Training Educational Publishers for the Digital Era

By Phyllis H. Hillwig, Ed.D.
Chief Operating Officer, Words & Numbers

With globalization, fierce competition, and advancement in technology solutions, the challenge for educational publishers is to anticipate market demands as well as produce quality products faster and cheaper than ever before. In a world of transparency, where anyone can discover anything about you or your products within a few clicks on the Internet, the only market advantage is in your people. Your staff and their talents, experience, and knowledge are truly what delineate you from your competition. So, how do you cultivate and nurture this valuable asset to compete in this age of publishing?

The Future of Print Magazines

By Neal Goff
President, Weekly Reader Publishing Group

My son reads eight newspapers a day but never gets ink on his hands.

He reads them online, of course. And he says he prefers this format to ink on paper.  (He’s a twenty-something.)

As we all know, this phenomenon is not good for the newspaper business. The problem is not so much that online readers don’t pay for content–though they generally don’t–but that as readers gravitate away from print, advertisers divert their spending to other media, notably electronic media. Magazines, too, are feeling the effects, though perhaps not at the same crisis level as newspapers.

So what? you may ask. As advertisers move their spending from print to online, can’t publishers simply follow the ad money there themselves, by publishing online versions of their publications?

Pricing Strategies for 21st Century Publishers

By Andy Lacy
President, QED

For many years, publishers have had established pricing models for how to sell their products. For most the pricing was per piece sold (book, workbook, etc.) with discounts for volume. This was successful and easy to navigate for both the buyer and seller. With the increased usage of digital technology publishers are now scrambling to find pricing models that work well in this new environment. There are many pricing alternatives with pros and cons to each. So, what is the right model for your business?

To find the answer it is important to evaluate the factors that go into any good pricing decision.

Digital Publishing: Serving the Changing Needs of Our Customers

By Bill Evans
CEO, Evan-Moor Educational Publishers

Evan-Moor Educational Publishers began selling e-books on our website approximately five years ago. We knew that teachers entering the education field fresh out of college were used to working in a digital world. We also knew that customers generally like to get their product as quickly as possible, and with the digital book delivery is instantaneous.

In 2003 Evan-Moor had e-book sales on its website of over $30,000. During the next 4 years, we had an average increase of about 70 percent a year, which meant revenue of about $212,000 for 2007. This was achieved without any special promotion. We simply added the e-book product to the paper-and-ink product on our Web site. While this is a very small part of our overall revenue, it is revenue that falls directly to the bottom-line.

Product Development and Direct Marketing in the Digital Future

By Fady Khairallah
President and General Manager, MDR

This year has been heralded as the year when digital publishing will come into its own…the year that technology finally moves into the driver’s seat to displace traditional methods and create significant change in the classroom.

Digital technology will inevitably alter the landscape of teaching and learning, as it has transformed so many other industries. The transition is a hard road full of opportunities and risk. Successful companies are not necessarily the first to act, but the ones that act correctly. That starts with the right product, but must be married with new approaches to marketing as an experience.