Some Tasty Bits from the StartWithXML UK Survey

Laura Dawson
August 5, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

• 48.7% of the respondents were in the STM market, followed by trade (24.4%) and college (16%).
• The bulk of respondents were from large houses - 50.4% - and the rest were evenly divided between midsized and small presses.
• Nearly 55% of the respondents considered themselves "tech-proficient." As most of them were from production or management, this was not surprising. We did have a significant number of editorial respondents, however - 19.3%.
• To 40.6% of our respondents, digital publishing is "very important - it informs all we do." Meanwhile, 59.4% of respondents are grappling with its impact in their companies. Only 17.8% of respondents say that they do not focus on the downstream uses of their book content, but on the print volume alone.
• As far as expanded editions are concerned, 53.5% of publishers say they don't offer these. And 69.3% do not offer more than the basic ONIX marketing content (cover image, description, first chapter, table of contents) in their digital marketing efforts.
• Over 73% of publishers do not have a formalized (formalised, if you're in the UK) DAM system.
• And over 50% do not maintain files in an XML format.
• Nearly 69% of respondents have problems retrieving files from storage, and have to institute workarounds. But over 56% look at XML as a way of complementing CMS and DAM tools they have already invested in.

CSS in an XML Workflow

Laura Dawson
July 17, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (3) | Listen

At the StartWithXML Forum in New York in January, Rebecca Goldthwaite of Cengage gave a great demonstration of how Cengage uses CSS in their XML workflow. Many publishers regard style sheets as an invitation to create cookie-cutter book production, with the fear that all their books will look the same. This is emphatically a myth. Have a look at her seventh slide for examples of how one stylesheet can actually create many different looks.

CSS Zen Garden has been up for a while (Liza Daly used this model to create the EPUB Zen Garden a few months ago). It's a sort of CSS sandbox where graphic designers can play with style sheets and render the same content in very different forms. Clicking on the four links below will demonstrate what CSS can do:

• Home Page 1
• Home Page 2
• Home Page 3
• Home Page 4

It's well worth checking out and maybe having some graphic designers play around with it.

StartWithXML is Going to London

Laura Dawson
July 17, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

StartWithXML will be continuing in London! On September 2nd, at the British Library, we'll be conducting a one-day forum similar to the one we held in New York last January, but with a British publishing focus. Our sponsors for this event include Klopotek, MarkLogic, PLS, BIC, Publishers' Association, and of course O'Reilly.

We're still in the process of firming up our speakers, but we do have information posted here. Additionally, if you are a British publisher or service provider, there's a survey for you here.

As we get more news, we'll add it here - meanwhile, we're continuing to research and gather information about where publishers are in the StartWithXML process.

Taxonomies and Starting With XML

Laura Dawson
February 25, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (11) | Listen

This is an excerpt from a blog post I wrote last week on taxonomies and chunking.

Last October, the StartWithXML team wrote a post called "To Chunk or Not To Chunk," where we discussed tagging and infrastructure issues, and a discussion ensued about what happens when you don't know what you'll be using chunks for. How do you tag those?

Later, in our StartwithXML One-Day Forum, we included a presentation on tagging and chunking best practices, where it was pointed out that no taxonomy for chunk-level content currently exists.

We have taxonomies for book-level content. These include formalized code sets such as theLibrary of Congress subject codes, the BISAC codes, the Dewey Decimal System, among others. There are also informal code sets, like the tag sets on Shelfari or Library Thing. There are proprietary taxonomies at Amazon and B&N.com that enable effective browsing.

But nothing like this exists for sub-book-level content. It's never been traded before. We've never really needed a taxonomy for it before.

Other industries that traditionally distribute "chunks" have their own taxonomies that might prove useful in building a book-chunk schema. These include the IPTC news codes, which identify the content of a particular news story -- that's the closest analogy I can find for small gobbets of content that require organization.

