Typesetting- a craft without which ebooks and ebook readers cannot exist

Typesetting has always been considered a technical process concerned with the layout of the content on a page to make it ready for publishing. But as much as it is a technical process, it’s an art too, which takes the help of a designer to make the layout timeless, enhance the mood of the storyline while keeping the text easy to read.

In the olden days, typesetting was broken down into two processes- typography which is the designer’s art of designing the type; and typesetting, which is more of a technical process involving the actual setting of the type.

However, much like everything else, typesetting too has undergone a sea change, with the lines between typesetting and typography almost diminishing. And it is this change which lies at the bottom of the digital publishing revolution that we are currently seeing. We would not be exaggerating if we said that ebooks and ebook publishing won’t exist if typesetting wouldn’t have evolved.

Everyone can see the laborious hand-setting process of typesetting give way to desktop enabled page composition, which has made the process faster, more accurate and definitely a lot cheaper.

However, what does not meet the eye is the development in the domain of typography. There have been numerous developments in typography but the most significant has been that of scalable fonts.

The digital fonts which are scalable have slowly lead to a plethora of designs which has given typesetting a new dimension. What has also changed in the domain of typesetting and typography is standardization of fonts and scripts.

It is these developments which have enabled ebook publishing, ebook readers and digital publishing to be a reality. It has also made smart phones like iPhone a reality and expanded the domains of the web. Typesetting is a technical process alright; but it’s a craft- a craft which has undergone changes over the years to bring about a revolution in the publishing world.

And we at BookGenie understand these changes and how to best optimize them for your benefit. We have the expertise to handle digital typesetting in multiple languages including Spanish, German, English and French. You can always get in touch with us to know more about typesetting and how we can best help you get the best of typesetting services.

E-book publishing for children’s books- a perspective

The market for children’s books offers an exciting opportunity for publishers to have a sizeable pie of digital publishing. And the game changer has been the apps. Apps based on various popular bedtime stories give a whole new interactivity to story-telling, and kids always love interactive things. The fact that they can play Cindrella and experience the story in first person definitely sounds exciting. However, is application development the best way to go about digital publishing for children’s books? Let’s take a look.

The only major ebook reading device which offers the apps support is iPad, and perhaps even the iPhone. However, there are millions of apps out there, and even though yours maybe a book related app, it’s still an app at the end of the day. Thus, you can never be sure where users are actually using the book related applications or not. But it’s different with e-book publishing. When you release e-books for various dedicated platforms, you are sure that people use these platforms for reading ebooks, and thus you have a better chance.

That gives e-book publishing an edge over application development. And with colorful illustrations possible for the digital formats out there, it really makes up for the interactivity quotient to some extent. Trust us, illustrations for children’s books for digital publishing are not that hard if you choose BookGenie.

Coming back to the debate of applications and epublishing for children’s books, even if publishers find apps the better way, they should think about exploring a little. Right now, iOS may be the only viable option, but the Android market is growing, and HTML 5 could be the game changer. Publishers should think about exploring new platforms for their children’s books’ apps if they are to have an advantage. Of course, we are there to help you in case you need any.

ePublishing- the need to be innovative with pricing

Right then, the sale of ebooks is on the rise and is fast outstripping the sale of print books. That’s no secret at all. According to the most recent data, the sale of ebooks has tripled over the last year or so. However, when it comes to the returns, the digital publishing domain still accounts for only 20% of the revenue for the publishers; the rest is taken up by the print medium.

The most plausible reason for the above- readers’ aversion to higher priced ebooks. The virtual boycott of ebooks on Kindle which were priced higher than USD 9.99 is proof of that. And it’s quite obvious- when readers are not allowing publishers to price their digital content over a certain price, publishers’ margins are hit, and thus, their revenue comes down.

However, all is not lost yet. This paradigm shift, with the popularity of epublishing, has given a chance to publishers to experiment with their pricing models. The fixed price model of the brick and mortar store may not be very profitable anymore.

Blame it on the internet, which has gotten people used to freebies. But you can’t change that phenomenon. What you can change as a publisher is your business model. There are definite ways out there to increase your revenue from e-publishing while giving the consumers what they want.

