My newsletter released on July 2 contains about seven pages of comments and selected key points for small publishers about digital publishing and the future.
Almost all of it is provoked by Steve Paxhia and Bill Tripp’s excellent report (sponsored by Follett) called “Digital Platforms and Technologies for Publishers: Implementation Beyond ‘eBook’.”
My question, for my free subscribers, was how does what was said in the 148 pages directly affect those of us with a book-a-month or less production schedule? And what does it do to our ink-on-paper world?
The potential changes are both extraordinarily exciting and flat-out overwhelming. But the sales in digital in 2008 was just 10% of the total. And much of the report focuses on XML and publishing behemoths. So it took some imagination and sleuthing to see where we fit in at all.
Still, 46 sections (mostly long paragraphs) gives us specific guidelines, insight into where the big houses are going, clues about some super ways to chip off some spin-off income, and some great future planning tools that will still keep us in the game–and, done with guerilla finesse, might even let us leap ahead!
Sign up for the newsletter (it’s free and monthly), take a good read, and if it’s not for you later, just unsubscribe. You’ll get three very useful (also free) reports in the process.
Best wishes,
Gordon Burgett
