This Presentation was provided by Thad McIlroy, independent analyst and author, during the NISO webinar entitled Understanding the Marketplace - Consolidation, the Long Term Impact, and the New Players, held on March 8, 2017

1. Book Publishing Start-Ups:
New Players & New Services
ThadMcIlroy
TheFutureofPublishing
March8,2017

2.  Started in publishing in the 70s
 Mostly technology consulting
 Some recent books:

3. TheFutureofPublishing.com

4. The Startups Report
 Report + spreadsheet
 Free for download
 900 companies
analyzed
 One-third have failed
 <$1 billion invested

5. The Spreadsheet

6. Project Background
 Started collecting data in 2012
 Sourced from diverse online sources
 2014: 600 names published
 Assembled financial data
 Created classifications
 Maintaining a U.S. focus
 Report published mid-January, 2017

7. Book Publishing Startups
 Trade publishing-focused
 Most startups target self-published
authors, not publishers
 Library-industry startups are included
 Is Project Gutenberg a competitor to
libraries?

8. What is a Startup?
 A new business of any sort
 Existential notion of a “startup” versus a
new business (“startupedness”?)
 Tend to see themselves as a new type of
business
 Web-enabled
 61 new bookstores in 2015 are not
included

9. Educational Publishing
 Rather than “ebooks for education”
moving beyond the book container
 Content owners control educational
publishing
 18 companies target textbook
rental/resale/price searches

10. Scholarly Publishing
 Most are providing new tools and
services that go beyond book publishing
 Very few companies on the list have a
scholarly publishing focus
 The big players are gobbling up the
innovators

11. What Data is Included?
 Trade name (not the corporate name)
 (Very) brief mission statement
 Type of product or service provided
 Funding
 Operating status (still in business?)

12. Classifications
Tools & Services 260
Original Content 139
Social 74
Discovery 71
Education 49
Children’s 34
Subscription 19

16. Summary Data
 Total funds raised by all startups
 Average per funded company
 Median per funded company
 % of startups with declared funding
 % of startups no longer in business
 % of Exits/Acquisitions/Mergers
 Number of IPOs

17. Summary Data
Total funds raised $944.08
Funds raised at </=$10M $218.49
Average per funded company $6.94
Average per funded </=$10M $2.02
Median per funded company $1.84
Median per funded </=$10M $0.99
% of startups with declared funding 15.0%
% of startups no longer in business 30.4%
% of Exits/Acquisitions/Mergers 6.1%
Number of IPOs 2

18. Investment Profile
 $950 million total
 The companies are mostly bootstrapped
 Only 15% with a declared investment
 75% of the funds went to a handful of
companies (Wattpad @ $67m)
 Often there is no startup, per se; just a
website and some good intentions

19. The Publishing Industry
 Flat, i.e., slow, inactive, sluggish, slack,
quiet, depressed
 The quantitative shift to self-publishing is
only now being understood (see
AuthorEarnings.com)
 The ebook shift is complex

20. Some Library-Related Startups
Biblioboard Community engagement tools for libraries
Bibliotheca The global leader of self-service solutions for
libraries
Ebrary Online digital library of scholarly ebooks
Hoopla Instantly borrow free ebooks with your library
card
Library for All A digital library platform for developing
countries
Odilo Digital content lending for libraries

21. “Room for innovation”
is quite different from
“ripe for disruption”
Startups think incumbent companies are using
broken models because they’re idiots —
Some problems are just not easily solved

22. The Entertainment Spectrum
Source: Adapted from Wattpad

23. The Age of Distraction
Source: Marketing Land

24. Futures
 The pace of new startups has slowed,
decidedly so
 Very few acquisitions
 The ebook sales peak changed the
perception of innovation
 Amazon’s relentless domination
 The most interesting technology is AI:
machine learning, text mining, natural
language processing (NLP) et al.

25. Thank you
Thad McIlroy
The Future of Publishing
thad@thefutureofpublishing.com