TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

How Random House, Cengage and other giants use tech: New tools help deal with change

By David Rothman

Four-hundred U.S. bookstores will close this year—a 500-percent increase over 2008—if a study from Grant Thornton LLP is on target. Some publishers, moreover, fret over the possible end of the hardback. And you already know about the threat which large educational publishers are facing from California’s move toward free textbooks.

Which digital strategies should publishers use to cope?

Can the right technologies help keep customers, through such wrinkles as e-books and customized books?

Random House, McGraw-Hill, Cengage Learning, HarperCollins, Harlequin and Ingram Digital are among the heavy-hitters whose digital strategies are discussed in a 142-page report from the Gilbane Group. The study also highlights some innovative small-fry such as Lulu, Daily Lit and Curriki.

Several themes emerge in “Digital Platforms and Technologies for Publishers: Implementation Beyond ‘eBook,’” which you can download for free in PDF after you register at the Gilbane site.

Publishers, for example, are moving toward XML, digital asset management systems and related tech. The idea is to be able to use text and pictures and multimedia in many forms, some of which may differ radically from traditional e-books or not even be books, period. The new technology will also make it easier for publishing houses to sell directly to customers online, or pitch their wares through widgets for partner sites—allowing shoppers to browse from afar with the publishers still in control.

Increasingly experts like Jim Lichtenberg and the report’s authors—Gilbane’s Steve Paxhia and Bill Trippe—are viewing publishers as service companies rather than as dispensers of paper and cardboard and traditional e-book files. I myself can envision an educational publisher offering text and graphics around which schools can build wikis. Publishers could even rent out experts to help oversee the wiki-construction—both the content and the technical side

Publishers as Mixmasters: The darker side (my thoughts)

That said, with all the powerful technology to temp them, I wonder if some publishers will lose touch with the human side and care less about developing new talent than about squeezing the last penny out of existing “digital assets.” And do we really want everything so homogenized? Furthermore, what about the oddball novel or memoir that you just can’t break into snippets? John Updike, the ultimate anti-snippet guy, must be rolling in his grave and wondering about the future of linear narrative.

Yet another issue is a perennial, DRM. Will the existence of digital asset management systems make it easier, and thus more enticing, to lock down books? Will it eventually grow harder and harder for customers to make private use of digital material from publishers? DRM, “transparent” or not, may alienate book buyers even if digital asset management systems simplify the implement at the production level. I’m reminded of a small-town Southern merchant who rejoiced over the wonderful safe he had bought. Perhaps he’d have better spent the money on an air conditioning system to help customers cope with humid, sweltering summers. The question of “the right thing” counts more than “doing it well.”

Time for discussion of social DRM

In the end the DRM decision is one for individual publishers to make, so I won’t blame Gilbane itself, especially since the current report is focused on technological platforms rather than on distribution philosophies. Next time around, however, I’d love to see Gilbane explore the use of  alternatives to traditional DRM, such as social DRM—the embedding of customers’ names and/or other identifiers inside books to discourage piracy.

None other than Adobe executive Bill McCoy has pushed the idea in the past, and it’s time for it to enter the mainstream of publishing industry discussions. I blame the media in part. Recently I chatted with a reporter at a major newspaper who told me it would it wasn’t his paper’s job to engage in activism. Really? When an Adobe man has talked up social DRM? Ideally a consultancy of Gilbane’s stature can put social DRM on the media’s radar.

The hardware issue: Multiuse devices favored

“On the platform front,” says the Gilbane report, “we believe that innovative devices will continue to be necessary to drive the growth of eBooks for the next few years. However, it is likely that the functionality of these readers will be integrated into multipurpose mobile devices such as the iPhone and notebook computers in clever new versions.

“In summary, it is encouraging that eBook sales are finally starting to grow. However, for this trend to become strategically significant, the focus must shift from looking at digital products as derivative products delivered on gadgets to next generation franchise delivered on the reader’s favorite media platforms including traditional book formats.”

The report emphasizes the need to think digitally from the start—not just adapt traditional books and other print products. I like that idea in general, especially for educational products, where in many cases an interactive approach would make a topic more interesting for students. At the same time, as author of a recent novel, I dread the possibility of traditional linear text vanishing.

Gilbane’s advice for publishers

Briefly—you can read the report for the details—here’s some of Gilbane’s advice for publishers:

• Starting with XML is the way to go for nonfiction. I like the report’s recognition that fiction is special, although I can also see a role for XML there, as, I suspect, Gilbane itself does. Hello, IDPF? Time to upgrade the ePub standard with designers’ concerns in mind? Even just within the world of reflowable text, much can be done.
• Web 2.0-style interactivity can drive down production costs. Remote workers can take advantage of it with low-cost technology.
• Think customer-author collaborations in the vein of O’Reilly Media’s efforts with Safari and Rough Cuts. Yes, yes! This is just catnip for those of us who care about QC (even if goals aren’t always reality).
• Use social networks to build the brand names of both publishers and writers.

For a quick preview, beyond the above

Bill Trippe is previewing passages from the document via his entries for the Gilbane blog—including an overview and snippets from case histories involving Random House, Cengage and Lulu.