Industry Outlook Bright
When queried about whether digital-format books will eventually replace print books, 1 percent responded “completely” and 11 percent said “mostly.” Forty-nine percent of those surveyed replied “somewhat,” 28 percent said “not much” and another 11 percent said “not at all.”
Of course, those polled did identify a number of concerns facing their companies and the industry as a whole. Specifically, four issues were cited more often than any others: “generating new revenue”; “book manufacturing costs”; “marketing and promotion of my titles”; and “developing a multimedia strategy.” “[I’m concerned about] printing costs, because we do four-color travel guides for kids,” says Matthew Rosenberger, president of ABC Travel Guides for Kids, a small, Philadelphia-based publisher. “Our printing costs are high … but my cost margin is pretty tight, because I’m selling at a 40- to 50-percent discount, and my per-unit cost is such that it’s expensive,” he explains. “Until now I’ve done all of my printing in the United States, but I’m now looking to China, and I recently made a connection with a couple of printers there because the costs are considerably less, although even that’s changing now, too, with rising oil costs.”
Matt Steinmetz is the publisher and brand director of Publishing Executive.