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Message from the President - 2001/2002
The first corporate publishing lord to decree "Content is King" is probably
contemporary, brilliant, and by now looking for work. Notwithstanding, few adages have
emerged from the digital era that have become more universally accepted. ("Whatever
goes up must come down" is pre-digital, but just as relevant.) Even fewer adages have
inspired a multibillion-dollar chase in a maddening world whose target "W" must
stand for words, words, and more words.
The balance of publishing nature for centuries thrived in a nurturing environment
enriched by the dynamic interaction of publisher/editor and author. Within this
environment, books became the true cultivated symbols of intellectual, spiritual, and
recreative progress for the human race, and subsequently content was groomed and coddled
like royalty. It took the digital revolution, however, to bring the phrase to its
coronation and its powerful link to the future as we foresee it.
Did somebody link promise to the future without provoking an onrush of investors? No!
And come they did. These investors had no time or patience to read the fine print,
especially in such a frenzied state. The heady fumes emanating from fantasies of striking
Internet gold are no cure for blurry vision. So the message that read, " . . . only
when nurtured in its natural environs," never sank in and the blitz was on.
Meanwhile, Reed Elsevier, International Thomson, Wolters Kluwer, and Harcourt General
raced after herds of content with stun guns, nets, and lots of money as if to be on a kind
of continental safari. The more they put in captivity and then traded with others, the
tighter the cages became until the publishing process often collapsed under the strain.
Where was the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Content Abuse) when we needed them?
The trend prompted a veteran editor-in-chief from one safari camp to declare:
"The real money in books is going to be made not by writing or publishing, but by
buying and selling the publishing companies themselves."
How's that for a slaughterhouse mentality? Reading between the lines of this prophecy
reveals an industry fixed on pushing titles through an accelerated Darwinian law of
survival fitted by the insidious forces of consolidation. Is that anyway to honor the
sanctity of content? I think not.
The mega-marketing energy, said the smug safarians, is a minimum requirement for
success, especially during the digital revolution. But who says the consolidation reflex
didn't deliver a swift kick below the marketing belt? Hey, at those soul-selling prices
they've got to kick/cut everywhere. In the end, their leadership has found, if they are
still around, that they bought a short cut to mediocrity and dysfunction. If you want to
save the animal kingdom, arm Noah with an ark, not a dingy . . . glub, glub!
People ask me how an independent, closely held F.A. Davis Company can survive the harsh
demands of being electronically ready while serving a healthcare community with a
troubling labor crisis on an operations budget that may not replace Rupert Murdoch's
wardrobe. The answer is simple. We still operate in an environment that made content the
king of our existence. We are proud of the craft that 122 years have refined for us. We
know better than to compromise the process and are very grateful to serve a discerning
marketplace that beckons our call.
Our flagship title, Taber's
Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, will be published in its 19th edition in February 2001.
It is the best selling title in all of Health Science Publishing because we understand the
importance of completing the process, and we have been blessed with the talent to make it
the best and sell it the most.
And yes, the future of publishing resides wherever content remains king. That gives His
Majesty a permanent home at F.A. Davis Company.
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Robert H. Craven, Jr.
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