Presentation to RLG (OCLC) seminar on Books in the Library. In this presentation is a summary of the current US publishing market and a report on some research conducted for OCLC in November 2009 on publisher's view of the eBook future.

1. Michael Cairns
Managing Partner
Information Media Partners
In a State of Publishing
RLG Library Symposium, Chicago 2010

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Introduction
Michael Cairns is a publishing and media executive with over 25 years experience in
business strategy, operations and technology implementation. As a business
executive, Mr. Cairns has successfully managed several troubled and under-
performing businesses, creating new business opportunities, developing new funding
sources and enhancing shareholder value for investors. His years spent as an
operating executive have largely been with brand-name publishing companies such
as Macmillan, Inc., Berlitz International, Wolters Kluwer Health, Reed Elsevier and
R.R. Bowker. As a consultant, Mr. Cairns has worked with clients as diverse as
AARP, Hewlett Packard, InterPublic Companies and Reed Elsevier with an emphasis
on business strategy, market development and corporate development.
His skills and experience include:
 Business and corporate strategy development and implementation
 Operations management and business transformation
 Traditional and digital publishing and operations
 Print-to-digital transformation and adoption of new business models
 Software development and software services
Mr. Cairns holds an MBA (Finance) from Georgetown University and a BA from
Boston University. He has served on several boards and advisory groups including
the Association of American Publishers, Book Industry Study Group and the
International ISBN organization. Additionally, he has public and private company
board experience.
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Michael Cairns
Information Media Partners
Strategy Consulting
New York, London, Melbourne
Tel: 908 938 4889
Michael.cairns@infomediapartners.com
Find me:
LinkedIn Twitter Blog Flickr InstaGram

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Information Media Partners
Michael Cairns established Information Media Partners in 2006 as a boutique strategy
consulting firm focused on the information and education publishing segment. The work
conducted by the firm includes product development, corporate development, sales
management and corporate reorganizations. We work with established businesses, private
equity owners and potential acquirers.
Examples of our work include:
 Reorganized and re-focused a $25 million software publishing company by aligning
business operations with client priorities; implementing internal collaboration tools and
project management standards; re-building executive team to focus on effective and
efficient management
 Defined a new business strategy for a large non-profit association and advocacy group,
expanding their business model into global markets to exploit their core knowledge and
expertise across a broader market
 Led an information technology capabilities review at a large international advertising
holding company. Completed over 200 interviews in 15 international offices and multiple
group focus sessions to define the operational ‘gaps’ between existing agency capabilities
and those necessary and important for client delivery by region
 Completed a sales management effectiveness review for a global software company and
defined six key project initiatives to improve sales effectiveness, market development and
account management
We approach our client engagements in a standardized, logical manner which creates the best
environment to identify key business drivers, administrative and logistical road blocks and/or
product or market definition issues. Our investigative approach leads to better insights into
your businesses and supports the development of workable solutions and recommendations
for success.
Visit the Information Media Partners website for more information.
Sample Client List

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Jonathan Shaw – Gutenberg 2.0:
Harvard’s Libraries Deal With
Disruptive Change
“For Libraries and Librarians, the new
premium on skills they have long
cultivated as curators, preservers, and
retrievers of collective knowledge puts
them squarely on top of an information
geyser in the sciences that could
reshape medicine.”

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Information publishers are trailblazers
CompetentMaster Learner
EducationInformation Trade
20031990 1995
20102015 2001
Rapid InvestmentNew Dangers Caution

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Introduction and agenda
 Summary of the business environment
 The future of the book (so far)
 Publishing in the digital age

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Publishing: Like any other industry
 Change
 Dislocation
 Speed
 Technology

8. 8
Characterizing the marketplace today
 Subdued
 Anxious
 Retrenchment
 Confusion
 Jealousy

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Key segment business drivers
Trade
 Big author block
buster
 Technology –
Products
 Technology –
Distribution
 Retail stability
 Media tie-ins
“Celebrity”
 Conflict over
‘attention’
Education
 Government spending
 NCLB
 Education Policy
 Local & state
 Adoptions
 Taxes
 Enrollments
 Economy
 Continuing education
 Community colleges
 Long distance
 Vocational/Technical
 Workflow tools
 Evaluative
 Administrative
Information
 Practicing
professionals
 Macro economics
 Library budgets
 Government
investment
 Workflow
applications
 Technology
innovation

