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Interview
Textbook Publishing in a Flat World
8/6/2008
Schaffhauser: Is the fundamental product, the textbook itself, going to be same as what we're accustomed to right now?Frank: I think the answer to that is more yes than no. We actually think that, over time, there are interesting ways to enhance the product like embedded tutorials and more and more things that really enrich the learning experience. But initially, by and large ... we're actually trying to create a product experience that feels familiar but with a radically different usage and distribution pricing model. I will say that our online books are complete books. I do think that there's more functionality in that online book than what people are getting today.
For example, our first book in advertising follows the unfolding of a campaign that this ad agency in New York runs with MSNBC.com. We feature players from both of those--in the agency and the company--and we do audio podcasts and video footage integrated through the book. There's innovative multimedia; there are pedagogical advantages. We can pull all the key terms into the column and you can click it. It will pull off the definition of the key term so you can study efficiently. We have the ability to search the book for a term or search across the entire Flat World Knowledge portfolio of books for a term.
Schaffhauser: Will Flat World be launching with first edition content?
Frank: Yes, they will all be published initially as first edition. And then we will, like publishers do, publish new editions. Our office will publish and maintain new editions over the life of that book. I think the difference is, in our model, we should not be doing new editions based on market pressures. We will do them based on content and when the expert author feels like there has been enough change that a new edition is merited.
Schaffhauser: When you make the statement that market pressures would not drive the decision to put out a new edition, is that the standard practice?
Frank: Yes, I think that the practice of publishing new editions has largely become an exercise in flushing used books and international gray market books and pirated editions out of the marketplace and refreshing revenue for the publisher. It has become a necessity. If you look at the publisher two years into the adoption of the book by "University of X," they are getting almost zero new books sold at that point. There are so many of these other things in the marketplace that if they waited four years to come out with a new edition, they would have almost three years of negligible sales. They just financially cannot do that. They are under this pressure to flush all those used books out and replace them with new books again.
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