It’s been a month since the conference, and I still haven’t gotten over the whole “TOC experience”. My mind keeps going back to all the discussions we had, and I find myself constantly pondering over opinions expressed, predictions made and in general, visualizing what the outlook of our industry might look like few years down the line.

Having worked closely with the publishing industry for over a decade, it was both inspiring and exciting to see publishers from all around the world come together with the realization that change is here to stay. Encouraging, was to note how earnest publishers were towards understanding this change and the focus they have towards preparing themselves for the future.

In this blog, I would like to share a few anecdotes, and what I thought was especially interesting and defining for the future of our industry.  For the past ten years we have studied the dynamics of the publishing industry, its trends, changing reader habits and one session that struck an instant chord with me was by Peter Collingridge from Enhanced Editions. He describes the work he does as “tailor-making books for the iPhone, and the challenge that they set, on how to translate a book to a device in a way that creates a valuable new user experience and adds to the content. He highlighted the fact that the app was being offered as an ‘optional experience’. To quote him, “You don’t have to listen, or read and listen, or watch. Its how the reader wants it to be. We can build stuff around it and online – but the reading should be left between the reader and the content. The app is all about engagement with the content.” The key to their success here is their understanding and empathy towards the reader. His insight into reader behavior is an important lesson for all of us in the content business. The sure win sales strategy is to give your readers the content that they want.

Over the past couple of years we have seen the lightening quick pace at which the industry is evolving and this experience has helped us build innovative solutions such as reporting and data analytical tools that are helping publishers the world over take their publishing to a whole new level. As Tim O’Reilly mentioned in his session, today publishers have a better understanding of their markets with the help of data analytical tools and are building direct relationships with their readers. These tools enable publishers to put reader habits under the microscope, and use this information to tailor make content to suit the readers need. This and the ease through which they can convert their content into digital formats and deliver it through custom built platforms enable them to cash in on the opportunities that the web offers.

This year at TOC, I too had the opportunity to share my thoughts on ‘The new dynamics of publishing’ at the keynote and at a focused session on the ‘Next generation of ebooks’. Publishing has evolved, and now more than ever publishers need to focus on their core area of expertise - Content. Yet, understanding and exploiting the advancements in technology and reader demand and consumption habits could very well be the key factor that defines success. My belief is that in choosing the right strategic partners, publishers can remain focused on their core business, while still being able to implement the right technological strategies that keeps them at the top of their game.

Click here for presentation and video: The new dynamics of Publishing

The publishing industry is evolving at an astoundingly fast pace. Besides going digital, the industry is gradually transitioning from a b2b business model to a b2c model. This is largely due to the changing scenario of retail, distributions sales and marketing, all owing to the recent and widespread popularity of social networking or social media.
– Presented at the O’ Reilly Tools of Change Conference 2010, By Sameer Shariff, Founder and CEO of Impelsys Inc. (iPublishCentral)

Impelsys’ Virtual Sampling is an innovative and revolutionary solution that allows publishers to publish electronic samples prior to print. These electronic samples offer a faster, easier and more powerful method for teachers and school administrators to evaluate and search all programs appropriate for a particular curriculum, for all grade levels, eliminating the time-consuming page-by-page evaluation of educational material associated with print sampling.

This revolutionary solution comes with end-user features like full-text search, user personalization, alpha channel video etc. that aid in the program evaluation process. It also provides internal editorial staff and customers the flexibility to pick and choose chapters/content chunks from different ‘products’ and customize the product as per their needs

This innovative digital alternative to print samples helps publishers to reduce printing costs and distribution costs as well as total turnaround time.

Visit HMH’s virtual sampling page Read press release

Last Tuesday, we proudly announced that Sesame Workshop, the non-profit organization behind Sesame Street, has partnered with Impelsys to convert as many as 900 of its over 5,000 published books into eBooks. The deal got tremendous coverage in the media, that included a feature article in the Wall Street Journal which ran in the print edition of the WJS and on wsj.com. Impelsys was also featured in the Los Angeles Times, LiveMint, Gizmodo, MediaBistro and on ABC news.

We actively pursued this partnership with Sesame Street for more than a year because this deal represents the direction in which the industry is heading. The Kindle and Nook were important steps for the digital publishing industry, in the same way that Pong was a big step for the video game industry, but I contend that the best technology at the moment for digital books is one that most of us already have in our homes – the computer.

