A step change in form, culture, approach

Sara Lloyd’s 2008 call to arms for the publishing industry, A Book Publisher’s Manifesto for the Twenty-first Century,¹ resonates for public libraries.  What might the takeaways be in the closing paragraph alone?

Whichever way it goes, in order for publishers to break their traditional boundaries and to develop into the publishing companies of tomorrow, a step change in their form, culture, and approach will be required. Digital publishing strategies will need to move from defensive or protective to creative and liberal, with an emphasis on enabling readers to share and to change what they read. A move away from text-centricity and toward multimedia will no doubt be key, and this has repercussions for the kinds of rights that publishers will need to negotiate as well as for the skills they will require of their staff. Publishers will need to view themselves as shapers and enablers rather than producers and distributors, to take a project rather than a product approach and to embrace their position as merely a component element in a reader, writer, publisher circularity. They will need to embrace new business models and they may even need to become media companies rather than publishing companies. They will need to understand and know and connect with their readers far, far better, and they will need to develop brands that hold the highest kudos for authors and imply brand values to consumers that appeal to readers around identifiable niches. Ultimately they may need to ready themselves sooner rather than later for a fight to the death not only with their current partners in the distribution chain but also with nontraditional competitors who are rapidly devouring the space that has traditionally been reserved for them.

¹Sara Lloyd. 2008. A Book Publisher’s Manifesto for the Twenty-first Century: How Traditional Publishers Can Position Themselves in the Changing Media Flows of a Networked Era. Library Trends. 57 (1) Summer, pp. 30-42.