The Global eBook Report: Current Conditions & Future Projections. Update October 2013 Read Free Page A

which had started to become an international player exactly by venturing into this odd mix of challenges and opportunities.
    Two years later, in fall 2013, such surprises are far from overcome, as many author contracts are not clear enough when it comes to global distribution rights, and not all involved in the new dimensions of the trade, from publishers to -global or local- distributors to retailers have been able to intetgrate all their catalogues and the complex metadata involved.
    These are times of transition, with huge turbulences that often enough make it hard to be sure what in this new world of digital books and reading introduces a new opportunity, and what is instead a cumbersome, or even threatening challenge.

Chapter 4. Advertorial Klopotek. How Soon Is Now?

Start marketing digital content in a future-proof way
    Publishers around the world have started embracing or are about to embrace the burgeoning e-book market. But, as digital pioneer Bob Stein pointed out at Klopotek’s Publishers’ Forum in 2011, “publishers are fooling themselves when they minimize the difference between reading on pages and reading on screens.” To date, most e-books are digital versions of printed books. There are ‘enhanced e-books’, adding video and audio elements. However, as Bob Stein argues, digital – and, more importantly – online texts “live on a network which connects readers to other readers, allowing social components to come forward and to multiply in value.”
    Manage products that do not even yet exist
    The potential of e-books has not been fully realized; the development is still in its early stages. The result will probably be something new, something completely different, something very different from marketing printed books through digital channels. The problem is: we don’t know what these e-books will look like. But the good news is: a system to handle future products is already available.
    Klopotek provides a tool to manage content which is split into separate parts (chunks, chapters,etc.) and pieced together into various other products. Publishers can create open product structures (including for products that do not yet exist) and easily manage their associated components and metadata. These components can be reused in different products – so new, evolving business models can be supported with Klopotek, even if these models change.
    With this tool, Klopotek provides component-based rights and royalties management. It is capable of retracing the steps of splitting up individual components and of checking into the contracts themselves, so that it is possible to create new products and automatically produce the correct statements for handling the related royalties.
    Modern planning and production–in its true sense
    “We don’t think in products any more,” Joop Boezeman , Managing Director De Arbeiderspers | A.W. Bruna Uitgevers , said in a Klopotek Case Study in 2012. “Our way of thinking is: How can we develop the content we have in several directions?” Only a system which allows you to decide at the end of the planning process which product form should be used is fit for modern planning and production processes.
    The Klopotek system provides an integrated workflow for planning and production for which your content is the starting point. Throughout the process, relevant data is created and added, including metadata and target group information. A DAM tool is available, and reports, estimates, calculations etc. are available each step along the way. Print? Digital? Online? All of it and/or combinations? A decision for product forms and formats, distribution channels and models is only made at the end of the process, so new products and business models – for example new (social) e-book forms – can easily be added to the product range.
    Metadata is the key to online sales success
    “Obscurity is a far greater threat to publishers than piracy,” Mark Majurey , Digital Development