The Polarisation of Publishing

Publishing whatever sector, geography and format has always adhered to Pareto’s 80/20 law and in many cases less than 20% have generated even greater than 80% of revenue and unit sales. This obviously leads to a polarisation of the market, with in many cases, no more than a handful of publishers and channel operators dominating each sector. Many don’t like it, cry monopoly, but its not going away and the dilution of one operator will just be replaced by another.

We recently raised the question of the impact of the migration from print to digital revenues and asked what it would mean to organisations, supply chains and the remaining print based operations. We all know digital is happening and continues to accelerate and although we may not be able to predict where the line will be drawn, the impact will be significant and not preparing for it may be like a publishing ‘Pearl Harbour’. Perhaps today’s biggest conference circuit agenda should be on , ‘How to survive in a downsized print world.’

When Chris Anderson first coined ‘long tail economics’ in 2006, many were cynical and merely asked where the money was. It challenged the fundamental principles of the economies of scale and scope on which the 20^th century was successful. However, today no one can deny that the long tail is here and not only has it arrived, revitalised the forgotten back list, inspired many authors to do it themselves, but it has challenged the industry’s obsession with front list. Penguin’s recent acquisition of self publishing operation Author Solutions, is not just about feeding the machine, it also about trying to accommodate the new long tail world and get involved in a mass movement. Amazon have once again shown great strategic vision and application with their Kindle DP programme, which could now become a significant jewel in their crown and although other players are trying to emulate it, they are playing catch up and are clearly behind the curve. Open research and access is also going to have a significant impact on some markets and change the balance of power across the value chain. However, we still to see some more moves and there are some real opportunities today that are just begging to be taken.

Only this week we read in Publishers Weekly about the demise of print back list sales which is in part down to reduced shelf space and also part down to digital offering what we believe is a more logical and better home for these works. This again impacts the balance of the market both in terms of front versus back list and also physical versus digital. the interesting question is, if the physical back list market becomes less predictable and attractive does this give publishers the confidence to digitise their back list or raise the risk that digital migration may not be rewarding? Will they merely sit on their assets, revert them, digitise them with no marketing effort, or let them slide into an orphanage? Digital may only be seen to be worth the effort if it generates sales and if the digital shelves are full how do readers find and differentiate the back list from the rest?

We are no longer talking about ‘long tail’ economics but ‘long market’ economics.

So what will be the organisational and economic impact of the seismic changes that are taking place today?  It is not just a case of responding and generating new revenues, but one of managing and protecting old ones too. We and many others believe that the 80/20 law will still prevail but that the market will become even more polarised and middle ground will change radically. One of the leading thinkers and a Director at Bloomsbury, Richard Charkin, recently is quoted as saying that, ‘publishers should now start to act and think as start-ups.’ A very scary thought for some, but a stark reality for many.

In some media sectors competitors are now working together to share investment and importantly risk and reward. Do we see a similar collaborative publishing environment, or a continuation of the ‘winner takes all’

Many still believe that digital is just about pouring the physical book content into a digital container. Whilst others believe that digital wizarderly and extras will prevail and digital content will become a full blown multi media experience. Reality will be somewhere in the middle but what is clear is that publishing will continue to polarise and in doing so create some exciting opportunities which will demand market and organisational change.

The democratisation of reading and writing is happening and the question is who will be prepared, fit, and responsive and succeed in the Brave New World of digital and physical content?

Some say the today’s weather is becoming more volatile, extreme and unpredictable. Welcome to publishing tomorrow.

2012 Digital Perspectives: The Publisher

This week we have written a series of short articles titled, ‘2012 Digital Perspectives?’ These have looked at what we believe are the short term issues, challenges, potential game changers and outcomes across the digital publishing value chain. Today we look at the many complex opportunities facing the Publisher.

As we have seen this last week with the HaperCollins versus Open Road legal charge, different parties can view even a contract from a perspective, which is not always shared. We often find ourselves through different windows into the same house and seeing completely different rooms.

Rights
Publishing is a rights business without a Rights registry, where much of the information about rights remains locked away behind closed doors. Digital publishing now demands greater clarity and transparency on rights and the current ambiguity and lack of information remains digital publishing’s biggest threat and opportunity.

The book world is global and as the ebook market explodes, publishers have to rethink territory rights. Orphans remain the prize sought by many and an issue still unresolved. Permission rights will increasingly become an opportunity as content gets fragmented, enhanced and as snippets become more accessible in a digital world.

Licensing models that exist in other media don’t exist in the book market today. Rental and loans can’t be ignored any longer and if not addressed proactively they may be addressed by others.

Digital Rights Management will continue to be demanded by publishers who will be wary of piracy. The shift to online and cloud based on-demand platforms will also start to negate the need for DRM and downloads as we know them today and it is inevitable that DRM as we know it will have a limited life.