Industries have proprietary taxonomies to identify certain concepts -- culinary arts, music, agriculture, engineering, the sciences, literature and criticism, education, and on and on and on. But these do not necessarily identify concepts within a book.

Some might argue that we don't necessarily need taxonomies -- why can't we use natural-language search and the semantic Web to "bubble up" the "right" concepts? I'd argue that words don't always mean what we think they mean. A classic example from my library days is the term "mercury." That could mean the planet, the car or the element. Proponents of semantic search would say that the context in which "mercury" is mentioned should take care of defining that term. I'd say that's true in about 50 percent of all cases but not definitively true enough in 75-100%.

My original post gets into more detail about why taxonomies are important search tools, and how the digitization of books requires a good taxonomy ... and who should do it.

Related Stories:

• Beyond the Tag Cloud
• Simplifying Semantic Tagging
• Library Uses Tags to Link Online-Offline Recommendations

StartWithXML Research Report Now Available for Sale

Andrew Savikas
February 4, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

If you weren't able to attend the StartWithXML Forum last month in New York, the accompanying research report is available for sale. The report covers topics like:

1. Where am I and where do I want to end up?
2. How much benefit do I want to obtain from content reuse and repurposing?
3. How much work do I want to do myself?
4. How much time and money will this take?

When you purchase the report, you get it as our full eBook Bundle, including PDF, EPUB, and Kindle-compatible Mobipocket formats.

If you're ready for a deeper dive into XML, there are two very complementary tutorials lined up during next week's TOC Conference:

• Introduction to XML for Publishers
• XML in Practice: Formats, Tools, and Techniques

And if that's still not enough angle brackets for you, check out the Introduction to XML course from the O'Reilly School of Technology, which earns you four CEUs (Continuing Education Units) and a CEU letter from the University of Illinois Office of Continuing Education. Save $50 with discount code SWXML09.

New York Times Opens "Best Sellers API"

Andrew Savikas
January 28, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (3) | Listen

The New York Times on Tuesday opened up its "Best Sellers API," offering programmatic access to best-seller data (going back to 1930!) from the Times:

The Times Best Sellers API gives you quick access to current and past best-seller lists in 11 different categories, such as Hardcover Nonfiction and Paperback Mass-Market Fiction. The initial launch offers every weekly list since June 2008, and in the coming months, we plan to add data going back to 1930 (thanks to the hard work of our Books staff). The API also offers details about specific best sellers, including historical rank information and links to New York Times reviews and excerpts. And these aren't just canned responses; they're searchable and sortable, with even more robust options coming in the next release.

I'm a huge fan of what the Times has done to embrace open architecture and data formats (and Nick Bilton, from the Times' R&D Lab, will be a keynote speaker at next month's TOC Conference), and this is a great example of what content creators and curators (i.e., publishers) can do to give customers the opportunity to create new value on top of that content. We've offered an API for our Safari Books Online product for several years now, and have some very interesting internal projects percolating to take things a step further.

Related Stories:

• APIs, New "Transactions" and the Google Book Search Registry
• CEOs Must Have API Literacy
• ReadWriteWeb: "First New York Times API is Live - Here's Why it Matters"
• How Hackers Show it's Not All Bad News at the New York Times

Presentations from the StartWithXML Forum

Mac Slocum
January 16, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

The following slides accompanied many of the presentations during the StartWithXML forum, held Jan. 13, 2009 in New York City.

XML--Why Bother?

David Young, Hachette Book Group USA

As Chairman and CEO of one of America's leading trade publishers, David Young presents the executive perspective on the role of XML technologies in the increasingly complex business of creating and selling books.

An Introduction to StartWithXML

Michael Healy, Book Industry Study Group

Introduction to some of the key terms and concepts needed to understand the day's program.

ROI Drivers for a StartWithXML Production Process

Brian O'Leary, Magellan Media Consulting Partners

Overview of the key components that provide the return on investment in an XML workflow.

