E-books, Tree-books, and On-demand Books

I was fortunate enough to attend this year's Publishing Business Conference and although much was discussed in the two-and-a-half days' worth of sessions I attended, there were a few themes that kept reappearing:

1. Traditional books--or "tree books"--and print is not disappearing anytime soon, but publishers should keep inventory and costs down, as well as acquire and market more wisely.
2. E-books may be on the rise, but given that they are currently such a small percentage of book sales, publishers should use them to complement, not replace, tree books: e-book sales are not currently cannibalizing tree book sales.
3. Since print is going nowhere anytime soon, more and more publishers are turning to print-on-demand and short-run digital as an alternative to the traditional offset model. And while the unit cost for these may still be higher than that of offset, the total cost is lower.
4. Inkjet technology will be the tipping point for POD by making color POD economically viable.

And although there were some bleak discussions of the current economic clime, there were hopeful predictions as well. Here's to the latter...

O'Reilly and XML

I was fortunate enough to attend O'Reilly's StartwithXML Conference at the McGraw-Hill Auditorium. The focus of the conference was how publishers can get on the xml bandwagon, with pointers from publishers already doing so.

Since PW posted a great article on the conference, I won't repeat what they've covered, but I will mention the few points that stand out in my mind:

1. To save costs, xml is only one of three necessary steps a publisher takes; the other two are offshoring and using standard, automated templates.
2. To have xml be the most useful, you need to start with an xml-first workflow--not an xml-last one--and this means that the authors and editors need to be trained in xml tagging and taxonomy.
3. The more "chunkable" and repurposable your content, the more important it is to get an xml-first workflow going.
4. XML allows easier updates and synchronicity of multiple files.
5. XML allows for simultaneous deliverables that can be adjusted to any medium since it is content-centric and design-agnostic.
   

Overall, it was great hearing how many publishers have embraced the new technology and realize that it's all about the content--and not its container--anymore.