions.com
E-mail: info@fyisolutions.com
Phone: 973.331.9050
FYI Systems, Inc. operates as an information technology professional services company. It offers
business intelligence solutions, including performance management, data warehousing and data
marts, reporting and analytics, and enterprise planning; and business process management solutions,
including requirements management, process analysis, process execution, and process improvement.
The company also provides project governance solutions, including project, and portfolio and resource
management; quality and process management; project assessment and audits; methodologies and
practices; and project management office solutions. In addition, FYI Systems, Inc. offers e-business
solutions and application management services.


Gather.com
Address: Gather Inc., 234 Congress Street, 4th Floor, Boston, MA 02110
URL: www.gather.com
Phone: 617-720-4000
Gather, Inc. operates a social networking site for adults. It enables users to share thoughts,
conversations, video, information, pictures, ideas, and audio.

Gibson Publishing Connections

Address: PO Box 1029, Saint-Lazare, QC J7T 2Z7 Canada
URL: www.gibsonpublishingconnections.ca
Phone: 866-458-2264
Gibson Publishing Connections provides services and practical advice to Canadian publishers seeking
to enter this digital market.

Global Turnkey Systems

SEE: Klopotek

Google Books (Google Enterprise)
Address: 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043
URL: www.google.com, books.google.com
Phone: 650-253-0000
Google Inc., a technology company, maintains an index of websites and other online content for users,
advertisers, Google network members, and other content providers. It helps users to obtain instant
access to relevant information from its online index. Its products and services include Google Books,
a service that searches the full text of books stored in its digital database. The company also offers
Google Enterprise product line comprising Google Apps that provides hosted communication and
collaboration tools.

HCL America, Inc.

Address: 330 Potrero Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94085
URL: www.hcltech.com
Phone: 408-733-0480
HCL America, Inc. provides consulting and information technology (IT) services in North America. The
company provides application services in the areas of customer relationship management, enterprise
resource planning, supply chain management, IT infrastructure, and business process outsourcing.
It also specializes in digital signal processing, embedded systems, engineering, enterprise tools,
middleware, product data management, security, storage networking, systems software, verification
and validation, voice over internet protocol, and wireless technology services.


Hewlett-Packard Company (HP)
Address: 3000 Hanover Street, Palo Alto, CA 94304
URL: www.hp.com
Phone: 650-857-1501
Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) is a global provider of products, technologies, software, solutions, and
services to individual consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and large enterprises,
including customers in the government, health, and education sectors. The Company’s offerings span
multi-vendor customer services, including infrastructure technology and business process outsourcing,
technology support and maintenance, application development and support services, and consulting
and integration services; enterprise information technology infrastructure, including enterprise
storage and server technology, networking products and resources, and software that optimizes
business technology investments; personal computing and other access devices, and imaging and
printing-related products and services.
Target publishing process:

Manufacturing
HTC Global Services

Address: 3270 West Big Beaver Road, Troy, MI 48084
URL: www.htcinc.com
E-mail: contact@htcinc.com
Phone: 248-786-2500
HTC Global Services, Inc. provides information technology (IT) solutions. It offers application
development and maintenance, application re-engineering and migration, enterprise application
integration, testing, enterprise content management, business intelligence, and IT infrastructure
management services. The company also provides Process and Project Management Automation,
a solution that automates project management activities from project inception to project closure;
EGrAMS, an enterprise wide grants management solution that manages grants management
activities to help grantor organizations; docuSTACK, a document management solution, which
manages the document lifecycle from capture through management, including storage, delivery, and
archival; CampusERP, a web-based comprehensive campus management system that integrates data
across various departments of institutes, colleges, and universities; and eBAP, which is an integrated
component-based solution to automate, monitor, and control functions of organizations.

Planning, Editorial and Production

iFactory
Address: 33 Farnsworth St., 4th flr, Boston, MA 02210
URL: www.ifactory.com
E-mail: sales@ifactory.com
Phone: 617-426-8600
iFactory offers a range of website design, development, and engineering services. The agency provides
various search engine optimization and positioning solutions. iFactory also offers commercial and
online multimedia services. It provides a variety of brand strategy and development solutions. The
agency offers research, documentation, prototyping and testing services.

Impelsys, Inc.
Address: 55 Broad Street, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10004
URL: www.impelsys.com
E-mail: info@impelsys.com
Phone: 212-239-4138
Impelsys, Inc. provides online content delivery technologies and services to the publishing industry. It
offers iPlatform portals that are used to bring books, journals, and any other printed material online;
VirtualPages, which is an online and offline reader used to monetize publisher’s existing printed
content by building new digital versions; iPublishCentral that enables publishers to market, distribute,
and deliver their content online; and iDAMS, which is a digital asset management system (DAMS) that
enables storing, searching, and retrieving digital assets through a common platform. The company
also provides SmartCD, which is a platform-independent solution for delivering books, journals, and
learning resources through compact discs; solutions to provide electronic samples to teachers and
schools; and PDA solutions that offer materials on mobile devices. In addition, it offers multimedia,
e-learning, content conversion, custom software development, and maintenance and support services.
The company’s portals are used as e-commerce, online book, and journal portals, as well as online
databases.


InfoPrint Solutions Co.
Address: 6300 Diagonal Highway, Boulder, CO 80301
URL: www.infoprint.com
Phone: 877-646-3677
InfoPrint Solutions Company, LLC provides output solutions for business customers. The company
provides automated document factory, optimization, productivity, and print on-demand solutions, as
well as TRANSPROMO that enables the fusion of transactional documents and promotional marketing.
In addition, it offers commercial printing, distribution, transaction output, and manufacturing industry
solutions, as well as intelligent mail barcode implementation services. Further, the company provides
conversion center services, distributed print management services, AFP2WEB technologies, and
document composition consulting solutions, as well as solutions for managing books and manuals
print on demand jobs.

Manufacturing
Infosys
Address: 630 Fifth Ave., Rockefeller Center, Suite 1600, New York, NY 10111
URL: www.infosys.com
E-mail: askus@infosys.com
Phone: 646-254-3100
Infosys Technologies Limited provides information technology (IT) and consulting services worldwide.
It offers IT services, such as application, architecture, independent validation and testing, information
management, infrastructure, packaged application, SOA, systems integration, and knowledge
services; product engineering services, manufacturing process and plant solutions, and product
lifecycle management services; and consulting services in the areas of information and technology
strategies, product innovation, next generation commerce, process excellence, and learning and
complex change.


