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Abstract
This dataset presents longitudinal data collected through four surveys (in six-monthly intervals) of fresh university and polytechnic graduates in Nigeria. The data were collected from 21,940 unique young men and women who underwent National Youth Service Corps (nysc) programme across ten states in Nigeria. The nysc programme is a compulsory one-year national service that all Nigerians under the age of 30 years must undergo after graduation. A key component of the one-year service is the Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (saed) programme of the nysc. The dataset is useful for many purposes. It contains enough information to fully profile the entrepreneurship and apprenticeship characteristics of the fresh graduates. Moreover, it can be used to quantify the potential pool of future entrepreneurs among highly educated Nigerian youth. The dataset was originally used to assess the impact of saed, being an apprenticeship-based entrepreneurship intervention, on entrepreneurial outcomes among young persons. However, its use may also extend to an assessment of the impact of compulsory entrepreneurship training in the Nigerian university system that produced most of the respondents.
Abstract
There is a community of people in Lithuania who experience difficulties in reading printed books. When ebooks are scarce they are left without proper access to an important information source. Comparing the Lithuanian results with data from other contexts, we find that the availability of ebooks in Lithuania is scarcer than in other developed countries: they are from two to three times less available. Computer use and access to internet use in Lithuania over the past decade has increased by 20 per cent; however, access to ebooks grew at a slower pace. Analysis of the most popular books indicates that relatively few of them are available in ebook format, which suggests deliberate choices to promote printed books by restraining the release of ebook versions. From 2010 to 2019, on average, only 14 per cent of printed titles published were available in one of the ebook formats.
Abstract
Alternative (alt) text descriptions for images in digital publications provide comparable information for people who cannot effectively see the visuals. They are relied upon by people who are blind or who have a moderate to severe visual impairment and who use assistive technologies. However, consistent provision of alt text is proving challenging for publishers because of the required changes in workflow, budgeting, and resourcing; in particular, scholarly publications contain high numbers of images requiring alt text. Most industry knowledge-sharing and studies on alt text in scholarly PDFs focus on large and medium-sized publishers and high JIF titles. To explore key issues affecting the consistent inclusion of alt text in publications produced by small and non-profit publishers this study uses the case of a UK-based independent research organization. Drawing on PDF analyses and a focus group discussion with publishing staff, the article makes recommendations for similar organizations seeking to publish alt text.
Abstract
This article analyses the impact that TikTok has on the publishing industry from the perspectives of professionals, content creators, and readers on the platform, as obtained through a series of interviews and an online questionnaire. It investigates why the BookTok community seems to be able to have a direct influence on book sales, and also enquires how publishers are reacting to this phenomenon. Thanks to the primary research, this study juxtaposes the performance on TikTok of its case studies (taken from the Big Five publishers) with the direct feedback of BookTok members, identifying common elements that indicate how the companies are perceived and which approach to the platform resonates the most with their young audiences. The article provides suggestions of how publishers can either improve their usage of TikTok or navigate it for the first time.
Abstract
This paper examines the benefits of the BookTok and Bookstagram communities for authors and explains how the latter can use the platforms to engage with readers and promote their work online. The first half of this article examines the importance of content creators in the book community. The second part explains how authors can use these platforms to grow their readership and, in turn, promote their books. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the benefits to authors of utilizing social media and how the relationship between content creator and author can be highly useful in generating engagement and excitement around books.
Abstract
This article explores UK bookselling in terms of the retail buying functions, promotional activity, merchandising, and stock management processes commonly adopted. The business structures and mechanisms that dictate organizational book buying in the UK market are also explored in terms of the time allowed for titles to succeed or fail. These very practical and logistical aspects of retailing are brought to life by the qualitative data obtained through seven semi-structured interviews in 2018–2019. The sample represented actors across the UK publishing industry supply chain but focused predominantly on the book buyer function. This research finds that the sale-or-return purchasing model, prevalent in the UK book trade, plays a crucial role in dictating the window of opportunity for books to succeed or fail; the book-buyer gatekeeper function is pivotal and highly sensitive to local demand; and that local demand is fulfilled through the curation of predictable or proven products in combination with novel or speculative products – the level of purchasing risk is dependent on retail location and footfall. These findings are aligned with organizational buyer behaviour, retail location theory, and buyer behaviour theory.