Comments on: My Repository is Bigger Than Yours:A Response to Book Widgets and Book Selling 2.0 https://blog.oup.com/2007/04/my_repository_is_bigger_than_yours_a_response_to_book_widgets_and_book_selling_20/ Academic insights for the thinking world. Tue, 23 Jan 2018 04:03:07 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.9 By: Longtail Wars : OUPblog https://blog.oup.com/2007/04/my_repository_is_bigger_than_yours_a_response_to_book_widgets_and_book_selling_20/#comment-54166 Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:02:58 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/2007/04/my_repository_is_bigger_than_yours_a_response_to_book_widgets_and_book_selling_20/#comment-54166 […] access on thousands of sites globally without any human intervention. These repositories (yes, Brian Murray, I have changed my tune – you were right) will allow publishers large and small to optimize their […]

]]>
By: Evan Schnittman https://blog.oup.com/2007/04/my_repository_is_bigger_than_yours_a_response_to_book_widgets_and_book_selling_20/#comment-2911 Mon, 30 Apr 2007 20:28:28 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/2007/04/my_repository_is_bigger_than_yours_a_response_to_book_widgets_and_book_selling_20/#comment-2911 Brian – Yes, I think you have fairly described my main issue with the “repository play” as return on investment, and yes, your supposition that if it were free I’d have a different perspective. That said, Corey will be over shortly with all of our book files to take you up on your very generous offer!

In all seriousness, your comments made me think a bit harder about what my gut hesitation is regarding this strategy. There are two things I consistently struggle with when considering how to disseminate our content – return on investment and vision. The former is, as you say, a non-issue if I agree that publishers should manage their own digital content in the same manner that they do in the physical world. The latter is everything that differentiates digital from print.

As I see it, digital content distribution frees us from the yoke of print – it gives us an endless series of models and forms to distribute our content on the efforts of others – other industries, other partners, even other publishers – and doesn’t force us to create large scale infrastructures. Managing partnerships and pricing policies will determine our success, not warehouses and repositories. Therefore, I don’t believe we need to own distribution of digital content, we must simply control it.

One stop solutions such as repositories do indeed help address many, many issues that publishers struggle with including the ability to get content out to those who would market it. However, I maintain that the investment to do so in a world of unproven digital sales models is a risk that only a few can take. We need industry solutions (like what your company has created) but I think this technology (which may change several times) will be better if created and managed by technology solution providers, not by publishers who may lack experience, know-how, and perhaps, perspective.

]]>
By: Brian Murray https://blog.oup.com/2007/04/my_repository_is_bigger_than_yours_a_response_to_book_widgets_and_book_selling_20/#comment-2703 Sat, 28 Apr 2007 16:48:44 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/2007/04/my_repository_is_bigger_than_yours_a_response_to_book_widgets_and_book_selling_20/#comment-2703 Evan – Good piece but I’m sure you won’t be surprised to know that I agree with Corey. Newspapers, magazines, TV and film companies seem to be developing similar digital strategies which include digitizing, owning and controling their intellectual property. In my view there is a very straight-forward strategic reason for book publishers to mange their own digital content for the widest possible distribution to reach consumers on-line. After all, this is what we do in the physical world and I don’t see why publishers would not make the appropriate but reasonable investments to do it in the emerging digital world. If you agree with this premise, then the primary question is when to do it – not how much it will cost.

However, given that your main argument is cost, I wonder if your view on repositories would change if you could build your own OUP digital repository for free? What if improvments to and savings from your editorial and production process could fund your digital repository for all new books? The question for publishers might be to determine if a more efficient digital editorial and production process can fund their digital repository resulting in no incremental costs and tremendous strategic value. A question worth exploring.

Alternatively, is there some cost you would be willing to pay to better control your digital future? What is the value of having an OUP digital publishing or reading platform like Browse Inside for the digital consumer?

I agree it is free and easy to let the beheomoths do their thing and not invest in digital capabilities as a publisher. But in my view, this doesn’t lead the publishing industry forward.

]]>
By: Evan Schnittman https://blog.oup.com/2007/04/my_repository_is_bigger_than_yours_a_response_to_book_widgets_and_book_selling_20/#comment-2536 Thu, 26 Apr 2007 10:27:43 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/2007/04/my_repository_is_bigger_than_yours_a_response_to_book_widgets_and_book_selling_20/#comment-2536 Thanks for the kind words. I think you have caught a problem with the piece in that I use the “behemoths” as my only examples and leave out smaller, but important players. That said there is one major difference to what the behemoths are doing in comparison to the smaller players in that they are footing the cost and managing the process of digitization and conversion themselves. While this may not be as important for behemoth publishers, it will mean the difference between being digital and not for smaller houses.

]]>
By: Mike Shatzkin https://blog.oup.com/2007/04/my_repository_is_bigger_than_yours_a_response_to_book_widgets_and_book_selling_20/#comment-2503 Thu, 26 Apr 2007 02:54:50 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/2007/04/my_repository_is_bigger_than_yours_a_response_to_book_widgets_and_book_selling_20/#comment-2503 This is an extraordinarily smart and provocative piece that strongly resists the tide of current thinking. So on that level alone, I congratulate you for it.

Let’s start with the first question that comes to mind. If all marketing will happen online, can a publisher afford to limit the distribution of their content to access capabilities offered by Microsoft, Amazon, and Google? How about what netLibrary can give you? or what PalmReader can give you? Or what Lightning Source can give you? Can you really dodge the whole problem of Digital Asset Distribution by handing off to the behemoths?

]]>
http://blog.oup.com/2007/04/my_repository_is_bigger_than_yours_a_response_to_book_widgets_and_book_selling_20/feed/
blog.oup.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2018-05
14462
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:UZBEZXIHQUQG43RUZ5XYIPHCARNLIBQL
<urn:uuid:a9961397-150b-4ac7-a514-41b664e20e78>
2018-01-23T23:16:07Z
35.187.43.170
application/rss+xml
sha1:5OMMUTSLP4UR7KTAKDON4RTREB52OHD6
<urn:uuid:78e071d1-23c8-4fb4-96df-390023cc2613>
http://blog.oup.com/2007/04/my_repository_is_bigger_than_yours_a_response_to_book_widgets_and_book_selling_20/feed/
response
<urn:uuid:446027fb-d185-4ab8-808e-7dd73470c452>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-239-184-55.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2018-05
operator: Common Crawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for January 2018
publisher: Common Crawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf