Business Innovation and Disruption in Publishing

Index

Preface to the Book Series

Introduction by Robert DeFillippi & Patrik Wikström

Chapter I - Book Industry Management, Marketing and Business Models Trends

Paulo Faustino

Abstract

Introduction

I. Literature Review and Trends in the Book Sector

II. Business Models, Management and Marketing

III. Trends Systematization and Challenges for the Book Industry

References

Chapter II - Book App Publishing in Norway: Edge- And Ad Hoc Innovations

Terje Colbjørnsen

Abstract

I. Digital Publishing and Book Apps

II. Characteristics of the Norwegian Book App Market

III. Book Apps as a Publishing Strategy: Edge and Ad Hoc Innovation

List of Interviewees

References

Chapter II - Digital Diffusion and The Prospect of Disruptive Change in the U.S. Higher Education Textbook Industry

Jonathan S. Sales & Robert DeFillippi

Introduction

I. The Background of Higher Education Textbook Publishing

II. The Conceptual Framework

III. Case Study Data and Methodology

IV. Case Findings

V. Conclusion

References

Chapter IV - Disruption in the German Publishing Industry: Performance and Trends

Leona Achtenhagen, Lucia Naldi & Bozena Mierzejewska

Introduction

I. Theoretical Background

II. Method and Data

III. Findings

IV. Industry Trends

V. Concluding Remarks

References

Chapter V - Sensation in the Monde des Lettres: The impact of the e-Book on the French Publishing Industry

Elen Riot

Abstract

Introduction

I. The Impact of Digital Technologies and the Specific Role of Innovation in the French Publishing Industry

II. Method and Fieldwork

III. Description of Two Groups in the French Publishing Industry in the Present Time

IV. Agents’ Implicit References in their Representation of the Emergence of the e-Book

V. Conclusion

References

Chapter VI - Predicting the future of e-publishing and e-books in Finland

Kim Holmberg

Abstract

I. Introduction

II. Literature Review

III. Method

IV. Results

V. Discussion

Acknowledgments

References

Chapter VII - In Search of a Business Model Renewal:The Case Study of Sanoma Magazines International

Neva Bojovic & Valérie Sabatier

Introduction

I. Theoretical Foundations

II. Methodology

III. Business Model Renewal of Sanoma Magazines International (SMI)

IV. Discussion and Conclusion

References

Chapter VIII - Strategic Moves and Evolution of Value Chains and Business Models in the Russian Publishing Industry

Nabyla Daidj & Ekaterina Borisova

Introduction

I. Market Changes and Evolution of Players’ Strategies

II. From Value Chains to Business Models

III. Lessons from Bonnier Case Study

IV. Conclusion

References

Chapter IX - Digitization of newspaper and Magazine publishing: The contribution of technology to the construction of the world

Maria Norbäck & Elena Raviola

Introduction

I. Structuring Digital Publishing

II. Organizing Digital Publishing

III. Three Illustrative Examples of Digital Publishing

IV. Discussing Technology’ s Contribution to the Construction of a New World

V. Conclusion

References

Chapter X - Towards disruptive Innovations in Digital Service Offering: An Empirical Analysis from the Finnish Publishing Industry

Seppo Leminen, Mervi Rajahonka, Juho-Petteri Huhtala, Antti Sihvonen, Riikka Siuruainen, & Miikka Tölö

I. Introduction

II. Theoretical Backgrounds

III. Methodology

IV. Findings

V. Discussion

VI. Conclusions

References

About Media XXI

PREFACE OF THE BOOK SERIES

Business Innovation and Disruption in Creative Industries

Robert DeFillippi and Patrik Wikström

Organizations in the creative industries are based on the continuous creation of novelties. Newspapers launch a new product seven days a week and average-sized record labels and book publishers may release a few hundred new products every year. Organizations in the creative industries are also generally susceptible to cultural changes and carefully scrutinize their competitors’ successes and failures in order not to be left behind.

This routinized innovative capability should however not be confused with an ability to be equally agile and responsive to other types of external change, such as those related to new technologies or new regulations. Organizations in the creative industries have frequently exhibited an astonishing inability to respond to radical transformations of their business environments. This book is the first volume in a book series that explores this conundrum and focuses on business innovation and disruption in the creative industries. The book series will present the works of leading scholars and present empirical evidence and theoretically informed insights into how organizations in the creative industries cope with external change and how they themselves generate disruptive business innovations.

