Martin Woodhead

Introduction

Woodhead Publishing Ltd is a book publisher specialising in current science and technology in the fields of engineering, material science, textile technology, food science, bioscience, biomedicine, environmental technology, energy and mathematics. The company was established in 1989 and is based in Cambridge, UK. In 2009 the company acquired Chandos Publishing in Oxford, specialising in books on librarianship and information science. A total of 150 books are published per year across both companies.

Since the Internet became established in the mid-1990s, Woodhead has had to monitor the rapid changes which have taken place in the world of publishing and bookselling and to make many decisions about what paths to follow. This process is forever ongoing and there are no signs of the pace of change slowing up; if anything, the reverse. How does a mid-sized publishing company such as Woodhead monitor these constant changes? Luckily, the publishing industry and the customers it serves are very open with their experiences about technological developments in particular. Attending meetings and conferences provides a wealth of information, but in addition to this, Woodhead undertakes considerable market research, both quantitative and qualitative, to determine what kind of books its customers wish to buy and how.

The major development since the mid-1990s has, of course, been the digitisation of text and how best to deliver it to customers. The first step down the digital road was taken by Woodhead in 1996 when the general view among science, technology and medical (STM) publishers was that it would be sensible to capture all text as portable document format (PDF) files while typesetting took place. This was led by the rapid developments taking place at that time in journal publishing, but, for the humble book, a compact disc (CD) of PDF files seemed on the face of it to serve no purpose as e-books had not been invented. The CDs therefore gathered dust for several years, but as there was no additional cost from the typesetters to create them, there seemed nothing to lose. But then, around the turn of the millennium, Woodhead became aware of the early US-based e-book aggregators such as NetLibrary,¹ Ebrary² and Knovel³ and all of a sudden those dusty CDs started to realise their magnificent digital potential. The decision to create PDF files of every book published from 1996 onwards enabled Woodhead to obtain a head start on many of its smaller competitors. Larger publishers who also published journals had in most cases taken a similar decision around the same time with their book publishing operations.

The e-book aggregators were hungry for content and deals were soon done with all the major companies, usually for short terms so that experience could be gained rapidly and changes made if necessary. This strategy resulted in Woodhead’s sales of e-books via aggregators reaching 10 per cent of total sales in 2003, a level higher than many of its competitors both large and small had achieved at that time and which is only just being reached by some publishers today. Given that the PDF files were a no-cost by-product of the typesetting process (the original print book run absorbing all the costs), the profitability of this new e-business was very favourable. Additional e-book aggregators such as MyiLibrary⁴ and Books 24×7⁵ then arrived on the scene as well as aggregators specialising in, say, reference books, such as X-Refer, now Credo Reference.⁶ Google Books⁷ also arrived, offering yet another option as well as publisher owned e-book sites such as CRCnetBASE.⁸ Despite these additions, Woodhead’s e-book business remained stubbornly around the 10 per cent mark and so it was decided to determine why this was happening and what could be done about it.

Two patterns emerged. The first was the plethora of e-book aggregators, all with different business models. Second was the steady growth of e-books hosted by publishers themselves, particularly, Springer, John Wiley, Blackwell (later to merge to form Wiley-Blackwell), Elsevier, CRC Press and university presses such as Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press. The e-book aggregators became increasingly difficult to handle, particularly when assessing large consortia deals with libraries, and so a feeling of losing control of valuable content gradually took hold. To make matters worse, piracy began to raise its ugly head, much of it coming, in Woodhead’s experience and also that of other publishers, from one particular aggregator partner who became known in the trade as ‘the leaky aggregator’. The time had therefore come by late 2007 to consider developing a new strategy to regain control and to start growing e-sales again. This was to lead to the development of Woodhead Publishing Online and its launch at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2010.

Woodhead Publishing Online, Phase 1: Market research

While Woodhead had gained valuable experience of the e-book market through its partnerships with aggregators, it had little knowledge of the technicalities of hosting and distributing e-content or whether its customers would be interested in purchasing Woodhead e-content. Other publishers’ offerings and their often stated experiences were a source of valuable information and encouragement. However, only a detailed market research survey and assessment of potential hosting partners could determine whether Woodhead’s content would be purchased and whether the prospect of the company’s own ‘electronic warehouse’ would be a viable economic proposition.

Woodhead runs a ‘tight ship’ and so no one could be spared to undertake what was clearly a huge task. Instead, after much discussion, in the third quarter of 2007, it was decided to appoint an experienced STM publisher with previous digital experience to act as a consultant on the project. This proved to be one of the best decisions made. The combination of Woodhead’s long experience of carrying out market research surveys among customers to determine what should be published, plus the consultant’s knowledge of the STM digital market, produced a winning formula. Two market research questionnaires were created quickly, one aimed at librarians and the other at researchers and end users in universities, research institutes and corporations. Both sectors were emailed and encouraged to participate in the surveys, which were hosted by Survey Monkey. Key questions in the survey were:

The response to these questions was not only greater than expected but also very encouraging. One thousand librarians were contacted and 148 responded (15 per cent), while 4,000 end-users/researchers were contacted and 575 responded (14 per cent), resulting in a total response of 723 from 5,000 people contacted. In addition, qualitative research was carried out among 20 librarians through personal visits and telephone interviews.

