The Xplanation

Introduction

In April, we published a report on Digital Textbook Sales in U.S. Higher Education, in which we outlined sales for e-textbooks over the next five years based on current trends and variables. This series — The Transformation of Textbook Publishing in the Digital Age — provides an in-depth look at textbook publishing in Higher Education, and offers a roadmap for evolution and profitability in the industry. In the first installment we discussed New Business Models. Specifically, we listed these four shifts that current textbook publishers should consider to remain competitive in their market niche.

• The Disaggregation of Content
• A Focus on Lifelong Learning
• Embracing Self-Publishing
• Partner with Open Content

In this installment we will address specific new product models that textbook publishers should adopt in order to keep pace in the digital age.

New Product Models

Ostensibly, the business of textbook publishing should be, well, textbooks. The reality, however, is that the future for current textbook publishers in the digital age will be about learning content in a more general context. While there will continue to be a demand for traditional textbook content, within ten years the actual textbook format will cease to be the primary product for these companies. It will be replaced by core discipline content libraries that are organized to provide new product types and to align more flexibly with evolving market needs, particularly in Higher Education and Career Colleges. These new product types will include the following:

• Content Libraries — As I’ve written before, textbooks as a product are a convenience and based on an outdated education model and impose an artificial structure — called a table of contents (TOC). As the needs of institutions, instructors, and individual learners continue to change, the textbook organization of content — units, chapters, and sub-chapters — will become increasingly irrelevant to market consumers. As a result, textbooks will cease to be the primary organizing structure of discipline content for publishers. They will be replaced by general discipline content libraries. These content libraries will be organized at a granular, key-concept level that can and will be mapped to institutional guidelines, training competencies, and certification exams. They will also be strategic in helping textbook publishers reduce overhead dramatically and respond nimbly to a much more fragmented market. This will translate to the elimination of multiple textbooks for a single discipline, a significant reduction in traditional royalty costs, and the streamlining of editorial and sales units.
• Subscription Products — The rise of discipline content libraries shared across many product types will also provide textbook publishers new options for content monetization. Chief among these is the ability to offer content subscription packages at the course, discipline, and degree levels. These subscription packages can be further segmented into content types that include assessment, learning guides, self-study, and alternative certification. Most important, by abandoning the textbook model for broader subscription packaging, textbook publishers will also be able to reach into the broader consumer market.
• Self-Publishing — As major textbook publishers rethink how they create, organize, and package content in the digital age, one of the key shifts they make will be towards self-published content. These companies already have the preliminary framework established for this business via their custom publishing arms. As they evolve their current self-publishing model, however, textbook publishers will need to establish marketplaces that provide wider marketing options for their partners. In the digital age, publishers will need to distribute their traditional revenue sharing (via author royalties) by developing broader and deeper content partner programs. This will result in lower overall editorial costs and generate increased content sales with less marketing effort.
• Apps — As do all publishers in the digital age, textbook publishers will need to divide their digital product models into cloud-based and app-based models. App-based product models are well-suited for mobile markets over the next five years, as well as for custom, media-enhanced, high-priced content. The cloud-based model should be used to deliver library subscription content and lower-cost products.
• Courses — Finally, the digital age will see a natural transition away from “books” and towards “courses.” Simply put, with a shift away from print there will no longer be a need to have two overlapping product types to support a single pedagogical function — the course. Institutions teach courses. Certification programs offer courses. Publishers risk irrelevance if they do not become aggressive manufacturers of these products (again, without the notion of textbooks).

Conclusion

These new products anticipate a more competitive landscape in Higher Education — the neat divisions between institutions, content providers, and distributors will blur considerably — as well as many new sub-product types not listed here. Just as important, these new product types will require a number of organizational and technological changes within the current industry. The biggest of these are related to content design and management, topics we will address in the next part of our series — New Product Workflows.