The potential of e-books has not been fully realized; the development is still in its early stages. The result will probably be something new, something completely different, something very different from marketing printed books through digital channels. The problem is: we don’t know what these e-books will look like. But the good news is: a system to handle future products is already available.

Klopotek provides a tool to manage content which is split into separate parts (chunks, chapters,etc.) and pieced together into various other products. Publishers can create open product structures (including for products that do not yet exist) and easily manage their associated components and metadata. These components can be reused in different products – so new, evolving business models can be supported with Klopotek, even if these models change.

With this tool, Klopotek provides component-based rights and royalties management. It is capable of retracing the steps of splitting up individual components and of checking into the contracts themselves, so that it is possible to create new products and automatically produce the correct statements for handling the related royalties.

“We don’t think in products any more,” Joop Boezeman, Managing Director De Arbeiderspers | A.W. Bruna Uitgevers, said in a Klopotek Case Study in 2012. “Our way of thinking is: How can we develop the content we have in several directions?” Only a system which allows you to decide at the end of the planning process which product form should be used is fit for modern planning and production processes.

The Klopotek system provides an integrated workflow for planning and production for which your content is the starting point. Throughout the process, relevant data is created and added, including metadata and target group information. A DAM tool is available, and reports, estimates, calculations etc. are available each step along the way. Print? Digital? Online? All of it and/or combinations? A decision for product forms and formats, distribution channels and models is only made at the end of the process, so new products and business models – for example new (social) e-book forms – can easily be added to the product range.

“Obscurity is a far greater threat to publishers than piracy,” Mark Majurey, Digital Development Director at Taylor & Francis Books, argued at the Publishers’ Forum 2010. “Without full and complete metadata, and without the capability to output and feed that metadata to the digital supply chain, our titles are destined to be lost in the noise of the market.” Efficient metadata management is crucial for marketing your products on the Web.

Klopotek helps you to get a top search engine position for your content. Metadata management and data supply is in the standard ONIX format (for all types of channels: websites, flyers, catalogues, bookshops, e-book platforms). The system provides automated relationships with complete metadata (product synchronisation). Various target groups can be automatically addressed. There are tools for search engine optimisation (SEO) as well as efficient web services and message-based services.

“We don’t own e-books. Physical books, once purchased, are ours to do with as we like, but we can’t sell, lend or give away an e-publication because we pay a rental license on them: they belong to a corporation. By the same token, there’s no public lending right. Paradoxically, physical books are freer than digital.” (Sean Cubitt, 23/4/2013)

There is a heated and ongoing debate about e-book rental and business models for supplying libraries with e-books. Whatever the outcome may be, Klopotek supports a range of related and sometimes complex business models, such as e-book rental, charging libraries (for example) three times the price of the ‘primary’ print book (but a library only has to buy a copy once), and patron-driven acquisition. PDA allows you to provide libraries with large numbers of e-books while individual titles are only purchased and paid for when a reader orders them.

We’d be delighted to discuss all of this in more detail with you. Please contact one of our Klopotek representatives.