Investing Millions: Merriam-Webster’s John Morse on why the costly “Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary” will pay off.
Extra: Why did you pursue the “Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary”?
Morse: … This has just been self-evident for us that this book was needed. A billion people around the world are learning English as a second language or foreign language everyday. It’s greater than people that have English as their first language. The market is growing, and the market is huge. The question is, “Why haven’t we already done it?” The answer is that it’s a huge job. It took us years and years and years and millions of dollars to create. That, to some degree, is an aspect of reference publishing that makes it different than other forms of publishing. The barriers of entry to move into a new product are staggering. If you want to be a player in the reference field, the investment is just a tremendous amount. … What was required here was not our decision of should or shouldn’t we. Of course we should. It was, “Were we really ready to dedicate ourselves and our dollars to a strategy where we spend a decade to create this dictionary?”
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