The Creation of an RNIB Centre for the Migration, Origination, Archiving and Production of Alternative Format Files
Marketing
5.1 The purpose of marketing is to:
- Inform the market of what needs can be met
- Generate new demand.
5.2 In spite of its central importance, the demand for material in alternative formats is very small and therefore prevents organisations like RNIB from benefiting from any economies of scale. These markets currently generate a very high origination to duplication cost. This may be met in future from a public subsidy for origination but, nonetheless, the overall picture is of considerable effort for very low uptake:
- In spite of the increase in broadcasting and audio books, the uptake of Talking Books has been disappointingly static over the past decade
- The braille publishing infrastructure has been relatively unproductive in terms of capital investment and uptake of books for loan or sale has been low
- The modified print market, potentially much the biggest, has a narrow title base largely in light fiction.
5.3 Joint marketing through a Share the Vision (STV) initiative has not worked because it has always been primarily concerned with metadata rather than production and marketing. NLB's hard copy publications have lost their ambition to reflect RNIB publishing and RNIB's own publishing, largely focused on Talking Books has left braille production almost unannounced.
5.4 The creation of a multi media file centre with a variety of outputs will provide RNIB with a major fund raising and marketing opportunity. If we cannot reach a genuinely collaborative marketing strategy with other producers in the sector then our marketing must be competitive.