The use of the term creative industries has increased during the last decades, but the term still suffers from having ambiguous definitions and varying recognition throughout the world. Before the term creative industries became commonly used, a number of other terms have been used to represent similar phenomena. One such term is cultural industries, which is usually traced back to the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory and its most recognized scholars Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. Horkheimer and Adorno (e.g. 1944) take a very critical stance towards these industries. They argue that the culture industry is the result of a process where the development of new media and communication technologies leads to the industrial production and consumption of cultural commodities such as music, books, films, etc. The industrialization of these processes results in formulaic products that reduce the audience to a child-like state (e.g. Adorno, 1941; Horkheimer & Adorno, 1944; Negus, 1996; Hesmondhalgh, 2002).

During the 1970s, French scholars (e.g. Miège, 1979) and policy makers (e.g. Girard, 1981) significantly changed the meaning and use of the term. They changed its form from singular to plural (cultural industries) and they rejected the Frankfurt School’ s exclusively pessimistic use of the term. Instead they argued that the commodification of culture had its positive sides – that it enabled innovation and allowed ordinary people access to culture that previously had been out of their reach (e.g. Towse, 2001).

Other terms that deserve to be mentioned in this context are the media and the copyright industries. Ferguson (2006) and Picard (2010) both give the term media industries a meaning that is analogous to cultural industries and include industries such as newspaper, magazine, radio, television, book, film, videogame, music and advertising in the definition (Ferguson, 2006; Picard, 2010). The term copyright industries has often been preferred by institutions such as the OECD (2005) and several US based institutions such as the Congress (CBO, 2004). The definitions of these terms are more or less identical to earlier definitions of cultural industries. The abandoning of the prefix cultural in favor of the term copyright or media primarily marks a distancing from the Marxist heritage that is still associated with cultural industries. The copyright and media industry terminology also emphasizes different aspects of these industries – either an emphasis on the media technology in question or an emphasis that the economic value of the content traded is based on a copyright legislation.

The term creative industries, which has been chosen for this book series, is usually given a broader definition than the aforementioned classificatory terms and include industries or activities such as Architecture, Design, Fashion, Performing arts, Crafts, and sometimes even Tourism, Sport and Restaurants. Starting during the late 1990s, the term has become increasingly recognized by policy makers in Australia and in the European Union (Caves, 2000; Howkins, 2001; Hartley, 2005). Hartley states:

The 'creative industries' idea brought creativity from the back door of government, where it had sat for decades holding out the tin cup for arts subsidy [...] to the front door, where it was introduced to the wealth-creating portfolios, the emergent industry departments, and the enterprise support programs.

Hartley 2005: 19

So why have we decided to use creative industries in this book series rather than any one of the other terms? We have made this decision because we believe there is a growing consensus among scholars with a primary interest in business aspects of organized cultural production and practitioners to use the term creative industries rather than the other classificatory terms previously discussed. For instance, Google Books have more recent (published since 2005) books listed on creative industries (1,950 titles) than on cultural industries (1,280 titles). We can also note that universities around the world are establishing undergraduate and graduate programs on creative industries and that search engines (Bing, Google and Yahoo!) report between seven and ten times as many hits on creative industries than on cultural industries. These observations point in the same direction, namely that creative industries is becoming the term of choice to denote the industries that are examined by this book series.

A Turbulent Period

The creative industries are currently experiencing a unique period, characterized by radical technological transformation. Well-established industry logics, power structures, and networks for value creation are disrupted, creating challenges for incumbent firms and opportunities for new entrants and start-ups. This turbulent situation is also a unique opportunity for studying organizational reactions to environmental change and strategy-making in volatile environments as well as the management of innovations and new technologies. A number of studies have already been made within the media industry context that contribute to theory development with relevance beyond the media industry’ s boundaries (e.g. Ellonen, Wikström, & Jantunen, 2009; DeFillippi, 2009). This book series shares those ambitions and the knowledge presented by the papers will not only have managerial or industry-specific implications but will also be able to make theoretical contributions with implications beyond the creative industries and organizations represented in each empirical study.

This series is dedicated to understanding how disruptive innovations are reshaping industry boundaries and challenging conventional business models and business practices of organizations within a wide range of industries and institutional sectors worldwide. The technology of the Internet, social forces driven by social media, globalization shifts in market demand and innovation supply capabilities, the development of new portable digital devices with greater capabilities and smaller size, and the decreasing costs of new information technology are all coming together in creating a tsunami that is changing the way we live and work.