Ingram Content Group (Ingram Digital)
Address: 1 Ingram Blvd., La Vergne, TN 37086
URL: www.ingramcontent.com, www.ingramdigital.com
E-mail: inquiry@ingramcontent.com
Phone: 615-793-5000
Ingram Content Group Inc., through its subsidiaries engages in distribution of books. Ingram Digital,
Ltd. operates as a distributor and supplier of content management, distribution and hosting solutions
for publishers, retailers, libraries, and institutions.

Innodata Isogen
Address: Three University Plaza, Hackensack, NJ 07601
URL: www.innodata-isogen.com
E-mail: info@innodata-isogen.com
Phone: 201-371-8000
Innodata Isogen, Inc. provides knowledge process outsourcing (KPO), and publishing and related
information technology (IT) services in the United States and worldwide. The company’s services help
organizations create, manage, and maintain their products. Its publishing services include activities,
such as digitization, conversion, composition, data modeling, and XML encoding. These services also
include conversion of books to e-book-ready formats.


InstaBook Corporation
Address: 12300 NW 56th Ave., Gainesville, FL 32653
URL: instabook.net
Phone: 352-332-1311
InstaBook Corp. has developed InstaBook, a Print On Demand technology. The company is primarily
engaged in printing, or in printing and binding, books and pamphlets.

International Business Systems (IBS) (BookMaster)

Address: 90 Blue Ravine Road, Folsom, CA 95630
URL: www.ibsus.com
E-mail: info@ibsus.com
Phone: 916-985-3900
International Business Systems US supplies business application software and professional consulting
services for supply chain execution. In addition, the company specializes in the development of
Bookmaster software solutions for the publishing and book distribution industry.

IPRO Business Systems

Address: 9630 N. 25th Ave., Suite 450, Phoenix, AZ 85021
URL: www.ipubtech.com
Phone: 866-897-4782
IPRO Business Systems develops and distributes iPUB, business software for publishers.


Jacquette Consulting
Address: 710 Providence Road, Loman Hall, Malvern, PA 19355
URL: www.jacquette.com
Phone: 610-644-4485
Jacquette Consulting is an information technology (IT) services company that specializes in developing
innovative software applications in scientific and high-technology settings.

Jouve
Address: 11, Boulevard Sébastopol, CS 70004, 75036 Paris Cedex 01, France
URL: www.jouve.com
Phone: 33 01 44 76 54 34
Jouve offers editorial services. Its services include capturing information, editorial management of
publications, publication from paper to the internet, and typesetting and composition. The company
also offers printing and Internet services, including audits and consulting, info graphics and ergonomics,
design and development, third-party applicative maintenance, and web hosting.

K4
SEE: MEI

Klopotek North America/Global Turnkey Systems
Address: 2001 Route 46, suite 203, Parsippany, NJ 07054
URL: www.klopotek.com, www.gtsystems.com
E-mail: info@klopotek.com
Phone: 973-331-1010
Klopotek offers business software and solutions to publishers. Global Turnkey Systems develops
enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for the publishing industry. It is designed specifically for
publishers of subscriptions, books, e-information products, and other fulfillment-oriented needs.

knk Business Software AG

Address: Beselerallee 67, 24105 Kiel Germany
URL: www.knkpublishingsoftware.com
Phone: 49-431-57972-0
knk Business Software AG is a developer of business software for publishing houses. knkPublishing
offers seamless integration with Microsoft Dynamics.

Planning, Editorial and Production, Manufacturing

LibreDigital
Address: 1835-B Kramer Lane, Suite 150, Austin, TX 78758
URL: www.libredigital.com
E-mail: ask_us@libredigital.com, sales@libredigital.com
Phone: 866-981-6755
LibreDigital, Inc., a digital media services company, develops interactive digital technology solutions
for the publishers of books, newspapers, and magazines in the United States and internationally. It
offers LibreDigital Internet Digital Warehouse, a hosted platform that uses SaaS/ASP concepts for
ingesting, managing, documenting, usage-tracking, and delivering book content, e-books, and audio
books; LibreDigital BookBuild that enables publishers to provide readers with “Mashups” or custom
books made from content compiled from various book titles and sources; and NewsStand Digital
eEditions that provide replicas of print editions in the electronic form. The company also provides
iBrowse solution, which helps newspaper and magazine publishers serve and engage with digital
consumers. In addition, it offers conversion, storage, and secured distribution solutions for digital
content through digital stores and new e-book devices for publishers that serve readers through print,
online, and mobile platforms; and Reader Daily Edition, which offers consumers the ability to purchase
a single paper or subscribe to their favorite publication, as well as have it delivered wirelessly each day.
Further, the company provides consulting services, including project management, online marketing
consulting, interface design, workflow design, system testing, and custom development services. It
serves publishers in trade, STM, and academic publishing and university presses, as well as newspaper
clients.

Librios
Address: Librios Ltd, 20 Lochaline Street, London W6 9sh, UK
URL: www.librios.com
E-mail: info@librios.com
Phone: 020 3355 0202
Librios Ltd serves the information and reference publishing industry, providing operational streamlining
and increased re-use options from a fully integrated back-office CMS.


Lulu.com (Lulu Enterprises)
Address: 3101 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, NC 26707
URL: www.lulu.com
Phone: 919-447-3290
Lulu Enterprises, Inc. operates a marketplace for digital content on the internet. Its marketplace contains
publications created by people internationally. It enables the creators of books, video, periodicals,
multimedia, and other content to publish their work themselves with editorial and copyright control.
The company empowers these individuals and corporations to create products to sell directly to their
customers and the rest of the Lulu.com marketplace.

