The Profound Influence of Google
By David Fraser, CEO DPSL
Digital Publishing Solutions (DPS), a subsidiary of 1st Software Corporation headquartered in Singapore and listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange, delivers digital publishing software and associated services to many of the world's leading publishers & content owners. David Fraser, CEO of DPS Ltd, discusses why Google is the best, most profound influence to have arrived in the publishing area in living memory.
 |
Provoked into joining the debate by book publishers whose policies are dictated by the over 45's (not tech savvy), classics and history majors are still completely missing the point. Google is the best, most profound influence to have arrived in the publishing area in living memory.
Publishing is about dissemination of content for mutual benefit (author and reader), and publishers are the intermediary who slow down the process to introvertedly maximise profit through printing, shipping and re-pulping paper.
Google is a market-maker, by demonstrating to the increasing global masses what is possible with content, and in their arrogant mercenary way doing a fantastic job. But Google does not exist for the benefit of publishers, or booksellers or even authors - Google works for their shareholders. Google revenues are derived from ad- spend - full stop - they have not diluted their proposition by dabbling in selling content or rights management.
The debate surrounding digitisation of library copies is as dusty as the raw material. The vast populous is interested in new relevant content and getting it where and when they want it - in the quantity that they want it. Academic and research scholars have a valid interest in obscure cloister text - the tools and distribution channels are available at economic prices today - so let it be a commercial transaction for the libraries.
The consuming populous today wants to receive in their chosen format what they want to buy - and that is something very likely different to what an aging publishing executive thinks is good for his conservative bottom line.
Napster-isation was less about copyright theft than consumers seeking what they wanted, where they wanted, and the growing popularity of 99-cents downloads sites shows that consumers will pay for chunks of a size that suits them.
Compare
this with book-sized chunks of text as bought from Audible. You miss a
point or loose the context of a paragraph on listening - can you easily
navigate backwards to replay? - No.
You buy a download book from Amazon, and pay the full price yet are limited to reading 30 pages every seven days. This is not the fault of Audible or Amazon; it is the myopic business model of the publisher which does not empathise with what the consumer wants.
Returning to Google Print and the book publishers, it was patently clear at the outset that business objectives were not coincident - yet today some publishers think Google is charitably disposed to help them. It's not going to happen - just ask, who owns the scanned file produced by Google?
The reality, as pointed out by Adam Hodgkin, is that the Google scan is not perfect - sometimes unacceptable and in every case totally unsuitable for producing a printed copy on paper. Technology and services exist at economic prices today to convert hard copy to electronic copy from which print on paper can be extracted, but Google has zero level of interest, as it is not beneficial to them.
Google can do nothing about the dusty asset of back-list /out-of-print books, unless publishers (under 45 years old) awaken to realise that they are sitting on unexplored reserves. This is the market, not library shelves, but as long as most publishers ignore their assets, they do not grow their business, and consumers do not get the really interesting contents inside the long tail. Our company mines this content for $150 per title, - less than the cost of a Friday lunch.
Some publishers delude themselves into believing that e-books do not sell - even worse, some think that the sale of an e-book can cannibalise the sale of a paper book. Since when did a publisher profit from shipping paper? Any sale of content is a valid sale and in e-publishing, there are better margins and no returns.
Rupert Murdoch hit the nail squarely on the head when he said that if content publishers are not in the internet game, they cannot hope to be classified with the finishers. By not playing with a branded site for selling content, publishers are short-selling their authors and owners.
In conclusion, we have only witnessed the prologue to the content play on the internet. Once Microsoft and Yahoo weigh in to do battle with Google over the means of getting to the content we will see fireworks, and the beneficiaries of the show will be the authors and consumers
DPS is currently raising a Venture round of funding.
For more information about Digital Publishing Solutions, please go to www.dpsl.net
For more information regarding the capital raise, please contact Amy@ariadnecapital.com