Publishing Case Studies and Papers

Case Studies - Gardners Books

Booktrade Digital Services

Background

In 2007 all the UK major trade publishers initiated programmes to digitise their content. The move was largely driven by their US sister companies and the realisation that they need to do something with budgets ear-marketed for digital repositories, conversion programmes and new digital teams. Against this backdrop of activity Sony announced its ereader and later Amazon its Kindle.

The existing retail channel was not capable of hosting and distributing ebooks, applying DRM (digital rights management) and increasingly publishers were starting to bypass them and sell to new entrants or direct to consumers.  The consumer could only buy a very limited number of titles, often had to go to specific ebookstores and unlike music, did not have a clear aggregated offer such as iTunes. They also had to grapple with multiple file formats, DRM and multiple readers. The market was fragmented and unpredictable.

The opportunity to create and distribute digital metadata (bibliographic information) was seen by many as important as it helped sell both physical and digital titles. Many publishers and retailers started to create and support their own ‘view inside’ and extended marketing material programmes. This was relatively easy for the larger publishers but expensive for the smaller ones.

Finally the publishers had an issue on what titles to digitise to what format and which service to use to do it. To many medium and small publishers, who did not have the skills and experience to make these decisions, it was viewed as a bridge too far.

In summary, the industry was caught in a catch 22, questioning the level of digital consumer demand but not having the digital content available to effectively gauge this. It was trying to create a market in a vacuum.

Business Solution

Gardners Books were the largest independent wholesaler in the UK market. In addition to its wholesale business it had built a very successful drop ship facility to service Internet retailers both large and small. This model enabled the retailer to sell titles he didn’t stock, retain the consumer interface and perform the commercial transaction. The order would then pass to Gardners who would pick, pack and dispatch it direct to the consumer. The consumer was unaware of the Gardner involvement.

Gardners worked with VCIL (Value Chain International) in early 2007 to create an end to end digital service, from the publisher to the retailer and ultimately to the consumer. The service was to be modelled on the drop ship process and importantly enabled digital product to be sold alongside physical and audio titles. Importantly it recognised from the outset that it needed to be inclusive to both large and small and also reflect the current trading and commercial practices between publishers and Gardners and Gardners and their retail clients.

Publishers could provide Gardners with digital files to be stored in Gardner’s digital repository. Alternatively, they could provide interfaces with Gardners, which would enable Gardners to take orders and redirect them to other repositories for drop shipment. Through VCIL, Gardners could also provide full digital conversion services to publishers both large and small.

Gardners could then feed retailers with metadata on the availability of the digital titles, formats and rich digital bibliographic to enable the retailers to promote and take orders 

Any order taken at a retailer could then be serviced effectively and efficiently alongside physical and audio books and totally transparent to the end consumer.

The service now can support the storage and distribution of Gardners ‘view inside’ widgets which can render a host of different file formats from XML to PDF and multi media enriching the marketing services to publishers and support to retailers.

Approach

Gardners and VCIL worked together to specify the total service with VCIL providing the technical skills and build. Once demonstrable Gardners approached publishers to agree commercials and obtain the digital files to populate the repository. One of the first publishers to sign up was the digital leader Taylor and Francis who made their 18,000 titles available. Another early adopter was Naxos who made over 400 audiobooks available to the service.

 “Taylor & Francis wholeheartedly welcomes the advent of the Gardners Wholesaler eBook Service which effectively provides the capacity for any traditional bookseller, no matter how large or small, to operate a web based eBook site and to list and sell eBooks from the world’s leading publishers. Further, we are delighted to confirm that we have reached agreement with Gardners for the Wholesaler eBook Service to host and sell our full list of more than 18,000 Routledge and Taylor & Francis titles.“ Christoph Chesher, Group Sales Director, Taylor and Francis Group,

Achievement

Gardners have established the first digital service that can promote, support, sell and service digital content through the existing retail channel alongside physical titles.

Gardners Digital Warehouse will supply the capability for Publishers to link their existing digital files, eBooks, Audio Downloads, and extended bibliographic content such as ‘search inside’ to Gardners Books range of Internet and high street retailers. Publishers can also utilise a range of digitisation services designed to enable any size of Publisher to create digital content economically and to use it for publicity and eBook sales with all of Gardners customers.

 For Gardners customers the new Digital Warehouse will provide the same ‘single channel solution’ for the supply and fulfilment of digital material including the sale of eBooks as our physical warehouse has done since 1986. The combination of both a physical and digital warehousing facility will enable any high street retailer to provide the most comprehensive range of on line and high street services at a very economical price.

 “Our aim is to ensure all our high street retailers can participate in selling eBooks, audio downloads alongside physical books, and utilise the newly developing extended bibliographic information and internet trading experiences which are increasingly available to support more traditional selling opportunities” Bob Jackson, Commercial Director at Gardners Books.