The Digital Publisher
Bridging the Digital Divide
Many in the publishing industry are currently faced with the challenge of making a transition from print into digital. The practice of delivering a quality digital product can be a demanding and daunting prospect.
This concise and intensive three-day course has been created for team leaders involved with strategy, and is led by a number of tutors, each specialising in different aspects of digital publishing. It covers all the phases of creating a digital product, from initial conception and planning through to launch.
You will learn:
- new business models and various software options
- project management processes and production issues
- all the steps involved in the development of digital products
- to ensure that your teams contain the right mix of skills to gain a competitive advantage.
Opportunities for networking are maximised so that you can make contacts over lunch and during breakout sessions.
Programme
Day One
- Strategic overview
- What is strategy?
- How technology is changing the world of content
- Implications for content industries
- Generation X versus Y – content consumption differences
- File sharing sites
- Where is this taking content industries?
- Overview of opportunities for growth and steps needed to facilitate change
- Business planning and finance investment appraisals
- Financial context of companies
- How products are costed, including the differences between print and digital
- How investment appraisals for new platforms (as opposed to new products) may be evaluated
- Case studies of successful and unsuccessful projects
- Digital production
- Overview of production technologies
- E-books
- XML
- Publishing workflows
- In-house and outsourced production
- Backlist conversion (legacy content)
- Archives and content/digital asset management systems (CMS and DAM)
- Transformations, constraints and challenges
Day Two
- Commissioning and editing for the digital environment
- Elements of writing and editing for the web - differences between the two, clarity, conciseness and scanability
- Using a CMS where writers need to input their text via a web form and using Word for web writing
- Commissioning good web copy - specific needs for this copy, style and tone guidance, common dictionary
- Defining content and layout issues that will impact authors
- Usability, testing and accessibility
- Editing PDFs and other copy-editing and proofreading issues in a digital environment
- Practical exercises
- Practical demonstration of InDesign and EPUB files
- Copyright and digital licensing issues
- Copyright issues in the digital environment – new challenges and opportunities
- Generation X versus generation Y –the difference in the way they consume content and is file-sharing here to stay?
- File sharing sites – a threat or chance to find new dynamic revenue streams?
- Examination of the various lawsuits around the world against file sharing site operators
- Implications of the government’s new “three strikes and you’re out” legislation
- Digital licensing – how to find new channels and revenue streams and the different types of revenue stream that can be derived from digital licensing of content
- Digital licensing agreements – what are the key terms that should always appear
- Practical group examination of a digital licensing agreement
Day Three
- Digital project management
- Specifying requirements
- Project roles and responsibilities
- Planning and scheduling
- Managing quality
- Managing risk
- Dealing with change
- Progressing projects - approval cycles, monitoring of performance
- Practical group work looking at real life project management documentation
- Selling and marketing digital products
- What to consider at each product development stage
- The importance of product delivery
- Getting evaluation methods right
- Pricing and payment options
- Marketing approaches
- Selling tactics and conversion
- Customer retention and sustainability
- Summary of the course
- How will you implement tomorrow what you’ve learned over the past three days?
Who will benefit from this course?
The course will be of interest to publishers and senior managers who are involved with transforming their businesses in today’s new digital economies. It will have particular relevance to those managing new digital teams or who are involved in commissioning, production, business growth and product development.
Note that most of our short courses can also be run as in-company events.
- Dates: 11 July 2012, 07 November 2012
- Duration: A three-day course
- Price: £950+VAT
- A number of discounts are available
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