Saving Money by Adopting an XML-Based Meta Data Workflow

Werner Fischer, Klopotek North America

Presented as part of the "StartWithXML ROI: Savings" panel.

Starting with XML:The Benefits of Automating Composition with Standard Stylesheets

Rebecca Goldthwaite, Cengage Learning

Presented as part of the "StartWithXML ROI: Savings" panel.

Leveraging XML for IP Rights

Steve Kotrch, Simon & Schuster

Presented as part of the "StartWithXML ROI: Savings" panel.

Marketing Books In A World Of Discoverability

Evan Schnittman, Oxford University Press

Presented as part of the "StartWithXML ROI: Revenues" panel.

Supporting Multi-Format Publishing

Leslie Hulse, HarperCollins Publishers

Presented as part of the "StartWithXML ROI: Revenues" panel.

Online Licensing Strategies: The Path to Digital Revenue

Bill O'Brien, Copyright Clearance Center

Presented as part of the "StartWithXML ROI: Revenues" panel.

Digital Book Printing: The New Economics Of Print-On-Demand

David Taylor, Lightning Source Inc.

Presented as part of the "StartWithXML ROI: Revenues" panel.

The View from the Front Lines

Ken Brooks, Cengage Learning

As a publishing technology pioneer and SVP, Global Production and Manufacturing at one of America's largest educational publishers, Ken Brooks presents lessons for the publishing industry at large based on his experiences implementing successful, large-scale XML production processes.

StartWithXML Solutions Overview

Brian O'Leary, Magellan Media Consulting Partners

Overview of the many publishing technology solutions providers and how their offerings support an XML workflow.

XML Workflow Foundations: Efficient Title Management Practices

Doug Lessing, Firebrand Technologies

Presented as part of the "StartWithXML Solutions: Tools" panel.

Building an XML workflow: Tools and Key Considerations

Steve Waldron, Klopotek North America

Presented as part of the "StartWithXML Solutions: Tools" panel.

DAM for ProductionvsDAM for Distribution

Scott Cook, codeMantra

Presented as part of the "StartWithXML Solutions: Tools" panel.

O'Reilly XML Toolchain

Andrew Savikas, O'Reilly Media

Presented as part of the "StartWithXML Solutions: Tools" panel.

StartWithXML Readiness Checklist

Brian O'Leary, Magellan Media Consulting Partners

Checklist of the key issues publishers should consider before implementing an XML production process.

Tagging and Chunking Best Practices

Laura Dawson, LJNDawson

Presented as part of the "StartWithXML Solutions: Methods" panel.

The Evolving Role of Authors and Editors

Phil Madans, Hachette Book Group

Presented as part of the "StartWithXML Solutions: Methods" panel.

How Wiley Uses Word to Invite Authors, Engage Editors, Improve Production, and Put XML at the Source of Its Content

Frank Grazioli, John Wiley & Sons

Presented as part of the "StartWithXML Solutions: Methods" panel.

Coverage of StartWithXML

Laura Dawson
January 15, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1) | Listen

Turns out I was not the only one on Twitter for the StartwithXML Forum on January 13th. Joe Bachana was tweeting as well. Kind of interesting to see the posts side-by-side. David Rothman of Teleread also has some great things to say, as does Richard Curtis over at e-reads.

We also got nice coverage from PW, as well as Publishers Lunch.

Slides will be up soon!

BeyondPrint Offers Helpful Review of StartWithXML

Brian O'Leary
January 15, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (26) | Listen

George Alexander, who attended the StartWithXML forum in New York on Tuesday and made quick work of reading the research paper (thank you!), offers a helpful review of both.

In his review, George also offers a view he shared with the StartWithXML team the day after the forum: the current tools are not yet ready for widespread use, and the forum and the research paper were largely silent on his concerns.

I think that George makes an important point about the tools for authoring and editing. I responded yesterday to say that what may have felt like a "middling" position at the forum reflects a range of opinion within the project team.