Rights and Royalties, Manufacturing, Promotion and Marketing, Sales and Licensing, Distribution and
Fulfillment
Macmillan Publishing Solutions (MPS Ltd)

Address: 4 Crinan Street, London, Greater London, N1 9XW UK
URL: www.macmillansolutions.com
E-mail: info@macmillansolutions.com
Phone: 44 20 7833 4000
Macmillan Publishing Solutions provides publishing services to international publishing and media
companies. It offers web development, business process applications, and hosting and maintenance
services; application development, testing and maintenance for VISTA systems, reporting and
documenting, and staffing support; project management, and strategic and organizational IT
management; and graphic creation services, conversion solutions for libraries and corporations,
XML solutions, composition applications and processes, editorial services and graphics production,
directory compilation and production, and advertisement creation.


Malloy Incorporated
Address: 5411 Jackson Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48103
URL: www.malloy.com
Phone: 800-722-3231
Malloy Incorporated, a book printing company, provides manufacturing services for hard and soft
cover books to publishers.

Manufacturing
MarkLogic
Address: 999 Skyway Road, Suite 200, San Carlos, CA 94070
URL: www.marklogic.com
Phone: 650-655-2300
Mark Logic Corporation provides information access and delivery solutions for the acceleration and
creation of content applications. It offers MarkLogic Server, an XML server to store, manage, enrich,
search, navigate, and deliver content; and MarkLogic toolkits for the integration of Microsoft Office
PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and SharePoint. The company also provides consulting services, such as
digital asset distribution, custom publishing, vertical content delivery, training, and support services.

Mediaspectrum
Address: 15 New England Executive Park, Burlington, MA 01803
URL: www.mediaspectrum.net
E-mail: info@mediaspectrum.net
Phone: 781-685-4648
Mediaspectrum, Inc. provides advertisement sales, supply chain management, and production
automation solutions for media companies, advertising agencies, and web engines. It also provides
a print and Web content management solution and a solution for addressing various aspects of multi-
channel advertising and editorial content management.

MEI (Managing Editor, Inc.)
Address: 610 Old York Rd., Suite 250, Jenkintown, PA 19046
URL: www.maned.com
E-mail: info@maned.com
Phone: 800-638-1214
MEI (Managing Editor, Inc.) develops software solutions to produce magazines, newspapers, books,
web pages, catalogs, and business proposals for the publishing industry. It also provides K4 publishing
system, an editorial system which integrates Adobe InDesign and Adobe InCopy in an editorial workflow
system; and Ad Tracking solution that combines a spreadsheet interface and off-the-shelf pagination
software to manage various components of advertising production.

MetaComet Systems, Inc.

Address: 29 College Street, South Hadley, MA 01075
URL: www.metacomet.com
Phone: 413-536-5989
MetaComent Systems, Inc. provides royalty solutions to the publishing, entertainment, and licensing
industries. The company offers Royalty Tracker software as a web-hosted, in-house or outsourced
solution.


Morse Data Corp.
Address: 16 Pierce Street, Dover, NH 03820
URL: www.morsedata.com
E-mail: sales@morsedata.com
Phone: 888-667-7332
Morse Data develops InOrder, an enterprise management system for national and international
businesses in the multi-client fulfillment, publishing, direct marketing, multi-channel merchant, and
internet retailing industries.

NetLibrary
Address: 4888 Pearl East Circle, Suite 103, Boulder, CO 80301
URL: www.netlibrary.com
Phone: 303-544-9692
NetLibrary, Inc. provides electronic books (e-books). It offers an information and retrieval system for
accessing the full text of reference, scholarly, and professional books. NetLibrary develops, archives,
hosts, and securely distributes e-books and print-ready files through a variety of channels, including
academic, corporate, public, and school libraries.


NetRead
Address: 80 S. Jackson, Ste. 302, Seattle, WA 98104
URL: www.netread.com
E-mail: info@netread.com
Phone: 206-973-7555
NetRead.com is an online resource for the publishing community. NetRead has become a leader in
innovative marketing tools, such as the EventCaster and JacketCaster. JacketCaster is a web-based
system that allows publishers and distributors to take control of their catalog and how it appears in the
market.

New ProImage America, Inc.

Address: 103 Carnegie Center, Suite 300, Princeton, NJ 08540
URL: www.newsway.com
E-mail: pia@newsway.com
Phone: 609-844-7576
New ProImage Ltd. develops browser-based digital workflow, production tracking, color image
processing, and ink optimization solutions for newspaper and printing industries. It offers NewsWay,
which controls and manages workflow from front-end systems; MediaWay, a publishing system that
combines content creation and management with layout and editorial workflows; Oncolor eco, which
analyzes PDF files and determines the exact amount of ink needed to produce; and NewsWay Lite for
the requirements of smaller newspaper and its printing operations.


Nielsen Book
Address: 3rd Floor, Midas House, 62 Goldsworth Road, Woking, Surrey GU21 6LQ UK
URL: www.nielsenbookdata.co.uk
Phone: 44 01483 712 200
The Nielsen Company, one of the world’s largest publishing and information companies, provides
marketing information, audience measurement, and business media products and services. Nielsen
Book collects book information from over 70 countries and works leading data providers to ensure a
consistent and comprehensive global database of title records available. The BookData service is a
primary source of product data (used by retailers, internet sites, libraries and specialist services).

Sales and Licensing

Address: 510 Front Street West, 4th Floor, Toronto, ON M5V 3H3, Canada
URL: www.northplains.com
E-mail: contact@northplains.com
Phone: 416-345-1900
North Plains provides digital asset management solutions. It offers solutions for the production,
management, distribution, and archiving of media content. The company's TeleScope application
platform offers on-demand solutions for digital asset management, marketing content management,
broadcast automation, video-on-demand, publishing automation, and e-learning. It also offers
professional services, training, and customer services. The company serves corporate marketing
departments, advertising and marketing services companies, media and entertainment companies,
print and publishing companies, and educational and nonprofit institutions.


Nipson
Address: 1375 East Irving Park Road, Itasca, IL 60143
URL: www.nipson.com
E-mail: info@nipson.com
Phone: 847 357 9210
Nipson develops, produces, and markets digital printing systems and related consumables for black
and white continuous variable data printing. The company also provides system design and integration,
workflow consultation, application development, and pre and post equipment services.

