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Making Information Pay 2009

May 7, 2009 McGraw-Hill Auditorium, New York

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“What’s past is prologue” is carved on the National Archives Building, Washington, D.C.

This would imply that the past is a determinant of the future.

Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) philosophy

I don’t think this is correct

But what Shakespeare actually wrote in The Tempest is:

“Whereof what’s past is prologue,

what to come (is) in yours and my discharge” William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

So in my view Shakespeare was correct because we are in fact masters of our own destiny if we choose to be so

Was Shakespeare right or wrong?

You have heard a lot about changing markets and shifting sales channels this morning but this is potentially the tip of the iceberg of change in publishing and you may well be on the Titanic

Everything about publishing is changing and as a service provider dealing with many publishers we see some things from a different perspective than an individual publisher

  

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Changing times require changing your processes:

• To be successful in these changing times you need to think “outside the book” and your past practices, challenge conventional wisdom and pretty much abandon all past adages, axioms, dictums, maxims, mottos, precepts, rules, saws, sayings, shibboleths, slogans and truisms…and especially any rules of thumb

• You must examine every business process and while the topic of this event was shifting sales channels publishers will also need to think about shifting their business processes in response to these and other changes….. not just incrementally but strategically

• We have established through working with our customers that “Best Practices” exist for every publishing process which maximize efficiency and minimize risk

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Minimize Risk:

• Publishing is a form of legalized gambling and we have identified a number of ways to mitigate and manage risks by changing processes and workflows

• One simple example ….we have been doing research with Lightning Source into the real costs of various printing alternatives…which is not the “cost of production” but the ultimate “cost of sale” (which includes warehousing, returns, risk, cost of capital etc)…and we have concluded that most publishers could ultimately make more money by shifting a significant percentage (25%?) of their books to a POD model in anticipation of the ongoing trend towards digital publishing and as a step towards getting out of distribution completely…

• It’s just too risky to stick with past practices based on past sales channels and markets which will never return

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Maximize Efficiency:

• One way to make your workflow more efficient is to provide comparative and analytical data early in the publishing workflow

• One example of this is to make it easier to look up industry data while evaluating whether or not to publish a new title

• So in conjunction with Bowker we have developed the “Bowker Button” which allows Editorial and Production staff to easily access the Bowker BIP database as part of their workflow to see what else is out there

• Happy to talk to you about how our software can help you rethink your business processes and maximize…see us next door or at BookExpo Stand 4540 …free trials are available on request

 

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Thank you

Thank you to BISG for hosting this conference

To Idea Logical and their partners for the research

And to our partners Lightning Source and Bowker for their support

See you next door or at BEA Booth 4540

Have a great day

j.wicker@klopotek.com

www.klopotek.com

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