In all seriousness, your comments made me think a bit harder about what my gut hesitation is regarding this strategy. There are two things I consistently struggle with when considering how to disseminate our content – return on investment and vision. The former is, as you say, a non-issue if I agree that publishers should manage their own digital content in the same manner that they do in the physical world. The latter is everything that differentiates digital from print.

As I see it, digital content distribution frees us from the yoke of print – it gives us an endless series of models and forms to distribute our content on the efforts of others – other industries, other partners, even other publishers – and doesn’t force us to create large scale infrastructures. Managing partnerships and pricing policies will determine our success, not warehouses and repositories. Therefore, I don’t believe we need to own distribution of digital content, we must simply control it.

One stop solutions such as repositories do indeed help address many, many issues that publishers struggle with including the ability to get content out to those who would market it. However, I maintain that the investment to do so in a world of unproven digital sales models is a risk that only a few can take. We need industry solutions (like what your company has created) but I think this technology (which may change several times) will be better if created and managed by technology solution providers, not by publishers who may lack experience, know-how, and perhaps, perspective.

However, given that your main argument is cost, I wonder if your view on repositories would change if you could build your own OUP digital repository for free? What if improvments to and savings from your editorial and production process could fund your digital repository for all new books? The question for publishers might be to determine if a more efficient digital editorial and production process can fund their digital repository resulting in no incremental costs and tremendous strategic value. A question worth exploring.

Alternatively, is there some cost you would be willing to pay to better control your digital future? What is the value of having an OUP digital publishing or reading platform like Browse Inside for the digital consumer?

I agree it is free and easy to let the beheomoths do their thing and not invest in digital capabilities as a publisher. But in my view, this doesn’t lead the publishing industry forward.

Let’s start with the first question that comes to mind. If all marketing will happen online, can a publisher afford to limit the distribution of their content to access capabilities offered by Microsoft, Amazon, and Google? How about what netLibrary can give you? or what PalmReader can give you? Or what Lightning Source can give you? Can you really dodge the whole problem of Digital Asset Distribution by handing off to the behemoths?