Investing Millions: Merriam-Webster’s John Morse on why the costly “Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary” will pay off.
Extra: In what other forms will we see this “new kind of publishing”?
Morse: First off, we know we need smaller abridgments of [the “Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary”], both domestically and international. If this is a dictionary we’re putting into the hands of students, we know price is very important. We need to do a first product of this price ($29.95) to introduce Merriam-Webster to teachers, so they know the authority and depth of knowledge we bring to this area of publishing. It will be the smaller and lower-priced products that sell better. … We also have to create books that are more localized for specific markets. We have to create semi-[bilingual] versions. There has to be something in there that the native speaker of another language recognizes. … The third piece is [that] this has to be licensed for various kinds of use in handheld devices around the world. Particularly in Asian markets, handheld devices that hold multiple dictionaries dominate the reference market.
- Companies:
- Merriam-Webster