Manufacturing
Nstein (Open Text Corporation)

Address: 75 Queen St., Suite 4400, Montreal QC H3C 2N6 Canada
URL: www.nstein.com, www.opentext.com
E-mail: info@nstein.com
Phone: 877-678-3461
Nstein, part of Open Text, is a global leader in Enterprise Content Management (ECM). The company
develops and markets multilingual online publishing solutions for newspaper, magazine, and digital
content provider markets. Nstein offers WCM, DAM, PMD and text mining engine solutions. The
company also provides linguistic, information technology and globalization services.


Nuxeo
Address: 55 Cambridge Street, Burlington, MA 01803
URL: www.nuxeo.com
E-mail: contact@nuxeo.com
Phone: 781-328-0520
Nuxeo develops and delivers enterprise content management (ECM) software solutions based on Java
EE 5 technologies. The open source ECM offerings include the foundation platform, Nuxeo EP, and
a set of packaged applications built from this extensible platform. Nuxeo also provides professional
services, including support, consultancy, development, training, and certification services.

Océ North America Production Printing Systems

Address: 5600 Broken Sound Boulevard, Boca Raton, FL 33487
URL: www.oceusa.com
Phone: 800-523-5444
Océ Printing Systems provides digital production printing and document management solutions. It
engages in the production, sale, and service of printers. The company offers transaction documents
solutions, as well as digital publishing services of manuals, books, and newspapers. The company's
solutions are based on its advanced software applications that deliver documents and data over
internal networks and the internet to printing devices and archives locally and throughout the world.
Supporting the workflow solutions are Océ digital printers and scanners, considered to be among the
most reliable and productive in the world. Océ also offers a wide range of display graphics, consulting,
and outsourcing solutions.

Manufacturing

On Demand Books
Address: 584 Broadway, Suite 1100, New York, NY 10012
URL: www.ondemandbooks.com
E-mail: info@ondemandbooks.com
Phone: 212-966-2222
On Demand Books is engaged in printing by the lithographic process. The company developed The
Espresso Book Machine, a fully integrated patented book making machine, which can automatically
print, bind and trim on demand at point of sale perfect bound library quality paperback books with
4-color cover indistinguishable from their factory made versions.

ONIXEDIT
Address: GPG Solutions, C. P. 6, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, QC, Canada, J6S 4V5
URL: www.onixedit.com
Phone: 514-829-5640
ONIXEDIT is title management software for publishers, based on the ONIX standard.


Open Book Systems, Inc. (OBS)
Address: 37-J Whistlestop Mall, Rockport, Massachusetts 01966
URL: www.obs-us.com
E-mail: info@obs.com
Phone: 978-546-7346
Open Book Systems, Inc. is an independent publishing services company. OBS helps publishers,
educational institutions, and government organizations develop custom publishing strategies.

Open Road Integrated Media

Address: 233 Spring St, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10013
URL: openroadmedia.com
Phone: 212-691-0900
Open Road is a digital content company that publishes and markets e-books by creating connections
between authors and their audiences across multiple platforms.

Fulfillment

Open Text Digital Media
Address: 700 King Farm Boulevard, Suite 600, Rockville, MD 20850
URL: digitalmedia.opentext.com
Phone: 301-548-4000
Open Text Digital Media Group provides digital asset management solutions for the media and
entertainment industry. The company also provides professional, learning, hosted solution support,
and post-implementation strategy services.

Oracle (Sophoi)
Address: 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065
URL: www.oracle.com/sophoi/index.html
Phone: 800-633-0925
Oracle has acquired Sophoi, Inc., a provider of Intellectual Property Rights and Royalty Management
software. Sophoi applications automate content rights, royalties, and sales functions, and provide a
scalable enterprise software solution that is built for the specific needs associated with the production
and distribution of content by media and entertainment companies.The Sophoi software is immediately
available as Oracle Media Intellectual Property Management.


ORCA
Address: 450 Park Ave. South, Floor 9, New York, NY, 10016
URL: orcaone.com
E-mail: info@orcaone.com
Phone: 646-794-1364
ORCA (short for Open Real-Time Currency Application) is an open source electronic payments
processing platform and transactions solution. ORCA was created for digital and social media
companies that include: payment transaction processing, loyalty and rewards programs, virtual
currency management, and pre-ordering. ORCA's open-API enables companies to control the look
and feel of transactions, as well as the usage of real and virtual currency, and send marketing messages
without third party interference.

Sales and Licensing, Promotion and Marketing
OverDrive
Address: Valley Tech Center – Suite N, 8555 Sweet Valley Drive, Cleveland, OH 44125
URL: www.overdrive.com
E-mail: sales@overdrive.com
Phone: 216-573-6886
OverDrive, Inc. provides technology infrastructure for distributing premium digital content. The
company delivers secure management, protection, and downloading services for publishers and
enterprises, libraries, schools, retailers, and distributors. It provides download media with various
titles, including e-books, audio books, music, and video; and customizable reports.


Perseus Books Group
Address: 387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016
URL: www.perseusbooks.com
Phone: 212-340-8164
The Perseus Books Group provides sales, marketing, and distribution services to independent
publishers. The company acts as a representative of its publisher-clients to the book trade, including
bookstores, chains, wholesalers, libraries, and specialty markets.

Planning, Manufacturing, Promotion and Marketing, Rights and Royalties, Sales and Licensing,
Pheedo
Address: 469 Ninth Street, Suite 210, Oakland, CA 94607
URL: www.pheedo.com
Phone: 510-923-9250
Pheedo, Inc. operates as a blog newsfeed advertiser. It offers advertising services through distributed
content for publishers and advertisers. The company provides FeedPowered, an advertising platform
that converts RSS feeds into updating advertising.


PocketBook E-Reader
Address: Brain Plaza International, LLC, 202 Admiralty Loop, Staten Island, NY 10309
URL: www.pocketbookreader.com
E-mail: info@pocketbookreader.com
Phone: 914-374-5067
PocketBook E-Reader devices: 301, 302, 360.

Publishing Technology
Address: Oxford, UK, Unipart House, Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2GQ UK
URL: www.publishingtechnology.com
E-mail: info@publishingtechnology.com
Phone: 44 1865 397800
Publishing Technology supplies technology and related services to the publishing industry. It offers
administration platforms for publishers, internet-based electronic hosting and delivery services for
publishers of research, as well as delivers internet-based search and access services for libraries and
individual users of that material.