The aspiration of this book series is to understand some of the common forces behind the disruptions occurring in so many creative industries today and identifying the most promising disruption focused strategies and responses by organizations to create new value propositions, business models and business practices that can enable these industry participants to cope with and eventually thrive as their industries and sectors are transformed.

Disruption as commonly understood refers to a transformation in an industry or sector often linked to technology-based innovation in products, services and/or business models for creating value. These disruptive innovations typically create business threats and opportunities not nominally predictable from past historical experience and thus require incumbent participants to engage in strategic behavior and organizational practices that represent some degree of departure from past successful and familiar strategies and practices. The academic study of disruption has roots in the academic research and theory of disruption promulgated by Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen but the notion of disruption has attracted a wider community of both scholars and practitioners who have recognized the emergence of disruptive phenomena in a widening range of industries and institutional sectors.

One gap that this book series seeks to fill is that between the academic study of disruption by innovation scholars largely based in business school settings and disruption studies by scholarly experts from non business school disciplines that study creative industries, including the broader social sciences (e.g. sociology, political science, economic geography) and creative industry based disciplines (e.g. architecture, communications, design, film making, journalism, media studies, performing arts, photography and television).

The book series takes an eclectic theoretic orientation towards disruption and entertain a plurality of perspectives on public or private policy prescriptions for coping with disruptive change in the industries or organizations under examination in any given volume. The book series also takes an eclectic orientation towards the types of disruption-focused strategies, processes and practices being undertaken by organizations and industries and does not assume that there is a one-size-fits all solution to the challenges of industry disruption. Each industry and different organizations within the same industry may find different paths to successfully coping with the challenges of disruptive innovation and change and the aspiration of this book series is to identify a wide range of promising disruption based practices that are being successfully executed.

Contributions to the book series range from theoretical treatments of specific disruptive innovation phenomena to empirical studies of such disruptions. Empirical studies may range from quantitative surveys to case studies of examples of industry disruption and/or organizational disruption management and organizational response. We are also amenable to simulation models of disruption that are based on realistic assumptions and can clearly impact theory and practice. This series is less inclined to publish purely rhetorical arguments for or against disruptive innovation and how industries are coping. However, the authors of either theoretical or empirical chapters are encouraged to take some normative view or interpretation of the meaning or significance of their theoretic or empirical findings for both public policies and private responses to the challenges of disruption.

Introduction to Mediaxxi

Founded in 2003, Mediaxxi (www.mediaxxi.com) is an internationally focused publisher based in Portugal with offices in Brazil and representatives in the USA, Angola, Spain and multiple other locales in Europe. Spanning the business management and the media and creative industries worlds, Mediaxxi is uniquely positioned to serve the needs and interests of both scholars and practitioners that are the target audience of content contributors and consumers of this book series. We are deeply appreciative of the support of Paulo Faustino, the founder of Mediaxxi and a fellow creative industry scholar for his publishing support and scholarly contributions to our book series and the communities we aspire to serve.

Introduction to our Editorial Advisory Board

We are privileged to have the intellectual guidance and support of a distinguished board of scholars who collectively span the two worlds of business innovation and creative industry studies that we are bridging in this book series. We use this occasion to briefly introduce our advisory board, who has proven instrumental in guiding our initial search for chapter authors, in reviewing draft chapters and providing critical feedback to our chapter contributors, and in disseminating word of our book series to their various communities of scholarly practitioners.

John Bessant

Originally a chemical engineer, Professor John Bessant has been active in research, teaching and consultancy in technology and innovation management for over 25 years. He currently holds the Chair in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Exeter University where he is also Research Director. In 2003, he was awarded a Fellowship with the Advanced Institute for Management Research and was also elected a Fellow of the British Academy of Management. He served on the Business and Management Panel of both the 2001 and 2008 Research Assessment Exercises. He has acted as advisor to various national governments and to international bodies including the United Nations, The World Bank and the OECD. Professor Bessant is the author of over 20 books and monographs and many articles on the topic and has lectured and consulted widely around the world. His most recent books include Managing innovation (now in its 4th edition) and High involvement innovation (both published by John Wiley and Sons).

