Transition to Digital -- A Brief BIGNY Dialogue with Elsevier's Cynthia Clark

Cynthia Clark

We recently asked Cynthia Clark, Director of Digital Operations and Production at Elsevier, a few questions in advance of her appearance during the Book Industry Guild of New York's (BIGNY) Tuesday, March 8th panel discussion. The topic: "Publishing Technology Update: New Digital Directions."

BIGNY: Can you give some examples of re-purposing content in order to monetize it?

Clark: Enriching articles with semantic tagging allows for the collection of articles into discrete topic-based groupings that can cut across journals. These collections can be monetized as a separate digital subscription product. Or they can enrich the value of an existing journal.

BIGNY: How has data from your digital products affected new book or product creation?

Clark: We have seen the opportunity to pull together various products and integrate those to enrich the researcher’s experience: providing an interactive panel for each article that incorporates this information and provides related article and book content, citation information, grant and funding information, etc.

BIGNY: How has the digital workflow changed people’s jobs? (For example, do designers have to code? Do teams work more closely?)

Clark: There is greater collaboration among different product groups so those services can be leveraged to create new products or enhance existing ones. For example, we have over the past few years brought in experts in informatics and taxonomies to ensure that our proprietary taxonomy continues to grow and evolve to keep pace with changes in science, technology and medicine. And because we have included this semantic tagging across our platforms, we naturally see more cooperation and creative problem solving.

Visit the BIGNY website for more information and tickets for the March 8th "Publishing Technology Update: New Digital Directions" event.

Transition to Digital -- A Brief BIGNY Dialogue with W.W. Norton's Sue Carlson

Sue Carlson

We recently asked Sue Carlson, Vice President and Director of Production and Design at W.W. Norton, a few questions in advance of her appearance during the Book Industry Guild of New York's (BIGNY) Tuesday, March 8th panel discussion. The topic: "Publishing Technology Update: New Digital Directions."

BIGNY: Why did Norton create their own eReader?

Carlson: There were many compelling reasons to develop our own reader, chiefly though, the ability to control the student experience as well as integration with our other digital products, campus LMSs [Learning Management Systems] and e-commerce integration. 

BIGNY: Can you give some examples of re-purposing content in order to monetize it?

Carlson:  For poetry or fiction compendiums, we repurpose the individual ebook files into a larger ebook. For our college ebooks, we build the content so that both our distribution methods can take advantage of the formatting in ways that suit the particular channel. So for example, some features will work on one reading application, but have fallbacks that will not break the other device’s reading experience. 

BIGNY: How has data from your digital products affected new book or product creation?

Carlson: Sales data for both trade and college has always guided our decision-making for mining our backlist. Certain disciplines in college are highly dependent on an e-edition, others, not so much. Also, feedback on user experience from our college sales staff informs which features to focus on or develop.

BIGNY: How has the digital workflow changed people’s jobs? (For example, do designers have to code? Do teams work more closely?)

Carlson: I can’t think of a single person’s job in production that hasn’t been affected. Production managers and art directors have to think about how design will affect the ebook. Will the thumbnail be readable on a web page? Certain colors and typefaces read better. Interior designers need to think about charts and tables, double-page spreads, notes, etc. For college, interior design thinks about modifications from print to e, and that has started to drive at least some of the design decisions. Designers also keep accessibility needs in mind and steer clear of certain colors and make sure there’s enough contrast. College production managers are now not only producing the print products, but many of the digital products as well. New editorial teams have sprung up to perform quality assurance for digital products. Ebook teams, distribution staff, and ebook designers have been hired. Production has always been schedule-driven, but with so many dependencies, those schedules have to be aligned to an entire suite of products. We’ve always been a pretty tight-knit group, but I have to say that yes, there’s a good deal more collaboration now that the universe has gotten bigger.

Visit the BIGNY website for more information and tickets for the March 8th "Publishing Technology Update: New Digital Directions" event.

BIGNYDigital -- More About Sue Carlson

Sue Carlson

Here's a brief bio of Sue Carlson, one of the panelists at the Book Industry Guild of New York's (BIGNY) Tuesday, March 8th "Publishing Technology Update: New Digital Directions" event:

Following a career in music, Sue Carlson began a transition to the publishing world by working in graphic production, and joined W. W. Norton in 1999. Beginning as the Digital Production Manager, in a period of rapid industry developments in digital workflows, she has been part of Norton¹s evolution from a traditional print publisher to both print and digital. In 2013, she was appointed the Director of Digital Production and, a year later, promoted to Vice President and Director of Production and Design, overseeing Norton¹s trade and college production, design and photo permissions groups.

W. W. Norton, founded in 1923, is an independent and employee-owned company publishing 400 trade and educational titles a year. In 2015, Norton published its first enhanced, digital version of the Norton Anthology of English Literature, one of its signature books. In 2016, Norton will release its first-ever digital version of The Norton Shakespeare.

Transition to Digital: A Brief BIGNY Dialogue with Galvanized Brands' Daniel Cohen

Daniel Cohen

We recently asked magazine and content publisher pro Daniel Cohen a few questions in advance of his appearance during the Book Industry Guild of New York's (BIGNY) Tuesday, March 8th panel discussion. The topic: "Publishing Technology Update: New Digital Directions."

Daniel Cohen is a digital product, workflow, and editorial technology strategist and team leader. Currently Digital Strategist at Galvanized Brands, he has worked with over 40 magazines and content publishers on staff or as a consultant.

BIGNY: Can you give some examples of re-purposing content in order to monetize it?

Cohen: At Galvanized, spurred by the growth of our brands Zero Belly Diet and Eat This, Not That!, we used custom scripts to export and reformat book content for use in Zero Belly: 14-Day Plan, and Eat This, Not That! The Game apps. The apps feature a reimagining of the same content found in book and on web, with interactivity fitting with the subjects and voice. In Eat This, Not That! The Game, the player learns about food choices as they race the clock to select the more healthful food “swap”—playing off a main feature of the books. The Zero Belly: 14-Day Plan thoughtfully lays out recipes and fitness routines from the book and website, into a 14-day plan featuring meal and workout tracking. The apps drive additional revenue via paid downloads, in-app ad serving, and/or links driving traffic to websites.

BIGNY: How has data from your digital products affected new book or product creation?

Cohen: At Galvanized, one example comes from our use of engagement data from eatthis.com to inform ideas about new products, many of which are created in short order, to deliver to those trends. In 2015 we found high traffic on several of our posts about the role of tea in weight loss, and this led directly to the creation of The 7-Day Flat-Belly Tea Cleanse and The 17-Day Green Tea Diet ebooks.

BIGNY: How has the digital workflow changed people’s jobs? (For example, do designers have to code? Do teams work more closely?)

Cohen: At many organizations, Designers and Production staff from print have gotten directly involved in the creation process of digital products and have expanded their skills sets to include HTML, UI, UX, and Adobe tools for Digital Content publishing. All staff have found new and creative ways of streamlining existing processes in order to make room for the new product demands, including automation scripting and ongoing process improvement. Teams have also learned and incorporated new production paradigms geared towards “version”-oriented rollouts, such as agile development and task-based projects.

Visit the BIGNY website for more information and tickets for the March 8th "Publishing Technology Update: New Digital Directions" event.