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Revenues look healthy
$39,936
$40,321
$41,040
$42,028
2007 2008 2009(E) 2010(E)
Source: BISG Trends Report 2009
($,Millions)

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New book titles & editions: 2003-10(E)
764,448
288,355
215,138
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
SelfPubs Traditonal
Source: R.R. Bowker

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Sales of trade E-books ($Millions)
$11.2
$90.0
1Q08 2Q08 3Q08 4Q08 1Q09 2Q09 3Q09 4Q09 1Q10
Source: IDPF

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Sales of digital textbooks: Percent of US market
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
14%
16%
18%
20%
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Source: Missouri Book Company

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Many publishers have
been publishing in e-
Formats for many
years

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Pearson: Digital is 31%
of revenues in 2009
Wiley, Elsevier, Wolters Kluwer
have similar statistics

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The Future of the Book (so far)

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Observations
 Revolution or reinvention?
 E-Books highly segmented
 Trade adoption driven by hardware and price
 Education faster mover, academic less so
 No significant innovation
 Piracy – No consistent approach, no real data

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Trade: “a giant mess”…“no massive change”
 Top of the pyramid
 Senior executives are focused on ‘E’
 Most publishers not addressing the transition
 Reliant on supply chain to drive e-Content
 Curation is little understood but will be important
 Workflows are being redefined

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Academic: “future hasn’t been invented yet”
 Print is still ‘format of record’ – dissertations,
tenure
 Limited impact of e-Content migrations
 Content rendering issues
 Old publishing model: long lead times, high
pricing, one dimensional content
 Bastardized content: graphs, tables, equations, etc.
 Potential to exceed Trade in application of
benefits of e-Content
 Indexing, bibliographies, source materials, etc.

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Education: “much faster than anticipated”
 E-Content migration significantly underway
 Successes with “born digital” content – not just
‘migrated’ print content
 Few publishers thinking about ‘e’ from scratch
 E-Book hardware have failed (thus far) in
education
 Market develops to a ‘database’ and
‘subscription’ model
 Content becomes ‘dynamic’
 Platform for services and content

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“Many of our genre titles couldn’t be
published without library buy-in. Of
8,000-10,000 units only 2,000 go to
retail.”
“I don’t understand how libraries are
going to exist in a future market.”
“We don’t love any of the models that
exist for libraries.”

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Implications
 Patron and library data vacuum
 Ambivalence and lack of awareness of library market
dynamics: “What’s remote access?”
 Relationship between loaning and buying
 Characteristics of library patrons
 Current patron behavior in an e-Content world
 Can patrons be leveraged by publishers more
effectively?

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A library social world
 Gathering readers together
 The ‘lonely act’ of reading transitioning to community
reading
 Around the book
 Building communities
 Networked reading
 Can librarians help this trend and/or participate in it

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Publishing in the Digital
Age
Thoughts and predictions

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Remember the characterization?
 Subdued
 Anxious
 Retrenchment
 Confusion
 Jealousy

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Are things really that bad?
 During 2009 Book Publishing a winner
 No ‘resurrection’ during 2009
 Executives guarded about immediate future
 Short to medium term problems with education
and library funding
 No bail-out!

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Change is coming
Information
 Software as a
service
 Application
providers
 Service
outsourcers
 Embedded
content
Trade
 Re-evalution of
value chain
 Direct to
consumer
models
 Publishers as
retailers,
retailers as
publishers
Education
 Expanded value
chain
 Solutions providers
 Custom production
 Content,
Assessment,
Remediation,
Management

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eBooks and eContent holds center stage
 2009 ‘Year of the E-Book’
 Apple’s (Hardware) role in book/media content
will be defining
 Google Editions: “The Cloud”
 Content ‘rights’ challenged: Concept of
ownership
 E-Content rather than E-Books
 E-Content another format option

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Forecasting publishing in the digital age
 Publishing and technology will become
synonymous
 Web delivery, xml based and ‘open’ social
network orientation
 Expansion of solutions based publishing
 Education publishers rapid adoption of solutions
based applications
 Slow publishers will loose to new entrants

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“People want to be directed.”

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Please review my blog post associated
with this presentation:
https://personanondata.blogspot.com/201
0/06/rlg-oclc-symposium-chicago-
2010.html
Michael Cairns
Managing Partner
Michael.Cairns@InfoMediaPartners.com
908 938 4889
LinkedIn Twitter Blog Flickr InstaGram