While Music and Entertainment industries struggle to survive MP3 and piracy, book publishers seem to be a step ahead even though there’s a lot yet to change.

In Brazil, as most school and university teachers only need book excerpts for their classes, students have been copying instead of buying the book itself. According to O Estado de São Paulo, one of the major Brazilian newspapers, publishers have losses of approximately US$ 200 million per year with Xerox copies.

So in August 2007 twelve major publishers joined a project called The Teacher Folder. It allows teachers from authorized schools and universities to select which parts of books they need and their students can buy chapters instead of the entire book. Students order online and the price is 20% higher than the copies (not too much considering that it is still a lot cheaper than the book).

The idea is great and at least they realize that forcing people to buy books they don´t necessarily need won´t help them at all. But yet there’s a lot for them to understand if they want to succeed in a world where the Web has been shifting business models everywhere. The Teacher Folder does not allow downloading so students have to pick up the print versions at authorized stores and the copies carry their names and ID numbers (in the end it is just a legal xerox copying system).

Sorry, but it won’t keep them from sharing with friends. A new business mentality is needed. We already have authors who prefer to give their masterpieces online for free then having it sold in bookstores. We already have swapping websites. So publishers will also need to figure out a way do deal with copyright, on-demand content, online advertising and e-commerce.
The future won’t be in printing. That’s for sure. But ok, selling chapters is already something...