Book Publishing
Making Sense of the Digital Alphabet Soup
The biggest demands:
- How do I produce multimedia books at lowest possible cost?
- How do I bring freelance authors, graphic artists, and proofreaders together in an efficient virtual editing team?
- How do I retain control over my contents and its distribution?
The digital revolution has spilled over to the book trade. E-books, audio books and PDF editions line the virtual bookshelves of Kindle and iPad devices. But it’s not only the medium that has changed; so have distribution channels. Much like in the music industry, where the number of CDs sold in classic record stores is steadily diminishing, fewer readers are finding their way into the good old bookstore. Today, shoppers order from Amazon and the like. Since the iBook's application for iPad at the very latest, the writing has been on the wall for all to read: The digital revolution offers excellent opportunities for publishers and exciting possibilities for readers.
Specialized publications and school textbooks especially stand to benefit from cross-media and customizing capabilities. So much is possible, including links to the Web or ancillary publications, animations and video tutorials in the digital edition, and books-on-demand tailored for highly specialized subjects or interim versions covering fast-developing topics. All this can transform scientific treatises or complex instructional material into an engaging multimedia experience.