Woodhead Publishing Online, Phase 2: The mission

The mission soon became clear – to produce a state-of-the art e-platform that could deliver Woodhead content to customers in the manner they demanded. If such a platform could be developed, the research indicated it stood a reasonable chance of success. The next task for the consultant was to analyse the results and to draw up a ‘Request for Proposal’ document to send to a selected list of prospective host platforms. The key findings from the market research were:

An assessment of competing platforms and aggregators indicated that the platforms with the highest market penetration in the target markets were the integrated book and journal platforms that were designed to support the research process.

A review of Woodhead’s existing e-partners indicated a need to reconsider its partnering strategy so as not to conflict with the proposed ‘value added’ Woodhead offering. In particular, the revenue shares in the relationships with some aggregators needed renegotiation and the policy for making core content available via competing products required revisiting. The initial assessment of hosting partners indicated that potential partners lay on a spectrum, from those that rendered and distributed e-books with low value-added, to those that provided integrated services which supported the research process, most of those bringing experience of handling research journal content. Woodhead’s most likely technology partner would come from this latter group. It was considered that Woodhead would require a technology partner that was able to provide the key back-office functions including managing access and entitlement, and e-commerce.

Based on the above findings, a requirements list was then compiled and shared with potential technology partners during February 2008 with a Request for Proposal (RFP) for review in March 2008. The plan was for a soft launch in the third quarter of 2008 and a full commercial launch in the fourth quarter–an objective which turned out to be very optimistic. The RFP process proceeded very smoothly, with considerable interest from most of the companies approached, which included Ingenta,⁹ Semantico,¹⁰ MetaPress,¹¹ MPS,¹² Atypon,¹³ Ebray¹⁴ and I-Group.¹⁵ All complemented the project team on the thoroughness and professionalism of the RFP document but some had to decline on account of their being unable to meet the specification required. After several weeks of discussions, it was decided to offer a contract to MetaPress, a division of EBSCO Industries, based in Alabama, USA, and well known among librarians.

Platform development and lessons learned

Having chosen MetaPress, and after much discussion, it was thought that the Woodhead project team comprising heads of departments (HoDs) should be responsible for progressing the development of the platform which was given the working title of Saturn. The consultant was thanked for the excellent work carried out up to that stage and the HoDs got to work, or tried to. Dispensing with the consultant’s services proved to be the main mistake made in the whole process. The consensus was that the executive members of the company needed to understand thoroughly and ‘own’ the new platform but, in the event, this set back development by at least 12 months. While the initial forecast might have been optimistic, a launch by the end of 2009 would certainly have been possible had the consultant been retained on the project. The remaining project team was unable to progress the development at anything like the pace required due to the demands of their normal responsibilities. This situation continued until the second quarter of 2009 when it was realised that help was needed badly. Luckily for Woodhead, an introduction was made to another consultant, and from that point onwards, the pace picked up considerably, leading to a soft launch at Online Information 2009 Conference and Exhibition¹⁶ and a full commercial launch in October 2010.

Besides the demands of their existing jobs, where else did the Woodhead project team underestimate the time needed to develop the platform? The preparation of XML data to accompany every title to be loaded by MetaPress was a major factor. Although PDF files were available for all titles published since 1996, the addition of chapter abstracts, key words, digital object identifiers (DOIs) and other data proved very time-consuming.

Fortunately the e-rights were owned by Woodhead for all titles published since 1996, otherwise establishing these rights could also have proven very time-consuming. Developing specific functionality such as the Woodhead ‘pick ‘n’ mix’ option also took longer than expected, together with the decisions on finalising the business model.

Throughout this at times frustrating period, Woodhead was supported by an excellent partner in MetaPress who proved not only patient but also very willing to produce a high-quality platform with the features requested by Woodhead’s customers. While the Woodhead platform is based on the tried and tested MetaPress platform used by many publishers, it contains significant differences to make it appeal to customers, such as the ‘pick ‘n’ mix’ option, linked references via CrossRef¹⁷ and a transparency of business model and pricing which enables library and other customers to easily assess its value to their institution. At the same time the familiarity of the MetaPress navigation system and log in details have proved to be a considerable benefit.

Market response

Launched commercially in October 2010 at the Frankfurt Book Fair as Woodhead Publishing Online,¹⁸ the response to the platform from prospective customers has exceeded expectations. Many leading universities and research organisations as well as corporations throughout the world have purchased Woodhead content either as subject collections, pick ‘n’ mix selections or individual chapter purchases or rentals. It has been a steep learning curve for all concerned, but an enjoyable one, and it has been a particular pleasure to work directly with many librarians and other customers instead of being one step removed as in the conventional print book business. Perhaps best of all as far as Woodhead is concerned, the 10 per cent e-sales plateau experienced during the first few years of the new millennium had doubled to 20 per cent by the end of 2011 and shows every sign of doubling again over the next 2–3 years, assisted by the launch of a sister site, Chandos Publishing Online¹⁹ in early 2012.

Future developments

Where is all this going? Clearly e-book revenues are growing rapidly, not only for Woodhead but also for many other publishers. Will the book be the unit of STM content in the future or will it be the book chapter? If chapters become the main unit will they be published online as a database as soon as they are written, edited and typeset? Will content be updated online more regularly than with print? Will users want direct access to authors to discuss points arising from their material? Will there be video clips, audio clips and data that can be interrogated or manipulated? Will everything be open access and free of charge to users while editing, production and hosting costs still need to be covered? These and many other questions are constantly debated to ensure that Woodhead maintains and enhances the quality of its publishing for the science and technology community through working in partnership with its customers all over the world.