The ins and the outs of electronic publishing

Electronic publishing needs a strong input of marketing thinking. Technological hype has created a sales fetish which has little evidence to support its claims. The substantive benefits when a broader perspective is taken for authors and readers are very significant, including considerably faster publication and much wider dissemination via Internet. Archival knowledge and current awareness/browsing of the body of knowledge and information require quite different marketing approaches. Little attention has been given to their discrete needs. Draws comparisons from retailing theory and from the emerging range of experimental cases from Internet pioneers to identify robust strategies for short‐ and medium‐term action by publishers. They imply a determined effort to avoid hard selling and product‐driven mindsets in favor of exploitation of the scope for interactive and integrated marketing to authors and readers alike.