Some Tasty Bits from the StartWithXML UK Survey

Laura Dawson
August 5, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

We've got some raw results from the StartWithXML survey in the UK, and they are very different in some respects from the US survey we did. Some salient points:

• 48.7% of the respondents were in the STM market, followed by trade (24.4%) and college (16%).
• The bulk of respondents were from large houses - 50.4% - and the rest were evenly divided between midsized and small presses.
• Nearly 55% of the respondents considered themselves "tech-proficient." As most of them were from production or management, this was not surprising. We did have a significant number of editorial respondents, however - 19.3%.
• To 40.6% of our respondents, digital publishing is "very important - it informs all we do." Meanwhile, 59.4% of respondents are grappling with its impact in their companies. Only 17.8% of respondents say that they do not focus on the downstream uses of their book content, but on the print volume alone.
• As far as expanded editions are concerned, 53.5% of publishers say they don't offer these. And 69.3% do not offer more than the basic ONIX marketing content (cover image, description, first chapter, table of contents) in their digital marketing efforts.
• Over 73% of publishers do not have a formalized (formalised, if you're in the UK) DAM system.
• And over 50% do not maintain files in an XML format.
• Nearly 69% of respondents have problems retrieving files from storage, and have to institute workarounds. But over 56% look at XML as a way of complementing CMS and DAM tools they have already invested in.