I believe that we can learn a great deal from the evolution of the video game industry. In 1975, Atari released the Home Pong console – a hardware-focused, one-dimensional product that captured our imaginations and helped spawn a multi-billion dollar worldwide industry. Pong was an important first step but in the end, the machine played one game and we needed gaming systems with more power, flexibility and interactivity.

The hardware (i.e. Xbox, Wii, PS3) remains important to this day, but its genius lies in the software that runs on these systems. For example, the Wii was a big development, but people loved it because we could go bowling in our living room or play tennis with our kids on a snowy day.

Whether playing Halo with a friend from China on PlayStation 3, doing exercises with your sister on Wii Fit or having Grover personally read for your 3-year old “The Monster at the end of this Book” on ebooks.Sesamestreet.org, consumers want a rich, interactive, 3D experiences, regardless of the gadget it comes in.

This partnership with Sesame Workshop is an important milestone for Impelsys and a great way to end a very productive 2009. I look forward to continuing to push the boundaries of digital publishing and providing publishers and content developers with technologies that enable interactivity and allow their businesses to grow in 2010 and beyond.

Over the past 8 years, we’ve heard countless reasons why e-books just won’t work. We’ve been advised that digital books will only be a niche market. We’ve been cautioned that e-books will spell the death of the industry.

Despite these well-intentioned opinions, we pressed on; building a platform for the masses and believing that this would be the next great chapter in the publishing industry’s proud history.

After last week’s Frankfurt Book Fair, I am proud to announce that the revolution is over and the future is finally here.

For five straight days, my team and I were in back-to-back (to-back) meetings with the world’s leading publishers talking about digital content delivery. We read innumerable stories about the revolution including the WSJ’s “E-books are hot topic at Frankfurt Book Fair” and the AP’s “E-books gain a foothold at Frankfurt Book Fair.” We even saw China play second fiddle to Google, Apple and Amazon.

Since the launch of iPublishCentral at FBF last year, the publishing industry and iPublishCentral have taken some significant steps forward. Over the past 12 months, more than 350 publishers from around the world, including the AMA, MIT Press, F+W Media, M.E. Sharpe, Marshall Cavendish and Vanderbilt University Press, have signed on to use iPublishCentral.

We’ve added support for content in multiple formats, multiple languages and for multiple mobile devices. We’ve increased reporting and analysis tools and have begun supporting various pricing models, including rentals.

What we’re most proud of is that iPublishCentral enables publishers of any size or in any location to make their content for sale online and to promote their brands and titles across the Web in a simple and cost-effective manner, with minimal up front investments and pay-as-you-go pricing.

I wanted to use this blog entry to thank our customers, our partners and the incredible team at iPublishCentral for their hard work and their dedication to this cause. There remains a great deal of work ahead of us, but the future is indeed bright.

Viva la revolution,

Sameer Shariff

Like many of us in the publishing industry, I have been closely monitoring the recent wave of e-book coverage in the consumer media. We have seen powerful headlines such as “B&N Launches Kindle Killer” (Wall Street Journal) and “Is Amazon Taking Over the Book Business” (Time Magazine) and questions abound: Are we nearing Malcolm Gladwell’s proverbial tipping point? Will e-books sales capture a substantial share of the overall market in the next few years? Are Jeff Bezos and Steve Riggio going to rumble? Possibly.

Amazon and Barnes & Noble certainly continue to move the needle by developing new technologies, engaging new partners and driving consumer awareness. But I would like to offer a slightly less “sexy” story angle. Perhaps this isn’t a race for inter-stellar domination between two massive companies. Perhaps the story is not about one viewer or one “e-book megacenter” as the NY Times so eloquently described it. Perhaps this isn’t even about Amazon or B&N or Google, Apple, Sony or whoever comes next.

In my opinion, this is not an “either/or” proposition. This is about how publishers can learn from each other; how we all benefit from technological advancements; and, what we can discover from the new business models that are currently being tested.

Beyond the technology, the alliances and the giant marketing budgets of Amazon and B&N, the key to success for publishers of all sizes is building platforms that connect them with their end-users in meaningful ways. Publishers need to harness that data and produce strong, lasting consumer relationships. The publishers who best understand their consumers and grasp what they really want will lead the way.

