The future of publishing

What are the issues for today's editors?

Emmanuel Benoît: Editors are confronted with two main challenges:
i. to be visible on all distribution channels, especially on the internet e.g.: search engines, on-line bookshops, specialised portals)
ii. to develop sales; obtain the most from new economic models based on electronic publishing. This requires being able to deliver the content in the right format for the right channel.

How can editors set up their distribution? Setting-up single and multi-channel distribution strategies

Emmanuel Benoît: Electronic publishing and the appearance of actors such as Amazon or Google has revolutionised the distribution network. The arrival of new products, such as e-books and new services such as publishing on-demand, means that the editors’ task is now more complex. Traditional organisational methods centred around paper (or collection) are now questioned and compared with new management strategies geared towards content management and separate format distribution (e.g.: paper via POD, e-book or consultable on the internet) or a collection of components, accessible via a search interface to constitute on-demand guides.

This content is enhanced with multimedia components to obtain its full potential.

How to meet these challenges?

Emmanuel Benoît: The arrival of DAD (Digital Asset Distribution) and DAM (Digital Asset Management) helps in the construction of the distribution system. Centred on distribution and stocking, these solutions do not, however, address all the editors’ requirements. Built on real customer requirements with a unique marketing approach, they underestimate what is required for the “production backend”.

Not only is the post-production content conversion industrialised, but editors are also able to optimise their pre-production processes by adopting an editorial XML workflow in their production cycle. This creates the metadata required for indexing and content format creation.

There are many constraints, including volume priority, quality requirements and processing times. It is therefore necessary to answer this challenge with an industrial solution.

What are Jouve’s technological solutions?

Emmanuel Benoît: Jouve understood very early that the future requires innovation. Many man-years have been invested in an industrial production system capable of combining automation and human validation.

In order to guarantee the quality of the deliverables, only clear-cut decisions are made automatically.

Otherwise, the workflow system triggers a mode requiring human validation. By employing this multi-site industrial platform Jouve can offer a range of different services. e.g.:
- Conversion to e-Book
- XML formats (e-pub, Mobi, Bbeb, .lit …)
- On-line PDF or POD.

This process is applied to existing content or post-production, including XML conversion of text. Also, automatic “e-typesetting” can be employed for content display, and can be adapted to the required distribution channel (e-Book, for example).

Finally, the enhancement of meta-data may be required. The metadata can be enhanced by the semantic or linguistic analysis of the content (e.g.: identification of named entities, keyword extraction, terminologies, sorting, clustering). These granular products or XML content can be indexed by rich meta-data and then be distributed via different channels. It can also be stocked in databases that are accessed by search engines, sent to Print-On-Demand (POD) or other services.

Which applications does Jouve deploy?

Emmanuel Benoît: Jouve has projects in Europe and in the Unites States (due in part to the acquisition of Publishing Dimension). Our e-Book production workflows are capable of processing large volumes.

The first meta-data enhancement projects and pre-production editorial processes are being developed.

What are the perspectives opened by Web 2.0?

Emmanuel Benoît: The first initiatives in the United States have been a great success. For example, it is possible to personalise a book on demand, by inserting a photo or a dedication, or to create your own unique copy by choosing your own chapters and articles.

Custom publishing is particularly useful for tourist or cooking guides. It requires the combination of content from editors with information created by Internet users and submitted via social networks (travel photos or videos, for example).