Innovation

 The new world of digital publishing brings with it plenty of opportunities for publishers, booksellers and authors to innovate.  For publishers, this might be the production of e-books and apps.  For booksellers, it is more likely to be the production of an e-reader.  For authors, on the other hand, it may be self-publishing or print-on-demand.

For publishers, an e-book is in many ways more risky than a traditional printed book as the production costs are so much higher.  The publisher needs to access the resources needed for the production and distribution of an e-book, and compare these to those of a printed book, to assess whether they can afford the resources and if the risk is worth it.  For booksellers, the risk again is much greater as they are now making and selling their own product, whereas before they have generally sold other people’s products (books!) – now they must create business models for their own products.  It is a similar risk for authors who choose to self-publish as they must pay their own costs.  Obviously, this is a lot cheaper in the digital age, hence the rise of self-publishing.  However, they still take on the risk that they will not make any profit.

Publishing companies may need to take on new staff or invest time and training for current staff in order to properly deal with producing e-books and apps.  Booksellers who choose to produce e-readers will inevitably need to hire new people to do this.  Authors may need to teach themselves some technical skills, although websites like http://www.smashwords.com/ make self-publishing much easier. 

Publishers need to ensure that their e-books are available to buy in as many places as possible.  They will also need to take full advantage of digital marketing.  For booksellers, there is a huge amount of competition regarding tablets and e-readers.  Amazon has perhaps taken one of the biggest leaps of innovation with the Kindle Fire (http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2012/01/24/amazon-kindle-fire-review-first-look/).  They describe it as a ‘media service’ and it is innovative because rather than spending huge amounts of money on a tablet that stores huge amounts of data, it has only 8gb of storage – the customer stores all of their date on ‘The Cloud’.  So for booksellers, constant upgrading and innovation is necessary to compete.  Authors may need to pay for advertising of their books, and ensure they have a good web presence.  They will also have to carefully consider how they price their books to ensure optimum sales.