Prospects of electronic publishing in Nigeria

One of the biggest challenges facing publishing in Nigeria today is how to integrate or adopt “e-publishing” (electronic publishing).  Across the world, the coming of computer has completely revolutionized the printing process from manuscript development through printing, marketing and distribution. The “destructive innovation” of e-publishing has worsened the fortunes of many news and academic publishers and major corporations have gone under as a result. Yet, stakeholders differ remarkably in their readiness to embrace the innovation. While some believe e-publishing should be approached and adopted with caution, many others believe it should be rapidly adopted. This study sought to find out the perception of electronic publishing by Nigerian publishers and end-users on: how beneficial do stakeholders consider e-publishing; how ready are end-users for electronically published products; and to what extent have stakeholders in the publishing sector deployed e-publishing. The design for the study was quantitative–cluster and stratified sampling was used to strategically select 39 publishers and 150 end-users. A focus group discussion was conducted among stakeholders to give perspectives to the findings. The study revealed that publishers were considered the main beneficiaries of e-publishing, while authors and marketers benefit the least. End-users of electronically publishers are however more prepared than publishers for e-products. The news publishing sector has deployed e-publishing more than other publishing sub-sectors in Nigeria.   Key words: Electronic-publishing, prospects, publishing, innovation adoption.