At the forum, O'Reilly's Andrew Savikas, for example, advocated use of XML authoring tools in his afternoon remarks, showing some examples of what worked. In contrast, Laura Dawson, who co-wrote the research paper, is more critical of the tools, something she made clear in her comments. I'm somewhat in the middle, feeling that the tools are not necessarily ready for widespread deployment, but that balanced changes in processes, technology/tools and organizational structures can provide a path to moving the tagging work upstream.

One thing less evident at the forum or in the paper is the healthy discussion that took place within the team about this issue. At one point in the e-mail exchanges, I wrote (paraphrasing) that "waiting until the tools are "ready" isn't the right answer; people developing the tools will improve them when publishers in adequate numbers use the tools and advocate for better and more features.

When I presented the "solutions" grid in the afternoon, I pointed out that the bulk of the most developed software and systems are in the production editorial and operational areas, but that upstream options were becoming more available. I stopped short of saying "not ready," in part because I don't want publishers to hear me and walk out saying "we'll wait until the tools come on line" and let production worry about tagging until then. Changing workflows is painful, and people are prone to avoiding pain. That's smart in the short term and potentially disastrous in the mid-term, so I stuck with the recommendation to push upstream as much and as fast as you can.

We view the research paper as a living document, and we expect to revise it based on feedback from the forum as well as an evolving understanding of the number of case studies that the paper and forum started to capture. Look for a subsequent draft to articulate a position on XML tools that may not match what George sees but more clearly captures the project team's thinking.

Related Stories:

• Slides from "Essential Tools of an XML Workflow" Webcast
• For a Workflow Change, Support from the Top is Required
• Balancing the Benefits and Costs of XML for Book Production
• Can the Author Really Help?
• See more StartWithXML posts

Slides from "Essential Tools of an XML Workflow" Webcast

Mac Slocum
December 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Laura Dawson has made her slides available from the recent TOC Webcast, "Essential Tools of an XML Workflow." A complete recording of the event will be posted here soon.

[TOC Webcast] Essential Tools of an XML Workflow

Mac Slocum
December 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Tools of Change for Publishing, in conjunction with StartWithXML, will host "Essential Tools of an XML Workflow," a free webcast with presenter Laura Dawson, on Thursday, Dec. 11 at 1 p.m. eastern (10 a.m. pacific).

Webcast Overview

This webcast is for those publishers who have made the decision to pursue digital channels for their content. What tools are out there? What do all those acronyms mean? How can publishers implement new strategies without disrupting current workflows? Here we'll explore the alphabet soup of digital publishing, sort out the tools that are most useful, and help publishers find some solid ground.

Register for free.

Related:

• StartWithXML: Why & How - Event and Research
• Webcast Video: What Publishers Need to Know about Digitization
• Why You Should Care About XML
• Recommended Reading on XML and Publishing

A Correction!

Laura Dawson
November 26, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Frank Grazioli, of Wiley, writes in to correct my last post about taxonomies:

Wiley has been exploring taxonomies for its travel content business; the cooking/psych/accounting spaces might be our next logical opportunities because the disciplines are well developed, specific, etc., that content is authored or edited in fairly controlled templates that map to our own XML content models and our belief in content models and XML has evolved that "lighter" and "more agile" are better than taggy and dense. As you so aptly point to the contextuality and "rigor" of taxonomies, these tools would allow our XML to "slip on the right jacket" for the occasion. I apologize if we led you to believe that we already have firm taxonomies in place for the three areas you specify--I wouldn't want readers/event guests to get that impression anyway.

Related:

• See more StartWithXML posts

Beyond the Tag Cloud

Laura Dawson
November 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

This is an excerpt from our research paper, which will publish in concert with the StartWithXML Forum on January 13th at the McGraw-Hill Auditorium in New York. Early bird discounting for BISG members is ending soon!