Kim Jai-Beom

Kim Jai-Beom is a full Professor in the School of Business, Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea. He has also served as a Research Fellow, in the Department of Strategy and International Business and the Multimedia Research Group at City University Business School, London. He holds a Ph.D. from Manchester Business School and Bachelors and MBA degrees from Seoul National University. Professor Jai-Beom has applied his international and global technology expertise to understanding how digital technology and digital story telling is transforming design and cultural industry practices in the emerging economies of Asia and in knowledge-based economies more generally. Prior to his academic career, he was Chief of the Overseas Strategic Planning Department at Samsung.

Sam Mishra

Sam Mishra is currently a software executive in Silicon Valley. Sam’ s first published book was Strategic Case Analysis – Business Concepts, Strategy Frameworks, and Solved Business Cases as Socratic Dialogues and he is currently writing his second book, tentatively titled Strategic Technology Analysis. Sam has 20 years of experience in software engineering, new product development, product management, product marketing, marketing strategy, technology strategy, and new technology ventures. Apart from starting two Delaware based firms and building new Internet based SaaS (software as a service) products at multiple Silicon Valley start-ups, Sam has worked with numerous Fortune 500 companies. Sam earned his MBA from MIT Sloan School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA and his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from India’ s topmost technology institute, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).

Howard Rasheed

Dr. Howard Rasheed is Founder of the Institute for Innovation, and CEO of Idea Accelerator Technologies. He is co-inventor of Idea Accelerator™, a group intelligence methodology and web-based software application for ideation and brainstorming. Howard Rasheed is also Associate Professor of Business at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and holds a Ph.D. from The Florida State University in Strategic, International, & Entrepreneurial Management. Dr. Rasheed has written over 25 academic publications in the areas of Innovation, E-commerce, Business Strategy, and Entrepreneurship. Dr. Rasheed has also lectured and consulted around the world on collaborative innovation, entrepreneurship, and strategic visioning. His most recent book is Innovation Strategy: Seven Keys to Creative Leadership and a Sustainable Business Model.

Alison Rieple

Alison is Professor of Strategic Management at University of Westminster. For nine years Alison was Director of Research at Harrow Business School and she is currently chair of the Marketing and Business Strategy Department. Her research interests lie mainly in the management of strategy within the creative industries such as music and design, the structuring of innovation and change, and the institutionalization of corporate social responsibility, particularly in the fashion industry. Alison holds an MBA and PhD from Cranfield University, UK. She is the co-author of Strategic management: theory and application (with Adrian Haberberg), published by Oxford University Press.

Steven Wildman

Steven is the James H. Quello Professor of Telecommunication Studies and Director of the James H. and Mary B. Quello Center for Telecommunication Management & Law at Michigan State University. Dr. Wildman holds a PhD in economics from Stanford University and a BA in economics from Wabash College. He is well-known for his research and publications on economics and policy for communication industries, including the broadcasting, cable television, and recording industries. In addition to numerous articles and book chapters, Dr. Wildman is an author or editor for the following books: International Trade in Films and Television Programs (Ballinger, 1988); Electronic Services Networks: A Business and Public Policy Challenge (Praeger, 1991); Video Economics (Harvard University Press, 1992); Making Universal Service Policy: Enhancing the Process Through Multidisciplinary Evaluation (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1999); and Rethinking Rights and Regulations: Institutional Responses to New Communications Technologies (MIT Press, 2003).

Zvezdan Vukanovic

Zvezdan is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of International Economics, Finance and Business and Faculty of Information Systems and Technology – UDG (University of Donja Gorica) Montenegro. His main field of expertise includes: Macro and micro economic aspects of media industry and corporate management, marketing and PR, Economics and Management of New and Digital Media, Media and ICT technologies, Digital Economy, Broadband Economy, Experience and Attention Economy, Long Tail Economics, Information Economics. Vukanovic is an active member of the EMMA – The European Media Management Association and also is a member of the 10th World Media Economics and Management Conference Scientific Committee, Thessaloniki, Greece. In addition to his academic background and career, Vukanovic holds the position of senior advisor in media at the Public Relations Bureau, Government of Montenegro.

Biographic Briefs of the Book Series Co-Editors and Publisher

We conclude with biographic briefs of ourselves. Patrik and I first met at the 2009 EURAM (European Academy of Management) conference. That same conference is where Robert DeFillippi first met Paulo Faustino, a media industry scholar whose company Mediaxxi publishes this book series. We are all thankful for the collaborative opportunity that arose from our EURAM first contacts.