Qualcomm MEMS Technologies
Address: 5775 Morehouse Drive, San Diego, CA 92121
URL: www.qualcomm.com/qmt/
Phone: 858-587-1121
Qualcomm MEMS Technologies, Inc. engages in the development and commercialization of iMoD
technology for mobile products. Its iMoD technology, based on a Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems
structure combined with thin film optics, is a display technology that delivers display images with lower
power consumption.

Quark
Address: 1800 Grant St., Denver, CO 80203
URL: www.quark.com
Phone: 800-676-4575
Quark, Inc., a software company, engages in the design, development, production, and collaboration of
desktop and dynamic publishing software, and enterprise solutions for individuals and businesses. The
company’s solutions include dynamic publishing solution, publishing software that combines layout
with automated publishing to deliver communications in various types of media, including print, web,
and mobile and electronic devices.


Questia Media, Inc.
Address: 24 East Greenway Plaza, Suite 1050, Houston, TX 77046
URL: www.questiamedia.com
Phone: 713-358-2500
Questia Media, Inc. operates Questia, an online library. Questia’s features include copyright-cleared
books, text books, journals, magazines, and newspaper articles, as well as a reference set with
dictionary, encyclopedia, and thesaurus; and digital productivity tools for highlighting text, taking
notes, and generating footnotes and bibliographies. The company’s Questia School is a collection of
online text books that support inquiry and research for secondary school students, K-12 faculty, and
their library/information community.

ReadHowYouWant
Address: PO Box 38, Strawberry Hills, NSW, Australia, 2016
URL: www.readhowyouwant.com
E-mail: info@readhowyouwant.com
Phone: 61 2 9310 2288
ReadHowYouWant develops conversion technology that reformats existing books into high quality,
alternative formats.


REAL Software Systems LLC
Address: 21255 Burbank Boulevard; Suite 220, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
URL: www.realsoftwaresystems.com
Phone: 818-313-8000
REAL Software Systems, LLC provides software solutions for the management of royalty, rights, and
revenue sharing contracts. Its products include Alliant Royalties, a software solution for intellectual
property-oriented industries; and Alliant participants for participants and managements. The company
also provides consulting, support, and development services.

Really Strategies, Inc.

Address: 2570 Boulevard of the Generals, Suite 213, Audubon, PA 19403
URL: www.reallysi.com
E-mail: info@reallysi.com
Phone: 610-631-6770
Really Strategies, Inc. helps publishers, media companies, and other content-centric companies to
plan and implement content solutions and systems. It helps to bring strategy, content, and technology
together to analyze, architect, and implement appropriate tools and technologies. The company’s
solutions and services include XML editorial tools, XML repositories, content management systems,
and editorial and production systems, as well as workflow reengineering, technology evaluation,
DTD and schema development, functional and technical requirements development, and electronic
product development strategy. It also offers consulting and software as a service services, as well as
RSuite CMS, a content management system that facilitates the creation, management, re-use, and
distribution of XML, media files, and other document formats.


RightsLine, Inc.
Address: 2644 30th St, Suite 101, Santa Monica, CA 90405
URL: www.rightsline.com
E-mail: info@rightsline.com
Phone: 877-388-1155
RightsLine Software, Inc. provides application software that merges business rights management with
online sales and licensing. The company’s enterprise software suite enables companies to identify and
organize their business rights, simplify the process of searching for assets, and automate the sales and
licensing process.

Rights and Royalties, Sales and Licensing
RoyaltyShare
Address: 5465 Morehouse Drive, Suite 165, San Diego, CA 92121-4764
URL: www.royaltyshare.com
Phone: 858-784-5400
RoyaltyShare’s Digital Advantage for e-books builds upon the company’s years of experience serving
record labels and distributors in the music industry. The Digital Advantage platform is now available
for book publishers to meet the needs of the emerging market for e-books, downloadable audiobooks,
and print-on-demand. The platform currently supports the revenue data feeds from over 30 digital
retailers and distributors worldwide, supporting both the agency model and retail model, including
Amazon (Kindle, Audible, Create Space and AmazonMP3), Apple (iBookStore, AppStore, and iTunes),
Barnes & Noble, Sony, Ingram Digital, Ingram Lightning Source, Overdrive, and others.


RR Donnelley
Address: 111 South Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60606-4301
URL: www.rrdonnelley.com
Phone: 312-326-8000
RR Donnelley operates as an integrated communications provider offering pre-media, printing,
logistics, and business process outsourcing products and services to its clients in the private and
public sector worldwide. The company operates primarily in the commercial print portion of the
printing industry, with related product and service offerings designed to offer customers solutions for
communicating their messages to target audiences.

S4Carlisle Publishing Services

Address: 4242 Chavenelle Road, Dubuque, IA 52002
URL: www.s4carlisle.com
E-mail: sales@s4carlisle.com
Phone: 563-557-1500
S4Carlisle Publishing Services Pvt Ltd. provides typesetting and e-Publishing services. It offers Data
Capture and Data Conversion, e-books, Illustrations, and Copyediting services.


Safari Books Online
Address: 1003 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472
URL: www.safaribooksonline.com
Phone: 707-827-7000
Safari Books Online LLC, an electronic reference library, provides an on-demand reference and learning
platform containing business and technical reference resources. It offers a collection of technology
books, manuscripts, short topics, articles, and instructional video in a searchable online database.

Schilling A/S
Address: Baldersbækvej 24 –26; DK-2635 Ishøj , Denmark
URL: www.schilling-ltd.co.uk
Phone: 45 70279900
Schilling specializes in software solutions for the publishing industry. The company provides solutions
for the entire e-process, from strategic advising through the development of e-business solutions and
infrastructure to the build-up of competence and implementation.

Planning

Scientific Publishing Services (SPS)
Address: No. 6 & 7, 5th Street, Dr. R.K. Salai, Mylapore, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India - 600 004
URL: www.sps.co.in
E-mail: info@sps.co.in
Phone: 91 44 4219 7750
SPS provides typesetting and prepress services for science, technical, and medical publishers. It provides
data conversion, XML, copy editing, graphic production, e-deliverable, pre-media, composition, pre-
flight, design, and IT enabled services. The company also offers remote database management; and
business process outsourcing services in finance and marketing that include royalties accounting,
marketing expense management, license control, accounts receivable, and accounts payable
services.

