The ability to adapt and evolve is the key to survival, said Dr. Marco Olavarria of the German management consultancy Kirchner & Robrech, during  a Friday afternoon seminar with the provocative title, “How Not to Be a Dinosaur.”“We’ve had an exciting decade of change, but that’s nothing like what is coming up,” he said citing statistics from Forrester Research estimating that 3 million e-readers were sold in the US in 2009 and there are some 70 e-readers on or expected to reach the market by the end of 2010. The smart phone market offers a different opportunity: In Germany, for example, there are some 1.5 million iPhones in use.“We’re not talking about e-paper any longer,” said Dr. Olavarria, “we’re talking about new products. The better these products get, but the fewer books are on these devices, the more readers they will lose. Book publishers now have to compete with magazine publishers.”The idea is that if you’re publishing a cookbook these days, you’ll also be competing with a cooking magazine; a travel guide publisher will be competing with a travel guide publisher.For textbooks, companies such as Macmillan are offering professors the opportunity to create “DynamicBooks,” a system that allows authors to alter a book to suit an individual course. And the point where students may convert to all digital textbooks may not be too far off: Already in a survey conducted by Springer, some 73% of students said they were comfortable working with e-books.“I believe publishers in the future will provide comprehensive media solutions,” said Dr. Olavarria. “In the electronic world, you need to give the customer the whole solution.”Part of the emerging market will be “special interest offerings,” which target specific groups. You’ll start to see, for example, special subsidized readers that will be given to students with pre-installed content.Ultimately, it’s the value creation chain that is changing: “If things go really bad, nobody will need publishers any longer. We’re getting all these tools that anyone can use on the Internet.”Say that you’re writing a book but can’t finish it, you can log on to humangrid.de, where you can find a freelancer who can finish your book for you.Say you need editing, you can try tredition.com, which brings together authors and editors. Design? Try designenlassen.de where you can get a logo or book cover designed for little money. Need it converted into an Iphone app? Try textunes.de.How can your publishing house cope with all this competition? “Sharpen your focus, take a long term view,” said Olavarria. “Look at technological developments, consider the changing value chain, look at author’s publishing behavior – it’s not always going to be more prestigious to publish a book.” agile, identify business opportunities quickly, and develop a trial-and-error culture.”“The better is the enemy of the good – look at the music industry, look at the travel industry – don’t let that happen to you,” he urged.