As Information Entrepreneurs, sometimes we feel like “second-class citizens” who aren’t credible in today’s world.  It’s easy to feel like since our products don’t occupy shelf space as Barnes & Noble, our products don’t matter as much or carry as much weight.  Today, Pearson, the world’s largest publishing company made some statements about digital products buried deep in their earnings report that is very interesting to us.

Here’s an excerpt from a Pearson earnings report today (emphasis provided)…

Our digital products and services are blossoming.
This past year, digital sales reached £2bn – one-third of all Pearson’s sales. Our digital learning programmes now serve almost 50 million students; Penguin’s ebook sales doubled last year and are now 12% of its total; the FT’s digital subscriptions jumped 29% to 267,000 (and in the US, as a sign of things to come, we now have more digital subscribers than newspaper subscribers).

Pearson is the world’s largest publishing company.  They understand that hard-copy books days are numbered.  Don’t let anyone tell you that digital products don’t pay!

As usual, the key is providing value and making that value accessible and most useful to our customers.  I’m proud to be on the cusp of the digital product wave.  It’s a great time to be producing digital information!