The industry’s pace of change quickens as digital content technologies advance, print-on-demand becomes more prevalent, and declining readership and reaching today’s consumers continue to pose significant challenges.

By James Sturdivant

“There’s been a very significant increase in what constitutes a valid ISBN,” Gallagher says. “We’ve known for a while this was coming—that it would not necessarily be paper and print defining that [ISBN] number—but it is really coming to fruition.”

The trend is driven by direct-to-consumer online book sales, now nearing 20 percent of total sales. The rate of growth in that segment over the past five years has, Gallagher says, been “faster than anyone anticipated.”