#lessonsummaries

Digital Divides

This will be our final lesson summary, so we hope you all enjoy reading it!

This week's lesson summary is all about Digital Divides, and how digitalisation is not the same in all corners of the world.  Many people assume that digital models that work in the US and Europe can easily be applied to China, Latin America, and in other places in the developing world. This however, is not true, as many countries do not have the same digital capacity as others, which we will be looking at in a moment.

Digital Native Generation refers to people who were born in an era where they have access to digital technology, and it is widely used. These are people who were born in the mid 1990's and after, when the internet and other digital phenomenon's were just beginning to become an essential part of life. There are age barriers with technology as, people over a certain age are likely to find it difficult to use these technologies, as they were not born in this era.

Hemisphere Divides refers to a global divide which is often represented as Northern Hemisphere vs Southern Hemisphere. Industrialised Nations have access to extremely efficient internet services and plentiful human resources.  This means that companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, or Sony are assumed as reference-points in the media and at professional events all over the world.

Countries are faced with two different options:

      a) Financing the instillation of platforms designed in the North

      b) Investing according to their concrete needs, expectations and             potentialities. 

An example of a developing country which has faced the digital revolution is India. In 1998 0.1% of people had access to the internet in India, whereas now there are approximately 4.2% of internet users in India.

  Alternative Publishing

This week's summary is going to be on Alternative Publishing and the wider aspects of this term. 

In contrast to Legacy Publishing (the traditional format of publishing) Alternative Publishing can take the form of many different types of publication:

Self Publishing

Here, the author ultimately takes on the publication of their title themselves. The growth of digitization (digital technology) has encouraged the expansion of self publishing, although the cost of self publishing is never as low as you think. Authors choosing to self publish will incur costs for:

- ISBN number

- Copyright registration

- Cover design

- Copy editing (DO NOT be your own editor!)

- Cover photography

- Cost for a proof

It is estimated that to produce a half-decent publication as a self-publisher, it would cost you around $500. 

Businesses such as Smashwords and Lulu are often used by self publishers to help format manuscripts and word documents into eReader formats.  

Print-on-Demand

Print-on-demand publishing enables authors to produce physical books to sell in bookshops rather than through large warehouses that stock titles that sell through Amazon etc.

Digitization has lead authors to produce titles quickly and easily as many of the traditional processes are cut out (eg. collation process). Inventions such as the Espresso Machine are a good example of this as authors are able to produce their own title in a physical format quickly and easily. Many self-made publishers have also started up this way.

Vanity Publishing

Vanity publishing is essentially the opposite of traditional publishing.

As usual the author creates the title in manuscript form and sends this to the chosen publisher. The publisher then creates a formatted version of the manuscript and then sends it back to the author. It is then up to the author to distribute and sell the title.

This can be to the author’s advantage as well as their disadvantage depending on how fair the agreement is between author and publisher.

Why is Alternative Publishing a problem for publishers?

-       Lack of oversight

-       Changes the market predictably

-       Bad productions weaken the demand for books as a whole

Printing and Distribution

This week's lesson summary is going to be on Printing and Distribution within the publishing industry.

A prepress proof is sent to a Publisher for examination before the final proof in printed.  The elements involved in the prepress proofreading process is as follows:

typesetting - now done digitally

copy-editing - improves the document that is presented to them, for example any formatting issues

mark-up - how a text should look on a page.  This comes in the form of a 'language' for typesetters in a digital format.  Before digital, there was shorthand for this that typesetters would understand

proofing - accurate facsimile of work, for example colours

proofreading 

screening - screening and adjustment of images

imposition - (imposit proofing) collating all the pages so they are in one document

separation

manufacturing - of plates/PDF

paper selection

Paper

A publisher will check various elements when selecting paper for their document.

physical qualities - weight, bulk (thickness), grain (direction that the fibers lie in), finish (smoothness), formation, moisture (affects the weight of the paper so affects the price)

optical qualities - whiteness (reflectance of light), brightness (reflectance of blue light), shade, opacity (how far light shines through the paper)

The selection of paper is based on:

format

extent

use of colour

binding

Also consider

production costs

price

value for money

fir for purpose

Printing - Digital

SRDP - short run digital printing

Benefits - unit costs remain the same no matter how many copies you make.  This is good for small publishers as small print runs are the same price as large ones.

Weaknesses - this way of printing is less economic

POD - print on demand

Benefits - less wastage

Weaknesses - facilitates self-publishing which is not good for publishers.  This form of printing also diminishes the general quality level of the book.

Traditional Distribution

The most well-known distributors are:

Gardners

Bertrams

Booksource

The Book Service

Companies such as these usually offer:

Complete warehousing and distribution services

Invoice and credit management

Tailored contracts

On-line reports

Web ordering

Tale-ordering and EDI

Direct mail management

Digital Distribution

Digital distribution is the newest way of distributing books.  This requires storage space and format customisation.  

Strengths

rapid delivery

allows for total access

has zero wastage

can deliver directly to the customer

Weaknesses

costs to set up against valuation of an immaterial object

threat of piracy

Hi, and welcome to Pretty People Publishing! The main aim of our blog is to provide a platform for relevant publishing news and articles, and to grant you a sneak peek into the world of a publishing production student.

Each week we will be posting a lesson summary of the information we have learnt, giving you an insight into the production element within the publishing industry. This week, we focused on the topic of creating and running a blog, to enable us, as students, to share all our production wisdom in the most successful way!

A blog is a personal website which is a very useful tool to reach out and communicate with others, and to promote your thoughts and opinions, being constantly updated. Blogging has become a key instrument for publishers, as they use free sites to promote and advertise new releases, meaning a wider target audience can be reached. Blogs are a low-cost alternative to websites, and drive long-term results, allowing publishers to maintain marketing incentives.

However, blogs can fail if they are neglected, therefore it is important to keep to a tight schedule (something that we are planning on sticking to!).

To ensure proactive and successful blogging, we looked at Heidi Cohen's (the President of Riverside Marketing Strategies) '5 P's of Blogging'.

1. PLAN: Plan articles ahead as a group, not just as one single article.

2. PEN: Blogging is its own form of writing. Build blog specific types of writing, structure the post to attract both mobile and online readers, and develop attention grabbing titles.

3. PUBLISH: Be professional, add images, and maintain continuous style and posts.

4. PROMOTE: Let other bloggers know about your content.

5. PARTICIPATE: Be active within the blogging community, by interacting with readers and other blogs.

We hope you find this useful, either if you already have a personal blog, or if you are looking into starting one, and can see how blogging is a successful tool within the marketing strategies publishers use to promote new material within the industry today, if maintained successfully!