The Complete Digital Publisher
This practical course takes the original three-day publishing course (The Digital Publisher) and extends it over four days, in order to apply the theory learnt during the day into actual work-based scenarios. Experts will be on hand to guide evening project work, so that teams can create their own business cases, financial investment appraisals, project management plans, and content and marketing plans. On the last day the projects will be assessed, with feedback, by a panel of top-flight publishers and digital experts.
The course covers all the phases of creating a digital product, from initial conception and planning through to launch.
By the end of this course you will have:
- explored new business models and various software options
- evaluated project management processes and production issues
- learnt all the steps involved in the development of digital products
- ensured that your teams contain the right mix of skills to gain a competitive advantage
- translated your learning into practice through a comprehensive team project.
Who will benefit from this course?
The course will be of interest to publishers and senior managers who are involved with transforming their businesses in today’s new digital economies. It will have particular relevance to those managing new digital teams or who are involved in commissioning, production, business growth and product development.
Programme
Day One
- Strategic overview
- What is strategy?
- How technology is changing the world of content
- Implications for content industries
- Generation X versus Y – content consumption differences
- File sharing sites
- Where is this all taking content industries?
- Overview for opportunities for growth and steps needed to facilitate change
- Business planning and finance investment appraisals
- Financial context of companies
- How products are costed, including the differences between print and digital
- How investment appraisals for new platforms (as opposed to new products) may be evaluated
- Case studies of successful and unsuccessful projects
- Digital production
- Overview of production technologies
- E-books
- XML
- Publishing workflows
- In-house and outsourced production
- Backlist conversion (legacy content)
- Archives and content/digital asset management systems (CMS and DAM)
- Transformations, constraints and challenges
- Project work
Day Two
- Commissioning and editing for the digital environment
- Elements of writing and editing for the web - differences between the two, clarity, conciseness and scanability
- Using a CMS where writers need to input their text via a web form and using Word for web writing
- Commissioning good web copy - specific needs for this piece of copy, style and tone guidance, common dictionary
- Defining content and layout issues that will impact authors
- Usability, testing and accessibility
- Editing PDFs and other copy-editing and proofreading issues in a digital environment
- Practical exercises
- Practical demonstration of InDesign and EPUB files
- Copyright and digital licensing issues
- Copyright issues in the digital environment – new challenges and opportunities
- Generation X versus generation Y –the difference in the way that each consume content and is file-sharing here for good?
- File sharing sites – a threat or chance to find new dynamic revenue streams?
- Examination of the various lawsuits around the world against file sharing site operators
- Implications of the government’s new “three strikes and you’re out” legislation
- Digital licensing – how to find new channels and revenue streams and what are the different types of revenue stream that can be derived from digital licensing of content?
- Digital licensing agreements – what are the key terms that should always appear?
- Practical group examination of a digital licensing agreement
- Case study
- Project work
Day Three
- Digital project management
- Specifying requirements
- Project roles and responsibilities
- Planning and scheduling
- Managing quality
- Managing risk
- Dealing with change
- Progressing projects - approval cycles, monitoring of performance
- Practical group work looking at real life project management documentation
- Selling and marketing digital products
- What to consider at each product development stage
- The importance of product delivery
- Getting evaluation methods right
- Pricing and payment options
- Marketing approaches
- Selling tactics and conversion
- Customer retention and sustainability
- Project work
Day 4
- Presentation of digital case studies
- Finalise and present projects and get feedback from panel
- Close.