12 May 2014
Publishing is a messy business. Many of its practices and some of its thinking pre-date digital. Some of it pre-dates computers. Its digital journey will not be linear, and even if it emerges fully-formed from this electronic swamp, chances are that it will still be a messy business.
In his overview of the Publisher Association's Statistics Yearbook 2013, PA president and Elsevier director of strategy Nick Fowler commented that the most "remarkable feature" of the yearbook is "the sheer breadth of activity covered". He is right. Publishing (of books and journals) is a £4.7bn activity undertaken by 27,000 employees. Not bad for a business that some believe is defunct.
