The e-book: a new challenge for the publishing market. How an italian publishing house can enter the US market through teconology.

This work of thesis has the purposes of analyzing how an Italian medium small publishing house like ELI can be able to enter successfully the American market. The main point, developed in this work, is the role that technological innovation is playing during the latter transformation phase of the industry. The thesis consists in six chapters in which there are analyzed all the factors that are able to determine and influence the entrance of the Italian publishing company in the American market.

Chapter 1 can provide to the reader some theoretical and academic basis about international marketing techniques and analyses. [...]

Chapter II is entirely dedicated to the company ELI. It is a medium publishing house of Recanati (near Ancona) which mainly creates books and materials for learning foreign languages. This chapter deals with a deep description of the firm in every specific field of its operational system regarding its partners, clients, products, distribution, communication and promotion strategies put into place until now.

Chapter III presents an analysis of the Italian publishing market and its components. [...]

Chapter IV describes, with the same parameter of chapter III, the US publishing market and the reading US students reading habits. In order to sustain better the entrance of ELI in the American market, it is very important to study that specific market and understand all the trends and gaps that it is facing. In this way Eli may have the possibility of taking advantages from them. This chapter describes the grade of foreign language learning by American students and the most used channels, in order to have a large view of the American scenario.

The chapter V represents the heart of the thesis because it discusses the e-book technology and its importance in the publishing markets of both countries, Italy and US.
The chapter, firstly, focuses in the explanation of what e-book is and how it can change the teaching and learning behaviors and then it observes the differences between Italian and American publishing market, in terms of usage of digital books. In the last part of the chapter it is also analyzed the economic prospect of the company and it is performed a cost and profit simulation in order to recognize which real and economic changes the e-book can bring to ELI.

Finally, in chapter VI, there are described all the possible strategies that, thanks to the previous analysis, might be profitable for ELI in order to enter and become successful in the American market. Possible strategies might vary from books in paper format, mixed formats (paper and digital) or fully digital format.