Robert DeFillippi

Robert DeFillippi is Professor and Chair of Strategy and International Business and Director of the Center for Innovation and Change Leadership at the Sawyer Business School, Suffolk University. Dr. DeFillippi is an international scholar in innovation and he has held visiting scholar appointments at Cass Business School (London), the Center for Research in Innovation Management at University of Brighton and Sussex University as an ESRC visiting Fellow and AIM International Fellow. Dr. DeFillippi has also held an Erasmus Mundus visiting professorship at Polytechnico di Milano and a Distinguished Professorship at University of Hull Business School. Dr. DeFillippi received his MA, M. Phil. and Ph.D. from Yale University in Organization Studies.

His research, teaching and consulting practice focuses on creative collaborations and knowledge-based and project-based perspectives on innovation. He is the author of over thirty five scholarly journal publications and eight scholarly books and numerous book chapters and conference papers. He is currently Consulting Editor for the International Journal of Management Reviews, the official journal of the British Academy of Management and also serves on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Media Business Studies and the Organization Management journal. He has previously served on the editorial boards for Management Learning and the Journal of Organizational Behavior and was Associate Editor for the International Journal of Management Reviews.

Patrik Wikström

Patrik Wikström is Associate Professor of Music Industry at Northeastern University (Boston, Ma). Dr. Wikström’ s research is focused on innovation and learning in media organizations. He has done research on organizations in the music, television, and publishing industries. He is the author of ‘The Music Industry: Music in the Cloud’ at Polity Press and has published his research in journals such as Technovation, International Journal of Media Management, Journal of Media Business Studies, Journal of Music Business Studies and Popular Music & Society.

Dr. Wikström has served as a faculty member at Karlstad University (Sweden), Jönköping International Business School (Sweden) and the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) and he has been a visiting scholar at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and Queensland University of Technology (Australia). Dr. Wikström received his Ph.D. from Karlstad University in Media and Communication Studies and he is a graduate from Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden) where he received a master’ s degree from the School of Technology Management and Economics. Before his academic career, Dr. Wikström worked in the European media and Telecom industry where he held positions as business development manager and strategy consultant.

Works Cited

ADORNO, T. (1941). Popular Music Studies in Philosophy and Social Sciences 9(1): 17-48.

CAVES, R.E. (2000). Creative Industries: Contracts Between Art and Commerce. Cambridge, USA: Harvard University Press.

CBO (2004). A CBO Paper – Copyright Issues in the Digital Media. The Congress of the United States - Congressional Budget Office. August 2004.

DeFILLIPI, R. (2009) Dilemmas of Project-Based Media Work: Contexts and Choices. Journal of Media Business Studies, 6, (4) (Winter 2009): 5-30.

ELLONEN, H.-K., WIKSTRÖM, P., & JANTUNEN, A. (2009). Linking dynamic-capability portfolios and innovation outcomes. Technovation, 29(11), 753-762.

FERGUSON, D.A. (2006). Industry-Specific Management Issues in Albarran, A.B., Chan-Olmsted, S.M., & Wirth, M.O. (eds.). Handbook of Media Management and Economics (pp: 573-600). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.

GIRARD, A. (1981). A Commentary: Policy and the arts - the forgotten cultural industries. Journal of Cultural Economics, 5(1): 61-68.

HARTLEY, J. (ed.) (2005). Creative Industries. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

HESMONDHALGH, D. (2002). The Cultural Industries. London: Sage Publications.

HORKHEIMER, M., & ADORNO, T. (1944). Dialektik der Aufklärung – Philosophische Fragmente. Published in English as (1972). Dialectic of Enlightenment. New York: Seabury.

HOWKINS, J. (2001). The Creative Economy. How People make money from ideas. London: Allen Lane.

MIÈGE, B. (1979). The cultural commodity. Media, Culture and Society 1: 297-311.

NEGUS, K. (1996). Popular Music Theory. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

OECD (2005b). Working Party on the Information Economy, Digital Broadband Content: Music. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry. Committee for Information, Computer and Communications Policy. 8 June 2005. DSTI/ICCP/IE(2004)12/Final.

PICARD, R. G. (2010). The Economics and Financing of Media Companies (2nd ed). New York: Fordham University Press.