Copyright contracts should move to fixed term contracts and commercial terms where a licence may automatically revert if not renewed. This could itself offer a different reward structure and one which is based more on performance by all parties. However publishers must seize the initiative and not wait for others to dictate it.

Content
Many still print first then convert to digital and Editorial remains for many the last bastion of the analogue world. Although many in professional and STM have already learnt the lesson and gained the benefits of XML workflow and development it is still to be adopted more widely across all sectors..

Context
Ester Dyson once said that being able to find a needle in a digital haystack was key and we thought that Google’s big opportunity was to start to change search and discovery. However this did not happen in 2011 and perhaps their problem is that they still see books as mere information to index and fail to grasp the context.

Content will increasingly be used to provide context and support search and discovery. These opportunities demand changes in how content is developed, managed and distributed.

Progress has been made with services such as Net Galley and Yudu, but these were still locked into solving bits of and not the total problem. The industry is failing to grasp the difference between content based services and transactional ones. It’s standards bodies and focus is still focuses on servicing business to business information and fails to grasp the more important and greater business to consumer opportunity.

Social networking is starting to make a difference, and the challenge is to harness the social facilities in a positive way to advise, stimulate and lead consumers to discover titles, whilst avoiding blatant product placement and ;happy money'. Success is not guaranteed by the size of the spend, but by the skill of the approach and the only one that really matters and decides the winners is the consumer.

We still have to see trade publishers grasp direct marketing skills and mail list management. It is after all easy to collect names, but a lot harder to know how to exploit them when you are not the natural consumer facing agent. Trade publishers now find themselves dealing with traditional mass marketing, marketing to channels, brand building of both authors and their own brand and direct marketing. Is it therefore understandable that they all often fail as they try to cover all bases.

Digital Sales, Tax, Pricing and Royalties
Today’s digital ‘honesty box’ sales model is not sustainable without sales and royalty transparency. Asking publishers to reconcile sales that they can’t often audit, could be seen by some as an untenable position. No longer can publishers count the stock out, sold and returned. In a digital world, the unit only needs to be stored once and only moves when it is sold and there should be no returns. In theory this should make sales and royalty reporting and reconciliation very simple. We expected the industry to address this before it became indoctrinated within the market, but have seen little co-ordinated effort, standards or even approach.

Taxation is a digital mess with different rules and rates everywhere and a lack of harmonisation even across the EU. Should prices be inclusive or exclusive? Should tax be at point of distribution or consumption? Why is the same product taxed differently because it is digital? Publishers may not make the rules but can lobby and influence them.

We know now that the agency pricing model will face many legal tests this next year and will probably fail some if not all. Pricing is a threat and an opportunity. Managing prices across thousands of titles, from thousands of publishers, through many many channels and outlets, can only be managed at the consumer interface. In a digital world where all books look the same, the lack of consumer price points only adds to confusion. This was partially addressed in music when iTunes invented the track price but remains a challenge in publishing where value still has to be effectively communicated.

The Publishing Organisation
Publishers now need to seriously consider the impact of digital on the organisation. There is no right or wrong answer.Do they have a single organisational focus that sees physical and digital as mere renditions of the same work and if so, which part is the dog and which is the tail?

The digital business will have to be far more holistic in its approach and consideration of all aspects of publishing and yet must remain agile enough to respond to rapid changes.

The large publishers will continue to control the vast majority of sales and in sectors such as education, professional and academic and it is hard to see a change to this 80/20 rule set. However, in trade publishing we see a different dynamic and potentially, a more level digital playing field. In digital, publishers are only as good as their ability to exploit their content and rights and those that believe they have a divine right to market share will soon learn the digital reality.

The Oganizational Impact of New Media II

The question of whether publishers should have digital divisions or be integrated was raised at the recent LBF ‘Crossing the New Frontier: America and the Digital Revolution’ seminar.

It is interesting to note that that the same question was raised over 13 years ago in the heady CD publishing days in the very first ‘Publishingin the 21st Century ‘. The research brought together Mark Bide and Mike Shatzkin and that illustrious team that I was pleased to help manage be part of. The paper was called ‘The Organisational Impact of New Media’

Alas today all I have is the Executive Summary but it is still highly relevant and much could have been written yesterday. It looked right across the organisation and publishing lifecycle and although much more multi media focused than today still offers much.

Its conclusion was read : ‘Long term forecasting is of limited value in an era of such rapid technological development. One thing is for sure: publishers are in the early stages of a period of considerable uncertainty and of accelerating change. The market will placeever greater demands on publishers, and the business will become very much more complex than it has been in the past. In organizing their businesses to face this challenge, publishers need to learn to manage the uncertainty so as to maximise the potential benefit while minimizing the risks.’

It clearly recognised the need to integrate digital divisions and skills within the total organisation and that digital publishing, was is as we keep saying, even then becoming publishing.