IFRRO, OSLO 21st October 2009

Pirjo Hiidenmaa

President of European Writers' Council

Chairperson of the

Finnish Non-Fiction Writers' Association

Authors and the business models in the digital era

Authors with a publisher

Authors without a publisher

With a publisher

Audiobooks E-books Internet publications Nowadays, mostly by-products of the print

book. Readers, consumers' attitudes and technology

improving. Contracts are the bottle-neck.

Existing models

Educational texts

Usually by-products of a print book.

Academic texts

Usually free for users (students, university teachers)

Licenced for libraries.

Without a publisher

Internet as a working tool for writing: collective and interactive creation of works.

Internet as a tool to promote books (print, e-books, audiobooks): Blogs FAQ Chat Facebook etc.

Special cases

Researchers and Open Access

New products for special readers: Auditive, visual means for disabled readers Plain language texts Translations for text mining

Where is the money?

Selling books in various forms on various platforms.

Selling the expertise of the writer: lectures, opinions, columns.

Selling fan products, keeping in touch with readers and strengthening the brand.

The variety of authors

Professional authors who live on their writing. Academic authors: not for money but for

reputation and career. Part-time authors: writing as a hobby. Writing as a by-product af other activieties.

The variety of products

Books Shorter texts: columns, blogs, critiques Extratextual activities: lectures, visits Non-text products: fan products Authors' virtual societies: Facebook, websites

The variety of purposes

Entertainment

Education

Additional education (life long learning)

News and communication

The future

Should authors get money for showing their texts?

Databases of specialised articles for various purposes.

Licensing / selling texts, books or chapters.

Scanning, digitising print books and selling one-by-one or licencing collectively.

No texts…

…without an author:

TEXTS DON’T GROW IN TREES!