From Many Voices Strength

Summary

Challenges for regional book publishers moving into the digital economy include:

1. Uncertain revenue steam
2. New marketing strategies as traditional markets collapse. Provisions in the proposed Copyright legislation could accelerate the collapse of educational/scholarly markets.
3. The cost of transition, in terms of human resources, training, and financing new formats of production while continuing to produce traditional print product.
4. The respective role of publishers and writers is evolving, with heavier expectations on writers to market (instead of write).
5. Traditional genres are making way for new genres of books, as the language itself evolves. How should content providers adjust for that?
6. In a narrower marketplace, the choices will become narrow unless innovative marketing (which means the old word–of–mouth and direct marketing for example — not the media or bookstores anymore, sadly) is combined with new digital marketing. Again, increased human resources are required.

Submission

From Many Voices Strength

Regional book publishers are becoming more niche oriented, more market savvy. We have world class content. The strength of our content is in its depth, its diversity.

From many peoples strength From many voices strength

Challenges:

1. Uncertain revenue stream for creators and producers of content.
2. Loss of bookstores, and the loss of markets as libraries and schools move to digital content. New marketing strategies are needed. The proposed Copyright Act threatens to decimate the educational and scholarly market as libraries plan for one digital purchase as opposed to a number of print and digital copies. The move to short print runs and print on demand indicates a challenge to the existing print industry as well.
3. The cost of the transition to digital in terms of human resources, training/learning curve, and financing production in at least two formats. This is most difficult for small to mid–sized publishers, the publishers most often found outside of metro Toronto. The current support through DCH Canada Book Fund is only available to large and larger mid–sized publishers. Without focused assistance to all publishers during this transition, the diversity of knowledge and voice enjoyed in Canada now will be increasingly marginalized.
4. The role of writers as entrepreneurs is evolving. The expectation and onus on authors to produce interactive sites, to be featured on all the latest social marketing sites, to assist with cover editorial and design costs and to have fulfillment capabilities as well as ebook content managerial skills obviates the continued need for publishers, but also guarantees fewer books in production as writers share in upfront costs, marketing and fulfillment requirements — meaning less time for writing.
5. The challenges to certain genres continue to be huge unknowables. Digital technologies have not yet presented a solution for how best to present children's books, so they will likely be in print for a few decades yet. Embedded illustrations, maps, and charts continue to present a challenge to ebook technology. The development of new genres (vooks) and the reintroduction and reinvigoration of old ones (audio books) may produce a new kind of book, a meshing of the strengths of all formats. Readers not only approach the printed word with new expectations, the act of reading is now a new experience. As for the printed word, the text itself is evolving with the impact of the 250 character (or less) message and txtg grammar. Content creators and producers are only just comprehending the adjustments they need to make.
6. The web tends to narrow the marketing choices nationally and even regionally available as the marketplace becomes dominated by two or three providers such as Amazon. Even if publishers provide the metadata required to show up on these sites, how does the reader find the book? Browsing technology is critical. The marketplace becomes narrower, although the content is vast. The result could be fewer books in print, fewer publishers in business, fewer writers able to make a living, less reader awareness of what is available, and less richness in what they are able to find. Word of mouth and direct marketing will be the one way regional voices will survive. None of this is new to small publishers. The mid–sized publishers, the conduit of regional voices to the nation, will need to redirect their marketing efforts to the new ways and the really old ways. Again, transition assistance in the form of training, support for human resources, and financing will be critical.

Are regional book publishers ready for the digital economy? Not quite. Will regional book publishers survive? Oh yes.