The changing world of content

13 September 2013 by Admin in Book publishing

We were musing yet again about the changing shape of our industry. It had been a long week and the Infinite Ideas boys and girls were enjoying a Friday afternoon drink to relax before the weekend.

We’ve just published The Corporate Wellness Bible (which has some interesting observations about alcohol and the workplace but we weren’t talking about that at the time…) and what a great response we’re having to it. It’s a book that is really needed as organisations around the globe recognise the importance of fit, healthy and happy employees.

If we’d published it even ten years ago, we’d have been reliant on a handful of booksellers in each of the territories we’re active in to make or break this title. If the chain buyers liked it, then fine and dandy, we were all happy. But if they said no – well it was an uphill struggle from then on in.

Nowadays though, it’s different. Sure we still love it when the High Street book trade (what’s left of it, anyway) get behind one of our books but we are realistic. They can’t support every book that’s published and they do tend to concentrate on high-volume best sellers, meaning that some titles (The Corporate Wellness Bible included) miss out on shelf space.

But in the digital world, this matters less for publishers. We can reach out to the market through intelligent (and non-intrusive) use of social networks. And the physical book is available through online bookstores and will be with you in a couple of days from ordering it. Better still, you can download an e-version instantaneously.

But the opportunities are even bigger than that. In this brave new world, we’re more than just book publishers. We’re content providers, too (Take a look at our Wordgen tab if you’d like to find out how you can harness the power of our inspirational ideas). If a multinational wants great content on keeping their workforce hale and hearty, they can license it from us. Because of the way most of our books are constructed they can buy a single chapter, or the whole work, for use on their intranet or their corporate blog. Alternatively they can licence the whole thing and we can print a bespoke version for them.

That’s the reality – a simple printed book is just the start, just one delivery method for great content. If you consider all the delivery platforms for that content – through the web, text messaging, apps, audio etc – the days of being reliant on a handful of all-powerful buyers are long gone.