Content on Demand

What do POD and digital have in common? Content on demand. What I mean by this, is that the modern consumer wants their content, and wants it now in whatever format they prefer.

As was repeated several times at the Book Business Expo hosted a few month's back, "content is king." How does this translate to the publisher trying to stay on top of the ever-evolving new media trends? How does this translate to the overwhelmed production professional trying to make all this work? It's very simple: let the consumer choose.

Develop good content, tag it with XML or whatever other format works for your CMS, and make the content available in all formats--simultaneously. Let the consumer choose whether they want to buy the book as a traditional print product; a pdf to be read on their laptop; or for their Kindle or Sony Reader (or whatever the next generation e-reader will be). Price these products appropriately, make it easy for the consumer to choose, and they will and will probably keep coming back.

It's obviously not that easy to get to that point, and this may vary from publishing sector to sector, but the more I read about what works and what doesn't, the more I believe it's really about "content on demand" and allowing the reader to choose.

Another example of this is in the educational market. Instead of professors having to create student reading packs to be copied and bound by the university copy center, they can now choose "custom" textbooks. Although only Wiley offers this now, I'm sure that others will soon too, since this is the "content on demand" trend at its best.

So for your given sector of the industry, what are the choices your reader is looking for and how will you make these more readily available to them?