Making Information Pay 2009
May 7, 2009 McGraw-Hill Auditorium, New York
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Was Shakespeare right or wrong?
“What’s past is prologue” is carved on the National Archives
Building, Washington, D.C.
This would imply that the past is a determinant of the future.
Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) philosophy
I don’t think this is correct
But what Shakespeare actually wrote in The Tempest is:
“Whereof what’s past is prologue,
what to come (is) in yours and my discharge”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
So in my view Shakespeare was correct because we are in fact
masters of our own destiny if we choose to be so
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You have heard a lot about changing markets and shifting sales
channels this morning but this is potentially the tip of the iceberg of
change in publishing and you may well be on the Titanic
Everything about publishing is changing and as a service provider
dealing with many publishers we see some things from a different
perspective than an individual publisher
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Changing times require changing your processes:
• To be successful in these changing times you need to think
“outside the book” and your past practices, challenge
conventional wisdom and pretty much abandon all past adages,
axioms, dictums, maxims, mottos, precepts, rules, saws,
sayings, shibboleths, slogans and truisms…and especially any
rules of thumb
• You must examine every business process and while the topic of
this event was shifting sales channels publishers will also need
to think about shifting their business processes in response to
these and other changes….. not just incrementally but
strategically
• We have established through working with our customers that
“Best Practices” exist for every publishing process which
maximize efficiency and minimize risk
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Minimize Risk:
• Publishing is a form of legalized gambling and we have
identified a number of ways to mitigate and manage risks by
changing processes and workflows
• One simple example ….we have been doing research with
Lightning Source into the real costs of various printing
alternatives…which is not the “cost of production” but the
ultimate “cost of sale” (which includes warehousing, returns,
risk, cost of capital etc)…and we have concluded that most
publishers could ultimately make more money by shifting a
significant percentage (25%?) of their books to a POD model in
anticipation of the ongoing trend towards digital publishing and
as a step towards getting out of distribution completely…
• It’s just too risky to stick with past practices based on past sales
channels and markets which will never return
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Maximize Efficiency:
• One way to make your workflow more efficient is to provide
comparative and analytical data early in the publishing workflow
• One example of this is to make it easier to look up industry data
while evaluating whether or not to publish a new title
• So in conjunction with Bowker we have developed the “Bowker
Button” which allows Editorial and Production staff to easily
access the Bowker BIP database as part of their workflow to
see what else is out there
• Happy to talk to you about how our software can help you rethink
your business processes and maximize…see us next door or at
BookExpo Stand 4540 …free trials are available on request
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Thank you
Thank you to BISG for hosting this conference
To Idea Logical and their partners for the research
And to our partners Lightning Source and Bowker for their support
See you next door or at BEA Booth 4540
Have a great day
j.wicker@klopotek.com
www.klopotek.com
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