Abstract

The article analyze the main sectors of the publishing industry highlighting major features and factors that encourage or curb the shift from physical to intangible. To-day publishers are able to find a very wild on-line market for their products that offer the possibility to change in deep the organizational and costing structure, the time to market of the editorial contents and their life cycle. In the article is described also how on-line market give the possibility to broad or create the market of niche products. Introducing a selling mode no longer involving a physical good poses the problem of how to create or replace three little known, albeit decisive, factors in the purchase transaction. The first one is the pride of ownership, i.e. the pride and pleasure of possessing and collecting a physical object like a book or a record. The second is the reverberation effect which afford the customer an economy of scale when he visit a traditional bookshop and he can choose and taste in a very short time a large set of product. The third one is the simple pleasure of shopping or window-shopping that often will induce an impulse to buy.