A plausible business model could be that of rentals. Although popular logic has it that rental libraries are not very profitable, but it could just fit in the digital publishing domain. The catch is to keep the rental at the lowest possible.

Using DVD rentals as a parallel, if production houses start giving DVDs on rent for $1, it would prompt the consumers to go for the authentic stuff instead of searching for freebies. And since the low price tag would drive the volume, production houses can get to make some profit too. Similarly, giving out ebooks on rent for a stipulated period of time at a low cost can help generate revenue and the profits through volume.

We are aware that the e-publishing sector is already following such a model for the libraries, but here, we are not talking about the libraries; we are talking about the individuals.

The good thing with digital publishing is selling the complete content is not the only source of income. There are a whole lot of other avenues if publishers are ready to explore them. Selling the content in parts to app developers and displaying advertisements within the ebooks are just a couple of them.

There is another interesting pricing model for ebook publishing sector which may or may not hit the target but is worth the short. Publishers could give the readers their ebooks for free. As a publisher, you would always scream- what kind of business model is that? Well, give the readers ebooks for free only to be read online; if they wish to take them home, that is, download them on their PC or Tablet, charge them for that.

The above could work two ways; one, it could also open up the readers to the joy of reading authentic stuff, against the pirated versions; two, it could prompt the readers to buy the printed version after going through the digital version online.

Innovation is the name of the game. The ebook publishing market is just evolving and it’s a level playing field out there. It gives all the publishers a chance to experiment, and those who will are more likely to reap the benefits later.

Why and how to venture into cost effective publishing!

Media industry analysts estimate that newsprint accounts for up to 20% of a newspaper's overall costs. This applies to print books also. Do you feel that increase in newsprint cost and other raw materials are obstacles for profitable publishing? Obviously, there are alternative ways to bring cost-effective publishing. Technical advancements have made it possible to publish ebooks (electronic books) that are available in the form of CDs and Portable Document Format (PDF). These could be read through internet or hand held devices.

Traditional pre press services for print books has disadvantages

1.      Conversion of bulk volume of data could give more errors

2.      Lack of experts in the respective discipline makes it difficult for publishers to take up Scientific and Technical and Medical publishing (STM) tasks. STM publishing has got good scope for future research and every country in the world is eager to motivate and allocate more for funds for STM research. There is more scope for ebooks in STM publishing sector.   

3.      Data capture and recovery processes for printed books in the traditional methods are slow. They are costlier than the digital content conversion processes. 

4.      Ease of distribution of print books is not easy. There are publishers, printers and mostly distributors also in the conventional way. The end user can get books directly from the distributor only. It takes months together to reach the readers. Processing from the input manuscript or typed pages to the print book format in the conventional way may get blocked anywhere in this chain.  

Outsourcing publishing projects

There is increased volume of ebook users globally and outsourcing those projects to prepress service providers is the viable solution for reducing the publishing cost.

1.      Publishing support providers might be well experienced in handling outsourced projects

2.      As readers look for more old and rare books, publishers can republish them in ebook format at affordable prices and increase their profit margin.

3.      Quality service provider will deliver 100% quality solutions by the timeline. Timeline is most crucial to tap the marketing trends in a shorter span time to be competitive.

4.      Error free output with high quality as advanced ebook should be compatible with popular handheld devices which will induce more end users to go for ebooks

5.      Fast and simple distribution of published ebook or PDF file is another area where ebook publishing has an edge over conventional book publishing.

Outsourcing publishing projects will reduce the cost and publishers can rely upon on timely deliverables from reputed publishing support provider. BookGenie is a leading publishing support provider, who has got wide experience in STM publishing, K12 books and trade books. With API integration, they have synchronized with ePub conversion to read ebooks through Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, Apple iPad and Nook. Instead of the automated tools, BookGenie offers in house products to track the status of the outsourced publishing projects. Moreover they take up individual stages like typesetting also for the publishers or they can take up the whole as project management. Publishers can access BookGenie to get reliable solutions for their projects.