While Continuing To Serve Market Demands For Paper-Based Books And Journals, Many AAP Members Now Operate Internet Websites

As the principal national trade association of the U.S. book publishing industry, AAP represents some 300 member companies and organizations that include most of the major commercial book publishers in the United States, as well as many small and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies. AAP members publish hardcover and paperback books in every field of human interest. Among these members are the nation’s leading trade publishers, who produce a wide array of fictional and non-fictional literary works that include the “best sellers” enjoyed by millions of readers of all ages and backgrounds. Also among them are the nation’s leading educational publishers, who produce textbooks and other instructional and testing materials covering the entire range of elementary, secondary, postsecondary and professional educational needs. While continuing to serve market demands for paper-based books and journals, many AAP members now operate Internet websites and produce computer programs, databases, multimedia products, and other electronic software for use online and in other digital formats. Many are also making substantial investments in the nascent “e-book” market, where the reader’s use and enjoyment of all kinds of literary works may be greatly enhanced through the added functionality that books in digital formats can offer when read on computer screens or through hand-held personal digital appliances. Many AAP members are vigorously responding to the popular embrace of the Internet as an exciting new commercial and educational medium. They understand the medium’s unprecedented capabilities for flawless and instantaneous reproduction, distribution, performance and display of text, images and sounds on a global basis. Like other media industries, book publishers are rethinking and revising their business models to adjust to the opportunities and risks created by these capabilities in a marketplace of increasing competition and evolving consumer preferences. Confidence in their ability to exploit and enforce copyright interests in the digital online environment is a key factor in shaping these new business models