Scribd
Address: 211 Sutter Street Second Floor, San Francisco, CA 94108
URL: www.scribd.com
Scribd, Inc. operates as a social publishing company for readers, authors, and publishers. It enables
users to publish, discover, and discuss original writings and documents. The company provides a forum
for community-based development projects, libraries, plugins, extensions, scripts, and resources; and
a suite of print options.


ScrollMotion
Address: 237 W. 35th St., Suite 902, New York, NY 10001
URL: www.scrollmotion.com
E-mail: info@ScrollMotion.com
Phone: 212-608-9146
ScrollMotion Inc. develops mobile applications. It offers Iceberg, an electronic reader application for
iPhone. The company provides iPhone applications for branded content in the Apple App Store.

Semantico
Address: Lees House, 21-23 Dyke Road, Brighton, BN1 3FE, East Sussex UK
URL: www.semantico.com
Phone: 44 1273 722222
Semantico provides publishing solutions and consultancy services to publishers. The company’s
products and services support clients throughout the digital publishing life-cycle.

Editorial and Production, Promotion and Marketing

SharedBook
Address: 140 Broadway, Suite 3020, New York, NY 10005
URL: www.sharedbook.com/biz/
E-mail: info@sharedbook.com
Phone: 888-212-3121
SharedBook enables companies and consumers to dynamically produce personalized and customized
books and documents with its patented publishing and annotation platform. The company specializes
in integrating and publishing data from a variety of sources through its own proprietary creation
tools.

Editorial and Production, Promotion and Marketing
Silverchair
Address: 316 E. Main Street, Suite 110, Charlottesville, VA 22902
URL: www.silverchair.com
Phone: 434-296-6333
Silverchair engages in the design and development of online semantic publishing platforms for
scientific, technical, and medical (STM) information. The company builds platforms, including
Silverchair Content Manager, a semantic web application that offers STM content publishers a platform
for content delivery within the semantic web.


SkillSoft
Address: 107 Northeastern Blvd., Nashua, NH 03062
URL: www.skillsoft.com
E-mail: Information@SkillSoft.com
Phone: 603-324-3000
SkillSoft provides on-demand e-learning and performance support solutions for enterprises,
government, education, and small and medium-sized businesses worldwide.

Smashwords, Inc.
Address: 15951 Los Gatos Blvd., Ste 16, Los Gatos, CA 95032
URL: www.smashwords.com
Phone: 408-395-3600
Smashwords, Inc. operates as an e-book publishing and distribution platform for e-book authors,
publishers, and readers. It enables publishers to publish and distribute their novels, short fiction,
poetry, personal memoirs, monographs, non-fiction, research reports, essays, or other written forms.
The company provides author pages with bios, headshots, and lists of works; embedded YouTube
videos for video book trailers and virtual author events; reviews from readers; e-book downloads in
various e-book formats; and a coupon code generator for custom promotions. It enables authors and
publishers to publish, distribute, and sell their e-books online to various audience in the United States
and internationally. The company distributes its products through online retailers and mobile e-reading
apps.

Distribution and Fulfillment, Sales and Licensing

SPi-BPO
Address: 5409 Maryland Way, Gateway Plaza, Suite 310, Brentwood, TN 37027
URL: www.spi-bpo.com
Phone: 615-301-8420
SPi Global Solutions is a Knowledge Process Outsourcing and Customer Interaction service provider.
The company provides a variety of business process outsourcing (BPO) services.

Sterling Commerce
Address: 4600 Lakehurst Court, PO Box 8000, Dublin, OH 43016-2000
URL: www.sterlingcommerce.com
Phone: 800-876-9772
Sterling Commerce, Inc., a software company, provides integration solutions and supply chain
applications that optimize and transform customer's business collaboration networks.

Texterity, Inc.
Address: 144 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772
URL: www.texterity.com
Phone: 800-455-5450
Texterity, Inc. provides digital publishing solutions. It offers Coverleaf, a virtual online newsstand. The
company also provides browser-based technology, search and clipping, and strategic consultative
services to drive circulation and advertisement revenue, mobile delivery, SEO, audit-compliant
reporting, social networking, and website integration.


That’s Rights!
Address: JDC Software, 29 Harley Street, London W1G 9QR, UK
URL: www.thatsrights.com
E-mail: info@thatsrights.com
Phone: 44 207 681 2014
The That's Rights! family of products are developed by Jeux de Couleur Limited (JDC Software),
providers of efficient solutions for the publishing industry. An affordable rights solution for small
publishers. Integrates with Easy Royalties.

The Media Services Group

Address: 2510 W. Dunlap Ave., #250, Phoenix, AZ 85021
URL: www.msgl.com
Phone: 800-234-4674
The Media Services Group provides software and services to the publishing industry, including
advertising management, circulation fulfillment, book publishing, exhibition and event management,
directories and membership management.

Planning, Editorial and Production, Manufacturing, Promotion and Marketing, Sales and Licensing,

The Siroky Group, Inc.
Address: Thornhill Square, 300 John Street, Suite 506, Thornhill, Ontario, Canada, L3T 5W4
URL: www.sirokygroup.com
E-mail: info@sirokygroup.com
Phone: 1-888-4SIROKY
The Siroky Group provides technical and management consulting.

Rights and Royalties, Distribution and Fulfillment
Tizra
Address: 9 Catalpa Rd., Providence, RI 02906
URL: www.tizra.com
Phone: 401-935-5317
Tizra, Inc. provides online information distribution products. It offers Tizra Publisher, an on-demand
Web application that enables non-technical personnel to create websites for document distribution,
archiving, and management applications.

Trilogy Publishing
Address: Aries House, 43 Selkirk Street, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL52 2HJ UK
URL: www.trilogypublishing.com
E-mail: publishing@trilogygroup.com
Phone: 44 01242 222 132
Trilogy Publishing’s core activities are IT Services, Publishing, Mail Order, and Environmental based
software solutions.

