Last week's O'Reilly Tools of Change (TOC) event in New York had a theme of Change/Forward/Fast.  Based on the keynote presentations, I think the publishing industry heard loud and clear that they need to change....and now!  However, the other underlying theme for the conference was also articulated by the hosts as "we are confused."  Needless to say, these two themes are in conflict with one another.  How can you change if you are confused?  Confusion generally leads to paralysis and that is what I have seen with publishers over the past few years. 

While publishers heard success stories about building audiences before publishing a title and on-going interactions with that audience, what was suspiciously absent was how publishers are delivering content to the various devices.  Maybe it was the wrong venue, but I suspect many of the success stories started once content was in a sellable format rather than how easily the content was created and published in their content management system.

I also suspect that many in the audience were from the business side of publishing and the TOC event makes them pause and think about their business.  TOC did not, for me anyway, tackle the more difficult challanges of multi-channel publishing using home grown or antiquated technology.  Sadly, that is what many publishers are wrestling with today.  Once they are able to get content in ebook format, they can do really cool stuff with it.  Until publishers address the content management side of the equation, I don't see how they will efficiently meet time-to-market demands.  The reality is that most ebooks today are created by publishing services vendors because they are converting various flavors of legacy files.  Most publishers today are not multi-channel publishing but sticking with the print paradigm and then, through various publishing services vendors, creating ebooks for distribution.  Publishers who are stuck with this publishing process need to "change/forward/fast."

I will say that overall the TOC conference appears to be rejuvinated.  Two years ago the conference seemed to have run its course, but I believe it is back to being an event that publishers will want to attend to learn how the newbies are doing it without the "burden" of print.  Pushing the envelope is what TOC is best at and I hope they continue to push the industry's thinking along the way.

Really Strategies, Inc., provider of RSuite, a content management system for publishers, will host 150 publishing executives at the 5th Annual RSuite User Conference to be held October 25th 2011 at the Chemical Heritage Conference Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The RSuite User Conference is a forum for publishers who want to learn how content management is the key to building a successful digital publishing strategy. Attendees will hear case studies from some of the world's leading publishers, learning what works and what doesn't work when developing and implementing a CMS.

“We are very excited to be hosting our 5th User Conference and have presentations planned from some of the industry’s leading publishers and analysts, including Bill Trippe from Outsell and Evan Schnittman from Bloomsbury Publishing,” stated Barry Bealer, CEO and co-founder of Really Strategies.

The RSuite User Conference acknowledges the generous support of its sponsors Data Conversion Laboratory, ITC InfoTech, MarkLogic Corporation, Scope eKnowledge Center, and YuxiPacific.

Want to be a part of this greatly anticipated event?

RSuite is exhibiting at booth #34 from June 1^st through the 3^rd at The Society for Scholarly Publishing (#SSP)!

Schedule your time with us today and see how publishers have done the following things with RSuite:

• reduced book production time-to-market by 8 weeks
• automated aggregation and distribution of journal articles to licensing clients
• Increased website traffic by more than 35%
• and much more

Tweet about us at #SSP using the #RSuite hashtag.

Some projections for ebook revenue over the next 5 years are promising for publishers. In the Gilbane Group's "Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation" respondents indicated that the majority of ebook revenue book publishers currently see is less than 5% of gross revenues. In contrast, expected revenue from ebook efforts in 5 years’ time runs high, with the majority of book publishers expecting 15% or higher of gross revenues to come from ebooks:

The big picture for book publishers is very positive. Revenues are growing. Readers are excited by the new devices and are demonstrating their excitement in fast-growing device and ebook sales.

Find out how the leading publishers are using content management to move ahead quickly across a broad front of process improvement and technology investment.

Download your free copy of "A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation" and stay ahead of the digital revolution. [click here]