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Wiley's higher education division could be producing solely digital products within five years, its sales and marketing manager Neil Broomfield told delegates at the APSBG conference.
As part of a presentation in which Broomfield demonstrated its WileyPLUS range—an online teaching and learning programme—he forecast that by 2015 the division's entire output could be digital. Speaking to The Bookseller after the event, Broomfield said this was "crystal-ball gazing", and stressed it was "not a stated policy" of the publisher. He said that WileyPLUS was currently "mainly being sold as the print book with the access code [for online content], but in the US, we are selling just the access code".
He added: "It's been extremely popular so far . . . and what we are finding is the online aspect is growing. We might get to a point in the next five to 10 years where we don't have any print product at all, or with a minimal print element."
Broomfield highlighted Wiley's most recent financial results—three quarters to end-January 2010—in which non-traditional sales, including digital, grew 40% to make up 26% of total higher education revenues, compared with 13% growth in books. "If you projected that forward, it would be reasonable to expect that to grow significantly over the next three years," he said.
Some booksellers listening to the presentation expressed concern, with some questioning where the role of retailer would be in this new world order.
Speaking to The Bookseller, Broomfield said: "There is no reason why it should exclude them. Traditionally, booksellers play a role in that they give a service to academic institutions by being a one-stop shop and provider of information, and I don't see that in a digital world that necessarily has to change.
"I could see a role for campus bookshops in acting as an intermediary between university and publisher. Currently, we are predominantly selling this product via the bookshops. They are our shop window in lots of ways."