Planning

Typéfi Systems Pty. Ltd.
Address: 40 E Main St, Ste 163, Newark, DE 19711
URL: www.typefi.com
E-mail: mail@typefi.com
Phone: 215-253-3692
Typéfi Systems, Inc. develops and distributes automation solutions for travel, trade, and commercial
publishing, marketing, advertising, communication, training, custom publishing, financial services,
and technical documentation industries.

Vasont Systems
Address: 315 Busser Road, Emigsville, PA 17318
URL: www.vasont.com
Phone: 717-764-9720
Vasont Systems, Inc. offers content management software and data services for dynamic publishing.
The Vasont content management system enables organizations to manage and store multilingual
content as a single source for maximum reuse and multi-channel delivery.

Virtusales
Address: Hove Technology Center, St. Joseph's Close, Brighton & Hove, BN3 7ES UK
URL: www.virtusales.com
E-mail: info@virtusales.com
Phone: 44 0845 458 4020
Virtusales provides global software solutions to the publishing and media industries. Products include
Biblio3 and BiblioLite Publishing Systems and BiblioDAM Digital Asset Management system.


Vitrium Systems
Address: 502-1168 Hamilton Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6B 2S2
URL: www.vitrium.com
Phone: 866-403-1500
Vitrium Systems Inc. provides software for electronic document control and analytics. The company
offers docmetrics, a web-based system for content-based lead generation; Protectedpdf, a document
rights management and monitoring solution for PDF that allows publishers of electronic content to
protect their intellectual property from unauthorized access and distribution; and PDFSalesLeads, a
web-based application that allows publishers to capture qualified sales leads through interactive forms
embedded within documents.

Vook
Address: 1100 Marina Village Parkway, Suite 102, Alameda, CA 94501
URL: www.vook.com
E-mail: matthew@vook.com
Vook, Inc. offers a platform that provides content from writers, and professionally shot and edited
videos by filmmakers. Its platform enables to read books, watch videos, and connect with authors and
friends through social media. The company offers vook, a digital book, which blends a book with video,
links to the internet, and social media for a new storytelling experience. Its products are offered in a
web-based or a mobile application format.


WAVE Corporation
Address: 1250 Commerce Park Drive, Suite 100, Longwood, FL 32779
URL: www.wavecorp.com
E-mail: sales@wavecorp.com
Phone: 407-585-0250
WAVE actively develops several software products that are focused on managing data for effective
publishing to increase profit margins, generate new revenue, and prepare for future business
opportunities.

World Color
Address: 999 de Maisonneuve Blvd West, Suite 1100, Montreal (Quebec) H3A 3L4 Canada
URL: www.worldcolor.com
Phone: 800-567-7070
World Color Press Inc. operates in the commercial printing segment of the printing industry in North
America and Latin America. It provides marketing solutions, publishing services, and pre-media and
logistics services to retailers, branded goods companies, catalogers. The company engages in the
production of retail inserts, catalogues, direct mails, magazines, books, and directories. It also provides
pre-media services, including a range of film and digital preparation services, from creative services
and color separation to all-digital pre-media, as well as digital photography and digital archiving. World
Color Press, Inc. will soon be acquired by Quad/Graphics, Inc.


Xerox Corporation
Address: 45 Glover Avenue, P.O. Box 4505, Norwalk, CT 06856-4505
URL: www.xerox.com
Phone: 800-334-6200
Xerox Corporation engages in the production and sale of document systems and services for businesses.
It offers a range of color, and black-and-white multifunction devices; and printers, copier fax products,
and document related software solutions. The company also provides business process and information
technology outsourcing services comprising claims reimbursement and electronic toll transactions to
customer call centers and HR benefits management, as well as supports and supplies toner, paper, and
ink products.

Manufacturing
Xinet
Address: 2560 Ninth St., Suite 312, Berkeley, CA 94710
URL: www.xinet.com
E-mail: sales@xinet.com
Phone: 510-845-0555
Xinet, Inc. operates as a developer and publisher of digital asset management and production workflow
software. It offers Xinet WebNative Suite, an integrated database that streamlines the collection,
access, production, distribution, and archiving of graphic media for advertising, publishing, and
corporate communications.


Xythos
Address: 655 Montgomery Street, 16th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94111
URL: www.xythos.com
E-mail: info@xythos.com
Phone: 888-4XYTHOS
Xythos Software, Inc. develops secure document management and collaboration software for
academic and research institutions. The company focuses on offering online services and products
to users at commercial, education, and government organizations for managing and sharing content
throughout its lifecycle.

YUDU Media
Address: 42 - 44 York Street, Clitheroe, Lancashire BB7, UK 01200 420 868
URL: www.yudu.com
E-mail: yuduquery@yudu.com
Phone: 0870 760 9258
Yudu Media Limited operates as an ePublishing library and marketplace to read, publish, buy, sell, and
share digital content. It offers a library of digital content. The company also enables users to upload and
publish documents, audio, and images, as well as to sell content. In addition, it enables users to create
interest groups and join other people's group to share passions, experiences, and knowledge with like-
minded users. The company provides YUDU Plus, which enables users to sell digital content online;
YUDU Publishing Pro, a digital publishing solution for professional publishing houses; and SmartADS,
a digital advertising solution for publishers to monetize their online magazines and e-books.

Fulfillment

Zinio
Address: 114 Sansome Street, 10th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94104
URL: www.zinio.com
Phone: 415-494-2700
Zinio, LLC operates as an online publishing and distribution services company. It offers digital and
interactive publishing products and services; production services; and marketing programs, such
as customer acquisition, retention and cross-promotion, e-commerce engines, and circulation and
fulfillment services. The company focuses on digital magazine and book publishing, publisher growth
services, retail services, research and development, and interactive media. It also provides online media
search and customer acquisition, partner and affiliate marketing, e-mail and database marketing, and
special event marketing programs.

Zipadi Technologies, LLC

Address: 1099 West South Jordan Parkway, South Jordan, Utah 84096
URL: www.zipadi.com
Phone: 877-553-0073
Zipadi is a do-it-yourself digital publishing and e-business software-as-a-service platform. The platform
uses an open API in order to integrate internal systems and other existing applications with the Zipadi
digital publishing system. Zipadi is designed to help businesses that rely on printed materials leverage
their existing investments in offline creative assets.


