The publishing industry has come a long way. With the emergence of e-publications, reading habits have changed significantly. Digital publications allows readers to carry a whole library in their digital devices like cell phones, tablets, computers and ebook readers, which are accessible from anywhere at any time. This led to the popularity of the e publishing industry. Many authors are now open to publishing their work as ebooks in order to reach out to a wider audience. Companies providing data conversion services offer epub conversion services and ebook conversion services, which have enabled the publishing industry to go digital.
Digital books offer many benefits compared to print books such as lower production costs, lower inventory costs, and ability to build a stronger global customer base. The initial response also appears faster with ebooks. According to Statista,
- Revenue in the ePublishing segment is expected to increase to US$27,626m in 2020.
- Revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2020-2025) of 4.7%, with a projected market volume of US$34,690m by 2025.
- User penetration is expected to hit 23.3% by 2025.
- The average revenue per user (ARPU) is expected to amount to US$15.52.
Here are some of the top 5 digital publishing trends predicted for 2021.
- Audio book will continue to grow: A 2019 survey by Edison Research reported that half of all Americans over the age of 12 listened to an audio book in the past year. Fifty percent of the listeners were below the age of 45. The survey also showed a growth of audio book users from 2018 to 2019. Several independent authors also experimented with audio books in 2020. According to The Bookseller, a leading business magazine, audio formats are on the rise and there will be 8 billion voice assistants by 2023.
- Big changes driven by AI: Huge advancements in AI are expected in 2021, and this mainly includes the ability of authors to publish their work using AI. AI based tools promotes efficiency in the publishing process, thereby helping both publishers and authors. AI provides automated text analysis that makes the whole epublishing process easier.
- Open Access Era: Scholarly publishing has been growing over the years and epub in this segment is on the rise. Open access has helped with cost reduction. Digital publishing allows academic papers to be shared online and read without any fee or paid subscription. It provides an opportunity to provide access to information to anyone from anywhere and also educate and enlighten people.
- Metadata interoperability: Metadata is a key element in digital content and in epublishing. Adding the right meta tags is necessary for resources to be found online. Metadata 2020 has kickstarted a collaboration to promote richer, connected, and reusable, open metadata for all research work.
- Easy access: The goal of publishing industry is to make content available to the users in different formats and help even people with hearing disabilities. Improving access will provide a better user experience and help people access content more efficiently, which will improve readership. The Accessible Book Consortium is encouraging all publishers to adopt epublishing as it is the gold standard to produce more accessible digital journals.
The expansion of the ebook market has led to the emergence of various ebook formats, which in turn, has increased the demand for ebook conversion services. An established data conversion service provider can convert any data or book into electronic format. Companies with extensive industry experience provide superior quality ebook conversion solutions for authors, publishers, universities, and more.
