THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS ON BOOK PUBLISHING INDUSTRY IN MALAYSIA

The advancement of technology over the past few decades has tremendously changed the strategic environment of book publishing industry. Some of these changes included the coexistence of printed book and e-book in the market, the development of online bookselling, and also the increased competitions in the market. Today, the publishing supply and value chain are no longer the same as before. This has created new challenges to the industry. Taking all these issues into consideration, this study attempts to highlight the questions of how the current situation is for Malaysia, and to what extent technological developments have affected the strategic environment of book publishing industry in this country. The findings of the documentary sources analysis shows that, the emergence of e-book has brought an alternative option of reading and book buying to Malaysian readers. However, the market remained stagnant and yet to show any significant growth. Meanwhile, online bookselling is observed to be growing noticeably, especially through e-commerce and social media platforms. Apart from that, there is also a substantial increase of small independent publishers in the industry impacted by the emergence of the Internet and social media.