This isnt bad news. This is evolution and the wake-up call for Print Service Providers to get into the e-publishing biz… NOW. 
Scenario 1.
I am printing a 12 page brochure with you. You have my files. After my job is complete you create an e-book for my client to post on their website and distribute via email and social media. You charge me for the e-book, I charge my client for the e-book. More income for the Printers and the Marketers.
Scenario 2.
I have a 12 page brochure that my client doesnt want to print. If you dont have e-publishing capabilities, you are cut out and I have to find someone who does. However, if I can still use you as a trusted resource for this work, then you can still generate income and I dont have to find another vendor, who just might ALSO do printing… and in that case as a Buyer it’s better for me to keep all my work in one place.
You obviously dont just wake up one day and say I now have e-publishing services. Look into the best options for your business and tap into your internal resources – most likely the prepress department – to execute the jobs. Establish a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system and protocol and charge clients for storage and archiving. Find a local FREELANCER if you dont have a designer on staff to help CREATE e-books for clients that dont have those resources. Create samples and send to your clients, and dont make an e-book about YOU as a sales device, make one about THEM or one of their clients… it will have more impact and a personal feel. And speaking of personal feel, I dont know how it works, but I would imagine that if you are already in the VDP business it can be applied to e-books and that would be a HUGE plus for Marketers to have all their data and files with one Printer.
While the article below specifically is referring to e-books / printed books, the TREND is the wake-up call, especially if you are a book printer!
via Digital to dominate by 2020 | The Bookseller.
by Tom Holman
More than half of people working in the industry think sales of e-books will overtake those of their printed counterparts by the end of this decade.
That is among the early findings from The Digital Census 2011, The Bookseller’s annual survey of digital trends and opinions. Responses are still being collected, but provisional figures from the survey show around a quarter (25.8%) forecast that a ‘tipping point’ of sales from print to digital will occur between 2015 and 2019, with smaller numbers predicting it will happen in 2012 (4.9%), 2013 (8.6%) or 2014 (16.4%). The balance of sales will tip sooner in the US but later in other regions of the world, survey respondents suggested.
The last year has seen many publishers reporting sharp rises in their digital sales, but The Bookseller’s survey indicates the revolution is only just beginning. It found that digital formats currently account for less than 3% of total sales at nearly a third (32.5%) of all publishers—but a similar proportion (32.1%) suggest they will account for more than 50% of their sales by 2020. More than nine in ten (92.7%) publishers now sell content digitally, with e-books and apps the two most common formats.
The survey also revealed optimism that the digital shift will be good for the industry as a whole, with two thirds (67.6%) of all respondents thinking it will grow the overall books market and only one in eight (13.1%) suggesting it will shrink it.
Full findings from The Bookseller’s Digital Census 2011 will be revealed in a special report and at this year’s FutureBook conference on 5th December. There is still time to join the nearly 2,000 people who have already completed the survey, which can be found here.
Related articles
- By 2020 digital to dominate publishing says survey (teleread.com)
- Bookshops, You Have Three Choices (eoinpurcellsblog.com)
- E-books elicit mixed reactions from literary estate holders (teleread.com)
- Spain set to see increase in digital sales (teleread.com)
