Book publishing and technological development: A study on the book market and business practices of selected publishers in Malaysia / Fadli Abdullah

Fadli , Abdullah (2018) Book publishing and technological development: A study on the book market and business practices of selected publishers in Malaysia / Fadli Abdullah. PhD thesis, University of Malaya.

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Abstract

The advancement of technology over the past few decades has tremendously changed the the lanscape of book publishing industry. In book market, some of these changes included the coexistence of printed book and e-book in the market, the development of online bookselling, and also the increased competitions in the industry. The publishing supply and value chain are also no longer the same. This has created new challenges to the industry. As a developing country, Malaysia is now in the process of adapting to this new environment. Despite the fact that Malaysia is aggressively trying to improve the production of books, the industry has remained stagnant. In term of academic research, there has been reasonably small numbers of comprehensive research focuses on Malaysia, regarding how the industry is changing today and the impact experienced due to technological developments. Taking all these issues into consideration, the main aim of this study is to to explore the development in Malaysia by focusing on the current situation in its book market and the responses among local publishers in the industry. By concentrating on trade publishing sector, this study hopes to provide a comprehensive picture of its current state in Malaysia and how far technological developments have changed the business practices among local publishers in the industry. In achieving this, the perspective of strategy and its relation to technology from the viewpoint of media economics and management is used as a theoretical foundation of the study. For methodology, this study relies on qualitative research approach through the analysis of documentary sources and case studies. The finding of the documentary sources analysis shows that, the emergence of e-book has brought alternative options of reading and book buying to Malaysian readers. However, the market remained stagnant and yet to show any significant growth. Meanwhile, online bookselling is observed to be growing noticeably, especially through e-commerce and social media platforms. Apart from that, there is also a substantial increase of small independent publishers in the industry impacted by the emergence of the Internet and social media. As for the case studies, from the analysis of the six local trade publishers, it is evident that technological developments have completely changed their business practices in the industry. The impact is apparent, but it is not fully on the end-product of the production, which is the switch from printed to e-book format. Instead, the changes are obvious in other parts of book production, such as content planning and development, marketing, and distribution. The finding reveals that, all companies are adopting multi-platform strategy in their business practices, as a response to technological developments. The Internet, computer technology and social media are becoming rather important in the companies’ book publishing practices. In discussing about the issues and challenges faced by all six companies, the study manages to identified at least three main issues, namely the declining of book sales in physical bookstores, the stagnation of local e-book market, and the disadvantages of technologies and reduction of editorial skills among editors.

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