Appendix E: The “Blueprint” Team
The research team for A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation: Seven Essential Systems to Re-
Invent Publishing was led by David R. Guenette and included Bill Trippe, Mary Laplante, and Karen
Golden.
David R. Guenette is Senior Analyst at The Gilbane Group, covering the connected content market with
strategic technology and business development research, analysis, and editorial content, with special
focus on digital rights management and the editorial process within electronic publishing. David has
over 30 years publishing experience, including as acquisition and developmental editor in educational,
trade, and professional resource books, and in top editorial positions for magazines and multimedia.
Bill Trippe is Vice President and Lead Analyst, Content Strategies, and leads The Gilbane Group’s
Publishing Strategies and Technologies Practice, and the XML Technologies and Content Strategies
Practice, helping enterprises leverage XML to better create, manage, and deliver information. Bill also
covers trends and technologies in the content management industry and develops tutorials on XML
and content management. Bill Trippe has more than 20 years of technical and management experience
in content management, XML, and related technologies, working with publishers who are typically
converting extensive legacy databases and systems into more contemporary technology.
Mary Laplante is Vice President and Lead Analyst. Mary has 24 years of experience in standards,
publishing, software marketing, and research and consulting. As Vice President at The Gilbane Group,
she oversees Gilbane’s consulting practice, manages research projects, contributes editorial content,
and participates in Gilbane conferences and other industry events. As Senior Analyst, she is active
in Gilbane’s globalization, XML, and software-as-a-service coverage. Mary is the report’s project
management lead.
Karen Golden is Senior Analyst at The Gilbane Group with more than 16 years of experience in analytics
and content management in the web, intranet, e-publishing, and multimedia environments. Karen’s
current work includes user experience analysis at Harvard Business School (HBS) where she provides
custom report development, support, and training for current web marketing, and analytics tools.
Karen has served as project manager for educational web and digital products for PBS Kids and National
Geographic, and her areas of expertise include XML, SGML, DTD development, web analytics, content
analysis and management, and search development and management.

Gilbane Group gratefully acknowledges the support of the sponsors of the research informing this
report. This work would not have been possible without them. Please see the Blueprint Sponsors and
Vision Statements section of the report for detailed descriptions of these search suppliers and their
offers.

David R. Guenette
Senior Analyst
david@gilbane.com
Bill Trippe
VP and Lead Analyst
bill@gilbane.com
Karen Golden
Senior Analyst
karen@gilbane.com
At Outsell, independence and objectivity are at the core of our business and our values. Read our Ethics & Integrity Policy
Outsell is committed to minimizing our impact on the environment and acting in a sustainable way. Read our Green Policy
Outsell is the only research and advisory firm focused on the publishing and information industries. Our international team
provides independent, fact-based analysis and actionable advice about competitors, markets, operational benchmarks,
and best practices, so our clients thrive and grow in today’s fast-changing digital and global environment.
Call +1 617.497.9443 Call +1 650.342.6060 Call +44 (0)20 8090 6590

Fax +1 617.497.5256 Fax +1 650.342.7135 Fax +44 (0)20 7031 8101
763 Massachusetts Avenue 330 Primrose Road, Suite 510 25 Floral Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 Burlingame, California 94010 London WC2E 9DS
info@outsellinc.com
www.outsellinc.com
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved.

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GILBANE GROUP

A DIVISION OF OUTSELL, INC.

October 1st 2010

A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation:

by David R. Guenette, Bill Trippe, and Karen Golden

Outsell’s Gilbane Group: Research Report

Background on Digital Publishing

Essential Processes of Traditional and Digital Publishing

Defining the Digital Book

A Blueprint User’s Guide

Digital Book Publishing Industry Directory

A Note About Our Methodology

A Blueprint User’s Guide

‘Google Editions’ Could Transform Publishing

Google Editions: Let the e-book war begin

Open vs. Closed: Google Takes on Amazon and Apple in e-Books

Google Editions still due in ‘late June or July’

Digital Comes to Book Publishing

The State of Book Publishing Today

Table 1. New Title Production Numbers, 2008 and 2009

Digital Comes to Book Publishing

It’s been clear for months that it will be a not-so-merry holiday

Table 2. Non-Traditional Book Production Numbers

Digital Comes to Book Publishing

Figure 1. Publisher Type

Professional: Science / Technical / Medical (STM)

Source: Aptara Survey

Digital Comes to Book Publishing

Outsell forecasts the worldwide e-book market to grow at a

Figure 2. Worldwide E-Books Market by Segment, Content Sales Only, 2009

Total Education E-book Total Professional E-book Total Consumer E-book

Worldwide E-Books Market Segment Size ($ Billions)

Source: Outsell estimates

Digital Comes to Book Publishing

Figure 3. Worldwide E-Books Market as a Proportion of Total Books, 2009

Total Education E-book Total Professional E-book Total Consumer E-book

E-Books' Proportion of Each Worldwide Books Segment

Source: Outsell estimates

Digital Comes to Book Publishing

Americas 3,167 41%

Source: Outsell estimates

Figure 4. Percentage of Gross Revenue from E-book Publishing Today

There is no revenue from e-book activities 27.5%

Less than 15% of gross revenues are from e-book

More than 25% of gross revenues are from e-book

Less than 25% of gross revenues are from e-book

I don’t know 7.3%

Source: Gilbane Group Publishing Survey, July 2010

Digital Comes to Book Publishing

Figure 5. Expected Gross Revenue from E-book Publishing in Five Years

There is no revenue from e-book activities 4.7%

I don’t know 5.7%

Source: Gilbane Group Publishing Survey, July 2010

Digital Comes to Book Publishing

Table 4. Kindle E-Book Availability by Book Type, Spring 2010

Source: Amazon.com, early spring 2010

Digital Comes to Book Publishing

Step One: Begin Selling Books Online (or, Create Amazon.com)

Step Two: Learn the Value of the Book Online

Digital Comes to Book Publishing

And Along Came E-Books… and Revenue

Digital Comes to Book Publishing