Even the Longest Journey Begins with One Step

By Charlene F. Gaynor
CEO, The Association of Educational Publishers

We’re embarking on a journey into your future. Where it starts and ends will be different for each of you. Our itinerary is uncertain, but we can promise you this. There’ll be at least one stop outside your comfort zone.

Let’s start with the familiar. Imagine a book. Inside this book are eight different chapters and within those eight chapters, 600 paragraphs. Within each of those paragraphs are hundreds of ideas or “divisions of thought” (a term you’ll hear more of later). In fact, this one book contains, maybe, thousands of divisions of thought. Whoever buys the book pays for 10,000 divisions of thought, even if he only wants 10 of them. What happens, though, if he could buy those ideas one or two at a time? What does this mean for you as a publisher? Do you own an inventory of books or ideas? Are you a publisher or a broker of thoughts?

Welcome to the digital future.