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)

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.