The State of Sourcing

U.S. Internet users spent more time on Facebook than Yahoo and Google combined this past year (Nielsen, 2011). Following users, companies are also on track to spend 13.7 percent of their marketing budget on social media advertising (Borrell Inc. , 2012). Traditionally, small businesses advertised in local papers to drum up sales for their businesses. In the current scenario, Facebook and Twitter accounts threaten to usurp the place that newspapers had in selling the business to its readers.

Continue reading ‘Newspapers need to effectively monetize social media if they want to sustain their business’ »

• Four in five publishers globally are already producing digital content
• PDF continues to be the most popular digital format, with a majority of publishers indicating that ‘universal’ accessibility was a driving factor for choosing formats
• Third-party bookstores/channels such as those offered by Amazon, Apple, Google and Sony  are preferred, but there is a growing need to develop online bookstores

These are some of the salient findings from our research on the state of digitization in the publishing world. The publishing industry underwent some drastic changes in the last couple of years – because of the global economic crisis and also, because of the rise of the digital market. This phase is also quite exciting. The report, sponsored by Qbend, has provided us with comprehensive insights on various aspects on how publishers are addressing the digital market. Based on over 200 responses from professionals working in the publishing industry, this report talks about the production, distribution, digital rights management and pricing of digital content.

Continue reading ‘New ValueNotes report: The current state of digital content’ »

Some recent news on the Indian publishing scene inspired me to explore how the market is emerging in the trade category, especially in the English language.

• The Tata Group is aggressively focusing on their book publishing business. The company aims to be amongst the top five in India within the next three years.
• Penguin India has chosen one of the most popular Indian writers, Shobhaa Dé, to acquire a new line of books for the publishing house. The imprint – Shobhaa Dé Books – to be released in 2011 will cater to an urban English speaking audience.
• Penguin-India has been recording approx. 25% growth in sales. Random House, Harper Collins, Rupa and some others have been increasing their titles each year.

Outsourcing destination! That’s the foremost identity while referring to ‘India’ and ‘publishing’ together. India has emerged as a key destination for sourcing publishing services for US and UK based publishers for over two decades. But publishers viewing India as a potential market ? – It’s a different ballgame!

Continue reading ‘India: From a service hub to a potential market?’ »

The newspaper and magazine segments are the largest contributors in revenues to the global publishing industry – contributing close to 52% of global publishing revenues. It would therefore be safe to assume that of all the challenges faced by the industry, none would be as altering (in terms of revenues) as the challenges faced by these two segments. The newspaper and magazine segments have already lost considerable revenues on account of dip in ad revenues. This is directly attributable to the global economic slowdown, which has led to decrease in consumer and corporate spending.

Does a drop in revenues merit a need to re-invent the business model? How are publishers coping with the dip in revenues? Will the digital market provide a strong revenue source? Will this mean more outsourcing/offshoring?  Over two posts, I will answer these questions, starting with the newspaper segment.

Continue reading ‘Newspapers: Stop the presses?’ »