Navigating the Evolving e-Publication Landscape
Long gone are the days of print outs, folders, pamphlets and even books. E-readers are becoming a popular method for distributing information for not only popular books and magazines, but large data heavy organizations. Forum One Communications was recently commissioned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to guide the Agency through the changing tides of e-publication platforms, formats and channels.
E-readers' sales are projected to surpass 11 million units in 2011, that’s up 5 million from 2010. In addition, e-publication sales of U.S. trade books grew from 3 percent to 8 percent between 2009 and 2010. Clearly, the platforms and formats are on the rise in the U.S. – a trend that CDC hopes to capitalize upon.
In order to guide the CDC effectively, Forum One conducted background research into e-publications, and developed recommendations specific to the CDC to leverage the technology. We also demonstrated the recommendations through proof of concepts for Amazon’s Kindle (MOBI format) and Apple’s iPad (EPUB format). These are two competing formats for publishing and reading e-books on PDAs, smartphones, cellular phones and e-book devices. Both provide a more powerful and flexible experience than a PDF.
The research examined various aspects of e-publications, including its market size and trends, popular platforms, technology and formats, as well as channel sizes and submission processes, workflow considerations relevant to the CDC, among other things. In short, the research found that the e-publication market is growing quickly, and offers exciting new possibilities in terms of disseminating CDC content in rich presentations to a broader audience. However, at the same time, the e-publication landscape is rapidly evolving and non-standardized. This makes it difficult for organizations to develop strategies based on best practices.
Fortunately, we found it is possible to select a smart subset of technologies, tools and use cases that would maximize CDC’s exposure of relevant content to the world of e-publications.
Although our work primarily focused on how the CDC could utilize e-publications and e-readers for their audiences, there are general rules of thumb that many organizations – especially those rich with content – can follow to leverage the technology:
- First, select a smart subset of technology tool and use cases that will maximize the reach of your content. For example, while the number of e-reader devices and software continues to increase, most are expected to use the EPUB format. However, the Kindle reader represents a significant share of the e-reader market, and it uses the MOBI format.
- Second, if your organization plans to convert large quantities of documents, in-house conversion is probably not the best way to go. The process can be time-consuming. There are a number of professional outsourcing options that are affordable and specialize in bulk document conversions to e-reader formats.
- Lastly, it's important to balance the interactivity and richness of content that many e-readers provide with online dissemination. With HTML5 you can add more rich dynamic content, such as pictures and stylized fonts, than the MOBI and EPUB formats. While this approach ensures a nice user experience for tablet users, the e-publication won’t exist as a stand-alone easy-to-download publication. If you have a publication that is frequently published, a HTML5 version with all the bells and whistles might not be the best way to go.
Regardless of what path you decide to take in the world of e-readers and e-publications, the one constant is that the industry is evolving quickly and impossible to ignore. Good luck on your journey!
Forum One News
Senior Project Officer
Chris grew up in California. He moved on for professional and personal opportunities, and so he satisfies his California Dreamin’ fix by rooting for the San Francisco Giants and the Golden...
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