TOWSE, R. (2001). Creativity, Incentive and Reward: An Economic Analysis of Copyright and Culture in the Information Age. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

INTRODUCTION

Robert DeFillippi and Patrik Wikström

This is the first volume in a book series examining how organizations in the creative industries (see preface for extensive discussion of creative industries) respond to disruptive change and how they themselves generate business innovations. The papers included in the volume examine the processes of disruption and transformation due to the technology of the Internet, social forces driven by social media, the development of new portable digital devices with greater capabilities and smaller size, the decreasing costs of new information, and the creation of new business models and forms of intellectual property ownership rights for a digitized industry. The context for the volume is the publishing industries, understood as the industries for the publishing of fiction and non-fiction books, academic literature, consumer as well as trade magazines, and daily newspapers. These industry sectors share a number of relevant characters but have also been affected and have responded very differently to digital technology. Magazines and newspapers were one of the first media industries to be affected by digital technologies and have during the last two decades experienced both hope and despair in their ability to cope with disruptive innovation and transformation (e.g. Boczkowski, 2005). Organizations in these industry sectors have experimented vigorously with their business models to take advantage of the Internet without losing all their revenues from advertisers, subscribers and single-copy sales to online competitors.

The book industry on the other hand has been relatively unaffected by digital technologies until a few years ago. In addition, there are considerable differences between sectors within the book publishing industry. The sector for academic publishing has developed new business models for both content production and distribution that have had fundamental consequences for academic writers, publishers and university libraries (Thompson, 2005). The trade press, i.e. fiction and non-fiction books sold via online and offline bookstores have fared very differently compared to the academic publishing sector. So far, the transformation has been focused on the distribution phase of the value chain as technology companies such as Amazon, Apple and Google try to impose new pricing models, licensing schemes and technical formats onto reluctant publishers (Thompson, 2010). In addition, as more and more literature (audiobooks as well as e-books) becomes digitized, this part of the industry is increasingly affected by online piracy. All in all, the book publishing industry is in the midst of a very difficult transformation process, very similar to what the music industry experienced during the first decade of this millennium (Wikström, 2009). The papers included in this volume will focus on these and other topics and will provide knowledge with considerable relevance for managers operating in all sectors of the publishing industries.

The papers primarily apply theoretical lenses related to the resource based view (e.g. Barney, 1991) and evolutionary economic theory (e.g. Nelson & Winter, 1982). From this shared theoretical platform, the different papers draw from literatures such as business model dynamics (e.g. Chesbrough, 2007), disruptive technologies (e.g. Christensen, 1997), and media economics (e.g. Boczkowski, 2005; Picard, 2010). The data has been generated from publishing markets in Eastern Europe, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Portugal, Russia, and the United States, using different methodological frameworks including, but not limited to, surveys, in-depth interviews and multiple-case studies. All in all, this volume represents one of the most ambitious initiatives on this pertinent topic and it is well positioned to make a significant contribution to the current understanding of business innovation and disruption in the publishing industries. The sections below briefly introduce the papers in the volume.

Book Industry Management, Marketing and Business Models Trends

Paulo Faustino

Faustino provides a comprehensive and sophisticated overview of the evolution of the book publishing industry based on his research as a media industry scholar and book publisher (the company he founded Mediaxxi is publishing this volume). The chapter provides a global industry overview that anticipates every theme detailed in subsequent chapters that apply these themes to specific country contexts. These themes include technology trends in digital publishing, the proliferation of new business models and revenue model options for electronic publishing, the transformation of the industry value chain, and emerging strategies by publishers for coping with the digital revolution and its transformation of their industry.

The chapter opens with a nuanced and insightful history of the industry that focuses on the question: Does the book business have a future? Faustino retells the ubiquitous joke that the second book made in Gutenberg’ s press was about the death of the publishing business. However, this overview is more optimistic about the future of both the publishing business and the book offerings that have historically defined the industry. While noting the many challenges to book publication, the chapter remains relentlessly optimistic about the continuing role of books and the book publishing industry for the foreseeable future.

The core of the chapter focuses on how the digital revolution is transforming the core business model and value chain of the book publishing industry and how these transformations are impacting book publishers’ strategies for managing their enterprise and marketing their offerings. One new disruption is the need for traditional publishing companies to develop productive partnerships with technology-based companies, such as Apple, who are providing new technology platforms for both creating and distributing digital books and book applications worldwide. Another disruption is to the traditional bifurcation in the industry between publishers who focus on best-seller big market hits (the domain of the traditional major publishing houses) and those small and medium sized publishers who focus on niche offerings. Due to digital technology, both sets of publishers may be able to take