Culturescope.ca - The Book (and the Universe of Books) Transforming

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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 Book (and the Universe of Books) Transforming

Although multiple use of content is not dependent on structured databases composed of tagged elements, these support systems greatly facilitate it. The selling of rights (e.g., serial rights, translations, movie options) is a form of multiple use and rights-selling is an established book-industry practice.

However, with multiple use in mind, publishers—book and otherwise—can build up content databases to transform their title archive from an historical record to one that is becoming immediately and constantly workstation-accessible through either online access or print-on-demand and quick delivery. (This would parallel what has happened with film libraries where the industry has captured new revenue by providing access to old films.)

Retrieving such titles from the dusty corners of publishers’ warehouses and deposit libraries has the potential of recapturing the dream of the Alexandrian Library, a complete and accessible collection of the world’s knowledge.

Freeing knowledge from its print-on-paper library or warehouse storage medium requires title searching and reading by a human being. With searchable files, machine accessibility and readability transforms a formidable body of content requiring human mediation into a living legacy of available, analyzable knowledge that can be integrated into the knowledge foundation that people regularly access. With the requisite database in place, all social science and humanities research undertaken in a certain time-period or in a certain territory on a particular topic can be known.

Google’s intent to digitize the entire holdings of several major libraries has the same goal——to unlock this dark content from its machine-opaque existence. Such technology need not supplant physical books. For example, the British Columbia based Canadian firm ABEbooks provides a unique worldwide service in several languages by making available 80 million books from 13 500 suppliers, including (often used-book) bookstores who specialize in hard-to-find books in 53 countries and other book suppliers such as small publishers. In doing so it handles three million searches and mediates 25 000 daily transactions.

Such technology-based changes are extending reading opportunities and the book market magnificently in terms of human knowledge. They also play into the increasing tendency of readers to seek out book information on the Internet and even to participate in virtual literary circles. Other evolving changes to books include educational publishers engaging in custom publishing for groups of less than 1000, providing new-book purchasers with time-limited access to learning tools, and augmenting their books by including CD-ROM versions.

By combining POD with database-facilitated operations, new business structures are possible that reallocate risk. Another British Columbia-based Canadian firm, Trafford Publishing, is redefining the modern publishing equation by combining new production technologies with the old, vanity-publishing model where the author pays the full cost of publishing rather than the publisher.

Traditional publishing sees the publisher as an investor in an untried manuscript, a risk-taker acting in the public interest by transforming manuscripts into books and bringing them to market. Because the cultural capital accrued by both author and publisher in publishing a book exceeds what the vast majority of authors and publishers gain in financial capital and because the Canadian market is oversupplied with run-on copies of (mostly) US printings, that risk is great and it requires either cross-subsidy by the firm or government subsidy.

Trafford minimizes its risks by providing publishing services for a fee paid by the author. The author decides on the size of the investment. The more the investment, the greater the exposure of the title to the market. This model embraces print-on-demand. An order for one single copy can be feasibly printed and shipped the same day. The warehouse disappears, especially as the publisher is in a good position to accept no returns—there is no reason for a bookstore to order more than it can sell. The publisher can share revenues with the author if it provides both printing and distribution services. Having risked the expenditure of time and energy writing the book, the authors (or their financiers) risks one more step. The publisher can provide advice and help make the risk manageable. The result: in the case of Trafford, profitability (on a percentage basis) far outstrips that of traditional Canadian book publishers. Also, the financial reward to authors can outstrip what a traditional publisher would pay in royalties.

The strategic issues surrounding this “publishing services” model are that it repositions the publisher far from their position of cultural prominence. However, this model could include cultural entrepreneurship merely by being selective in choosing titles and becoming involved in their promotion and distribution. Author subsidy mechanisms to assist such authors in fulfilling their goal of making their ideas public would complement such a model.

Marketplace Organization

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