From The New Publishers Standard:
Put simply digital opens up markets where a traditional print-focused strategy, with all the inherent costs involved with printing, warehousing, distribution and remaindered stock, will often be unviable.
. . . .
Rowman & Littlefield’s Alex Kind . . . has pivoted to the newly created role of European and digital sales manager, which will see Rowman & Littlefield take direct account management of Europe for the first time in its history. Kind will also be heading up R&L’s acceleration of digital delivery of content globally.
. . . .
It’s not clear how much this particular decision is down to last year’s pandemic-driven global pivot to digital publishing, but is an example of the way western publishers are looking afresh at digitally-focussed global opportunities.
. . . .
As this year unfolds and the pandemic continues to ravage the planet, we can expect digital to assume an ever more central role in the global publishing ecosystem.
Savvy publishers will, like Rowman & Littlefield, be exploring the global possibilities a hybrid print and digital strategy brings, not clinging to pre-pandemic models that were already in decline before this decade began.
Link to the rest at The New Publishers Standard
PG notes that this took long enough for someone in traditional publishing to notice.
US indie authors have been international with their ebooks since about five minutes after KDP provided checkboxes for Canada, Britain, and Australia. He assumes UK, Canadian and Australian indie authors made similar decisions within similar timeframes.
(PG expresses gratitude that, as opposed to kilometers, pounds, euros, etc., his English-speaking distant cousins around the world all share the same methods of expressing hours and minutes as their kin in the US do.)