O'Reilly Aims to Educate Publishers on Digitization

By Marisa Peacock | Published Nov 6, 2008

It's safe to say, that many publishers don't know exactly what going digital entails. O'Reilly comes to the rescue by offering a free Webcast on Wednesday, November 12, at 1 p.m. EDT about What Publishers Need to Know About Digitization.

The Webcast will last approximately 90 minutes. You can register here.

Consultant and software engineer for the publishing industry, Liza Daly, will lead the Webcast. As an independent consultant and the founder of Threepress, developer of the Bookworm EPUB e-reading application, blogger for several publishing and technology blogs, and a member of the advisory boards for the Web 2.0 Expo NYC 2008 and O'Reilly Tools of Change (TOC) 2009 conferences, Daly will aim to offer guidance and support for those in the industry struggling to go digital.

The Webcast assumes no prior experience with digitization, as Daly presents a “friendly and accessible overview of the conversion process”. The Webcast will cover the following topics:

What's XML and do you need it?
What's the cost-benefit analysis versus PDF or other formats?
What to look for in selecting a vendor and how to watch out for hidden costs.

In addition, the Webcast will tackle issues of control and lock-in versus cost savings, partnering with Google, Amazon, or a centralized platform, or going on your own — among many other topics.

The Webcast is a component of O'Reilly's Tools of Change (TOC) for Publishing division, which seeks to connect the people, companies and organizations asking and answering the questions that will define the future of publishing.