A good taxonomy is the backbone of your business -- it's how you sort your content. It allows for effective merchandising, effective marketing -- you can aim your content with the precision of a pool cue. It allows for inventorying your content -- so you know what you have ... and what you need. With your content tagged and organized, you know where everything is and how to deploy it.

Taxonomies are contextually sensitive and rigorous -- and in establishing your own, it helps to look at what other industries are doing. Wiley has adopted accounting and cooking and psychology taxonomies from those industries to organize information in its professional development titles. Educational publishers are increasingly arranging their textbooks around "learning objects" -- taxonomized pedagogical goals developed by educators themselves. Even the BISAC codes -- which are part of the ONIX system of organizing book information and therefore an XML-based taxonomy -- are developed very carefully and consensually among book industry professionals in monthly meetings.

An important aspect of taxonomy development is scope notes. Terms need definition and clarity around how they're going to be used. Documenting your taxonomy -- what you mean when you say "porcelain" (collectible china, dental work, household fixtures?), parent-child relationships between categories, and why you choose certain terms over others -- is important for the long term. Future editors and authors will need to know why your taxonomy has developed as it has.

Consistency in application is also crucial. Drop-down menus (as opposed to free-text fields) enforce structure and ensure that users don't come up with their own terms that pollute your taxonomy with duplicates or irrelevancies (or misspellings).

An advantage to using XML is that you don't have to accomplish everything at once, perfectly, from the outset. You will not be able to tag your documents thoroughly right off the bat -- who can know everything in advance? The act of tagging is recursive, and depends on market and company needs. XML allows for this flexibility. Depending on how you envision chunking and re-use, you'll tag your documents differently with each iteration. Unlike the "fire and forget" model, iterative tagging means that your books are living documents.

Related:

• StartWithXML Research Report
• See more StartWithXML posts

Another Position: XML Alone is Not Enough

Mike Shatzkin
November 6, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | Listen

George Lossius, the CEO of Publishing Technology PLC, wrote a very thoughtful post about our StartWithXML project for the new UK blog, BookBrunch. He comments after a report on the presentation I did at Frankfurt about our project.

George's point is that XML "is not enough." Books will live in a larger world also using XML and highly internal standards and procedures for XML use, internal to a company or internal to the book business, do not necessarily equip a publisher to live in the larger world of the semantic web.

We don't disagree with George's premise that XML can be used to position publishers better for the semantic web. The question for all publishers will be how much they can take on how fast, particularly in pursuit of models and opportunities that haven't really emerged yet. But the most forward-thinking always lead the target a bit, and George's post enumerates one aspect of that.

We urge our readers to check out George's post. And we encourage George to put his XML commentary right here on this blog; we're delighted to receive it.

Related:

• See more StartWithXML posts

For a Workflow Change, Support from the Top is Required

Mike Shatzkin
November 5, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | Listen

Last week Laura Dawson and I spoke about StartWithXML to a group of IT and operations people from publishers at the User Group meeting for Global Turnkey Systems, a company owned by one of our lead sponsors, Klopotek.

We got some great questions afterwards. On reflection, we realized that they touched an important theme: the need for CEO-level support for the change initiatives to put XML into the workflow. There are savings of time and money to be made by doing this, but that's not the immediate result. In the short run, the changes require more work, more effort, and, sometimes it would seem, generate a less desirable result.

This echoes what we've heard from Andrew Savikas of O'Reilly. Instead of characterizing the two elements of a publishing organization as "hard (production, accounting, ops) and "soft" (editorial, marketing), Andrew says that for XML change they are "hard" and "harder." Trying to get the most creative people in a publishing company to do something that is "harder" requires a top-down understanding that doing it is important to the business.

That's why we asked David Young, the CEO of Hachette Books in the US, to deliver our keynote address. He'll be speaking on the topic "XML: Why Bother?" That's the question every CEO must answer to get the collaboration up and down an organization that large and systemic change requires.

Related:

• See more StartWithXML posts