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Research Themes
In Focus
Digital Tranformations I: Digital Evolution and New Publishing Models January 2007
The Changing Nature of Book Production |
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Table of Contents
Introduction The Changing Nature of Book Production The Book (and the universe of books) Transforming Marketplace Organization For Future Consideration All Resources The Changing Nature of Book Production Technology has eased the creation of books. The writing process has been facilitated by personal computers. The arduous and demanding physical paste-up of a page layout has given way to relatively easy digital file-manipulation, where the screen visually corresponds to the printed page. This layout method is known as WYSIWYG (whizzy-wig)——“What you see is what you get. In general, WYSIWYG-based desktop publishing has achieved significant production efficiencies. However, a technique is already in place that will eclipse the required repetition of the WYSIWYG layout process and the one-version use for each visual presentation. This new technique will transform a WYSIWYG-created page from a hand-crafted document composed of textual and non-text material, but otherwise lacking structure, to a structured document enabling a computer to decipher compositional elements such as the title, author, pull-out quotes, captions, footnotes, and headings to the same degree that human beings now can by inferring them on the basis of their visual characteristics. Although WYSIWYG’s dynamics are currently being played out, this technology is nothing to dismiss. It has made possible direct printing from digital files and printing on demand, even of relatively high-quality images. While most printers have yet to reorganize their workplace to fully embrace print-on-demand (POD) technology, POD brings much more than instantaneousness as the following three examples demonstrate:
In the past a large print-run has been used both as a clear indicator of a publisher’s willingness to invest in a title and of policy. For example, the Canada Council uses print run data to determine grant levels. POD makes such policy counter-productive to the exposure of authors to the marketplace. Alternative indicators, such as expenditures in editorial, design, or marketing could equally be used as investment criteria. To move beyond WYSIWYG and POD, publishers must fully embrace databases combining a) both book content and clearly tagged product information such as ISBN, author biography, review and price; b) protected but ready access to both content and product files in an industry-wide standardized format at all times and from any location; c) standards-based and computer-based business-to-business communication; and d) websites driven by the same database content. Such technology yields a major emergent benefit: the capacity for multiple use, that is, using content more than once in a variety of template-defined formats. By naming (or tagging) each element in a database each element can then be accessed to create many structured documents composed of named elements, be they title, author, ISBN, excerpt, or author picture. For example, on command, database derived and hence error-free information can be imported into a press release or catalogue page-template, converted “on the fly” to be displayed as desired and——voilà!——with no re-entering of content and a few design tweaks, the press release is ready. Already publishers are using such techniques for their websites. But few generate marketing materials, or, for that matter, books themselves, using this technique. The strategic implications of databases and structured documents are several. Unlike WYSIWYG technology, such methods are neither obvious nor intuitive to a neophyte. The use of databases and on-the-fly conversions requires understanding and trust in computers and their methods of operation that can best be facilitated by additional education, training and post-training experience, beyond the general exposure publishers encounter in their everyday lives. In this regard, publishers’ familiarity with Amazon or Google initiatives, for example scanning book contents not just to make them Internet accessible but in order to identify unexpected parallels on the basis of statistically improbable phrases (SIPs), may encourage transition to this technology. However, a major impediment to transition is a serious financial commitment to investing in emerging technology. Given the minimal retained earnings of Canada’s book publishers, long-term investments in technology and associated re-organization, even when they clearly offer cost savings, are difficult. The general adoption of new media marketing devices such as author blogs, the impact of which is more difficult to measure, is also hampered by the lack of retained earnings. It is possible that the government could act as a catalyst to modernization by funding model projects aimed at subsequent replication between R&D; organizations and technology-keen firms. Incentives for projects that build towards database driven operations, along with new hires of technologically savvy young employees, would also stimulate needed technological and organizational development. The Book (and the Universe of Books) Transforming |
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