Workflow

In my last post,  I wrote about—heck, I guaranteed—that XML wasn’t going anywhere. I’m usually not such a big trash talker, but I firmly believe this—mostly because you can use XML to future-proof content, as well as the fact that putting any structured tagging in your content could be leveraged, even if XML goes away. Which it won’t (I know, nice English).

Metadata's potential for becoming the currency driving the future of digital publishing was the theme of two presentations at last week's Magazine Publishers of America event, "Magazines: From Dimensional to Digital," held at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City.

Having been very recently reorganized out of my vice president position at a book publishing company, I've been neck-deep in conversations that can be placed into one of three categories:

Sony expects ebook sales to overtake sales of print books within five years, as we reported yesterday. Steve Haber, president of Sony's digital reading business division, told me: "Within five years there will be more digital content sold than physical content. Three years ago, I said within ten years but I realised that was wrong - it's within five."

A few years back, I was giving a presentation about all the wonderful things our company was going to be able to do with XML, and that we should get to it.  Only thing was, our company was in the midst of being acquired by a major Dutch company that had a pretty strong reputation in their handling of XML (names have been omitted to protect the innocent).

It was another meeting of book publishing industry minds, as members of the Bookbinders' Guild of New York gathered at Random House's Manhattan headquarters May 11 to discuss the rapidly transforming business of producing books. "Digital Horizons: The Evolving Book" featured presentations from Ken Brooks, senior vice president, global production and manufacturing services, Cengage Learning; Bob Stein, founder and co-director of the Institute for the Future of the Book; and Michael Cader, founder of PublishersMarketplace.com and Publishers Lunch.

Check out the video highlights from the 2010 Publishing Business Conference & Expo, featuring comments from conference chairs Chris Foster, President & COO, GIE Media; Samir Husni, aka "Mr. Magazine" and founder and director of the Magazine Innovation Center; and Clint Greenleaf, president and CEO, Greenleaf Book Group, as well as from other attendees.

Get out your calendar and schedule a regular date to review your production processes and strategies. Routinely taking a fresh look at your workflow can help you to find new opportunities for streamlining workflows, improving efficiencies, lowering costs and identifying new revenue opportunities. Bruce Jensen, vice president of sales at Transcontinental Printing, recently offered the following tips to Book Business Extra readers to help you improve your book production processes.

Nominations for the Publishing Executive Hall of Fame are now being accepted. Each year, exceptional professionals from production and manufacturing at book and magazine publishing companies are inducted into the Publishing Executive Hall of Fame (formerly PrintMedia Hall of Fame). The inductees represent the best of the best, and are honored for their outstanding achievements and contributions to the publishing industry.

Publishers are faced with strategy decisions like never before. As publishing options continue to grow and business models shift seemingly every few months with the introduction of new digital devices or growth of some external pressure, publishers must plan for the future while reacting to the present—a tough situation even without the need to deal with the effects of a down economy.