Digitalization Seen as Top Industry Challenge

From Publishers Weekly, 10/8/2007 7:50:00 AM

With the Frankfurt Book Fair starting later this week, show organizers have released results of a survey that asked publishing professionals worldwide their views on the biggest challenges and threats facing the industry as well as predictions on the future. More than half of the 1,324 respondents called digitalization the biggest challenge facing the industry, while competition from other media was picked as the major threat to the health of book publishing. The three other major industry threats were overpublishing, piracy and illiteracy.
Following the issues represented by digitalization, the survey found the other major industry challenges to be increased globalization, more user-generated content and the battle over territorial rights.

Respondents were generally upbeat about publishing’s long-term prospects, with only about 11% predicting that the book would be obsolete in 50 years. The gloomiest prediction was for the fate of High Street booksellers, with 23% predicting that the general bookstore would not exist in 50 years. (Although the survey received responses from 86 countries, 85% of the responses were from Europe, where bookstores, particularly in the U.K., are facing more problems than in the U.S.)

The top growth area was identified as e-books, followed by audiobooks (including digital downloads), translated editions and educational publishing.