The future is bright for the Davids and the Goliaths.

So I’m finally back from a crazy month of conferences and meetings.  Met a lot of interesting publishing people – all facing similar challenges.

We were a gold sponsor of the TOC conference and we saw an incredible response from publishers and people from the industry in general. It just goes to prove that no matter what the market conditions are, publishers know that they must look and invest in technology and electronic offerings to stay current with market trends and how important it is to keep up with the rapidly changing industry. Maybe that’s why the Tools of Change conference was sold out whereas some other traditional meetings saw a significant decline in the number of attendees.  We also exhibited at PSP (Professional and Scholarly Publishing) where the attendance was off significantly from last year.  From what I have been reading, many meetings are struggling for attendance – but not so at TOC.  This gives you a clear indication of the focus in publishing - in this concerned market.

This year, I noticed that one of the most discussed topics at various conferences was “e-books” in its various configurations and forms.  Many of the presentations had lots of numbers and graphs depicting various upticks and trends in ebook sales. In one session on “E-Books: Business Models and Strategies”, gave the following numbers on electronics vs print… “In STM, estimates of digital revenue range from 15-30% of total book revenue; in higher education it’s up to 30%; and in reference it’s 60%.”  We can now see clearly that consumers are changing their reading habits.  Stanza, the new reader for the iPhone, boasted that since offering Stanza in Dec 2008, there have been over 1.5 million downloads of the reader and millions of more books downloaded to their iPhones.

Another hot topic at TOC was Twitter and how it has changed the way information is communicated and exchanged. There were lots of discussions on the Dos and Don’ts of Twitter and the most effective way of messaging and marketing on Twitter. Almost everybody at the TOC was online and twittering throughout the conference. ‘TOC’ was the most twittered topic for almost a week. Marketing on Twitter is a whole new deal. I too am becoming a tweeter on Twitter and I think that if you’re not at least putting your feet in the bird feeder, you’re missing out on a lot of information that could be useful to your future - no matter what area of publishing is your focus.

We were VERY pleased with all the enthusiasm and interest that we saw in iPublishCentral.  At the conference we announced that iPublishCentral registration rose above 150 publishers since launching at the Frankfurt Book Fair and from what I’m seeing – TOC is already helping that number soar.  We held a seminar at TOC: ‘Sparking a new e book revolution through a new self-serve model’ by Sameer Shariff, our CEO. We all attended some very interesting presentations too, and I thoroughly enjoyed sitting in on Tim O’Reilly’s presentation about “reasons to be excited” and Chris Brogan on ‘blogging and social media’. Nick Bilton presented on ‘the future of storytelling’ which was inspiring and Robert Stein’s focus on a publishers new responsibility “… to build and nurture vibrant communities for authors and tend to their readers” was an eye-opener for many publishers. The focus of building a community around your content is one that we have been conveying to market for a long time.

Throughout the conference, certainly there was a focus on how the market conditions are challenging, to say the least, and why it is especially important for publishers to dip their toes in the water and test out the ebook market with a low cost/low risk solution.  So when you think about it, there couldn’t have been a better time to have launched iPublishCentral since it provides low cost and time saving solutions to publishers.  Timing is everything.  Take a dip and tweet the market.

Let me know what you found most interesting at TOC.

iPublishCentral will make an appearance at The Online Information Conference 2008,                    the world’s no. 1 conference for the information industry!

Attracting over 900 delegates from over 40 countries, the conference provides a forum dedicated to learning, debate, professional development, technology reviews and assessments, expert discussion as well as case-study presentations and the sharing of research results and opinion.

The conference, also popular as London Online among the publishing and information industry, is scheduled for December 2-4, at Olympia Grand Hall, Hammersmith, London.

iPublishCentral will be present along with Publishing Technology, our strategic partner for the UK region, at stand no. 620.   A dedicated demo station will be set up at the stand for a live demonstration of iPublishCentral.  Representatives from Impelsys and Publishing Technology will provide detailed information and insights about iPublishCentral and how it helps publishers Market, Distribute, and Deliver Content online, through a very easy self-serve model.

To set up a meeting with us here, please write to: marketing@ipublishcentral.com or register online.