Joseph Esposito: Stage Five Publishing

Stage Five Book Publishing AAUP Presentation Joseph J. Esposito CEO GiantChair June 18, 2010

Hope is the thing with feathers
--Emily Dickinson

Topics
What is sustainability?
The place of innovation
Tracking four key properties
The 5-stage typology
Red herrings

What is Sustainability, Anyway?
Is the current situation worth sustaining?
Sustainability and the status quo
Where is scholarly publishing going?
Create a picture of the future, and paint yourself in

The Place of Innovation
Looks to the future
Aligns a publisher with trends in the industry
Permits a publisher to get in on the ground floor
The “inevitability factor”

Tracking 4 Key Properties
Venue (where are books sold?)
Medium (is the book in print or digital?)
Sales channels (is the book sold through middlemen or directly to consumers?)
Nature of offering (is the book sold by itself or as part of a broader marketing program?)

Stage 1 Book Publishing
The traditional model
Sold in bricks-and-mortar bookshops and to libraries
Print books
Sold through various resellers
Each book is a discrete entity
For virtually all publishers, whether scholarly or commercial, this is still the primary way books are published and sold

Stage 1 Properties

Stage 2
Advent of online bookselling (Amazon et al)
Most of the traditional model remains: discrete products in print sold through resellers
Perhaps 25% or more of the scholarly book business today
Most publishers view online stores as they do physical stores
Important aspect of online bookselling is the new priority given to metadata to aid in the discovery of books

Stage 2 Properties

Stage 3
Advent--or the tipping point--of the ebook
Sold online; no meaningful bricks-and-mortar role
Still sold through intermediaries
Highly disruptive
Role of online discovery soars, increasing pressure on high-quality metadata and search-engine optimization
This is where the industry is now, but note that Stages 1 and 2 are still active and comprise the bulk of revenue

Stage 3 Properties

Stage 4
Emergence of direct marketing
Linked to SEO
Higher margins, better control of marketing
Dispenses with print, bricks and mortar, and resellers
Collection of data about end-users

Stage 4 Properties

Stage 5
Just now on the horizon
Selling books by subscription
Reduces the cost of acquiring customers
Likely to take many different forms
The leaders for this stage have not yet emerged

Some Reflections on Stage 5
The music business is moving toward subscriptions
Multi-publisher aggregations are a short-term tactic
Likely to result in restructuring of presses

Stages and Properties (summary)

And that has made all the difference --Robert Frost

Joseph Esposito: Stage Five Publishing

by Association of American University Presses on Jun 22, 2010

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

Embed Views

Statistics

Joseph Esposito: Stage Five Publishing — Presentation Transcript

Get analytics right now with SlideShare PRO

An effective way to find out who is viewing your content

Remove ads from all your pages with SlideShare PRO

Your viewers will engage with your content, not ads

http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org	341
http://translate.googleusercontent.com	1