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

2.  Founded in 1977  Not-for-profit corporation  Based in New York City  Three full-time staff members  Executive Director  Associate Director  Office Manager What is BISG?

3.  Drawn from all parts of the supply chain  Our unique strength  Printers, paper mills, book manufacturers  Publishers (large/small; corporate/independent)  Booksellers and wholesalers  Service suppliers  Libraries  Trade associations Membership

4. A small selection of members ….

5. “Working to create a more informed, empowered, and efficient book industry.” Our mission

6. The mission in action  Standards  Best practices  Certification  Research  Publications  Education  Events

7. E-books: $67.2 million * Audio books: $1 billion Books: $37.26 billion U.S. market size * * Caveat emptor

8. Reasons to be gloomy?  Book sales  Industry consolidation  Readership

9. U.S. book sales 2004-2011

10. Book sales by sector

11. Increasing consolidation

12. A crisis in readership? Americans are reading less Young adults are reading fewer books Reading is a declining activity for teenagers American families are spending less on books Reading comprehension skills are falling Civic, economic, and cultural implications

13. Reasons to be cheerful?

14. Publishers Technolog y providers Standards Service providers Devices Search engines Sources of confidence

15.  Infrastructure  Content development  Marketing  Content protection Areas of strategic focus

16.  Content preparation – Frontlist titles “born digital” – Backlist digitization: selective or total  DAM and DAD systems  Workflow integration – Editorial, production and distribution  Standardization – e.g. XML,.epub Infrastructure

17. Content development  “Fragment” publishing  Reader-generated content  Customized publishing  Short form narrative  Reader interaction

18. Content development

20.  Widgets  Podcasts  Social networking sites  Cell phone marketing  Browse inside  Author-publisher collaboration  Pricing – the importance of $0.00 Marketing

21. Author-publisher collaboration

22. Experimenting with free

23.  Encouraging sales; discouraging piracy  Meeting consumer expectations  Online audio books without DRM  Random House experiment: September 2007  Random House announcement: February 2008  Watermarking and piracy tracking  Amazon and Audible? Content protection

24. Issues for publishers  Focus on the individual consumer/user  Focus on “granular” content  Focus on user-defined content  Influence of social networking sites  Encompasses all types of publishers  Many new players

25. Issues for publishers: quality/authority  The question of authority  “The wisdom of crowds”  The role of the editor and the publisher  Social, political, & civic implications  Author-reader relationships  The prospect of disintermediation?  Publisher  Bookseller  Librarian

26. Issues for publishers: content delivery  New focus on “content”, not “books”  Customer-driven content models  Selling “fragments”  Aggregation from different sources  Aggregation from different providers  Integration of personal and 3 rd party content

27. Issues for publishers: business models  Learning from other media  Newspapers  Music  “Getting rich by charging nothing”  Will books ultimately be “free”?  Cost of quality content  Proliferation of new commercial models  Purchase, rental, ad-driven, subscription etc.

28. Issues for publishers: rights and DRM  Rules that describe how content may be used  Mechanisms for rewarding content creators  Tools for investment returns  What are the lessons of the music industry?  The influence of the search engines  Standardized rights-expression languages

29. Changing publishing models Traditional Publishing Model Bookseller owns customer Publisher’s contact with customer limited to advertising, author appearances Content CreatorsPublisher Bookseller Content Content + Product Metadata Product Content Metadata Consumer

30. Changing publishing models: web 1.0 Content + Product Metadata (Websites, Newsletters) Content CreatorsPublisher Bookseller Consumer Content + Product Metadata (Websites, Newsletters, Games, Contests, Interactive) Web 1.0 Model Shift Publishers and authors make direct contact with consumers through online marketing

31. Changing publishing models: web 2.0 Product + Content + Product Metadata (Websites, Newsletters, MySpace) Content CreatorsPublisher Bookseller Consumer Consumer Defined Product (Chapters, Recipes) Product + Content + Product Metadata (Widgets, chunked, mobile, search) Digital Warehouse Web 2.0 Model Shift  Publishers and Authors increase Consumer interaction  Dynamic Search and Discover  Consumer defined products  Interactive Social networks  Digital Warehouse

32. Challenges: the need for standards  Identification  Products  Works  Contributors  Product description  ONIX 3.0  Product formats  Transaction standards

33. Thank you. Michael Healy michael@bisg.org 646 336 7141