Electronic books, or “e-books” have been around for 40 years, without posing much of a threat to printed books.
But with the growing popularity of dedicated e-book readers like the Amazon Kindle, and the buzz surrounding Apple’s enigmatic iPad, one wonders if that will ensure e-books appeal amid Blackberry-hungry Indonesians, and thus the tragic death of the traditional publishing.
While all kinds of e-books are freely available via the Internet, official e-book content in Indonesia remains limited. That could change dramatically within the next two years, as Kompas-Gramedia, the country’s largest media conglomerate, is formulating its digital content strategy.
“We are developing Kompas Gramedia Digital. We are focusing on developing e-book content, not a gadget,” says Rio Eka Putra, head of IT & Research at Gramedia, adding they were open to creating content for both the Amazon Kindle and Apple iPad.
Rio describes Gramedia’s approach as a “wait-and-see” one, as the technology is “so new”, and there remain many questions associated with widespread digital content, especially preventing piracy and getting authors on board.
“We are trying to explain to the writers about e-publishing, some still don’t understand what it is, what their rights are,” says Anastasia Mustika, fiction editor at PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama.
Young adult author Andrei Aksana, who agrees to his content being digitized, says “e-books are the future of reading” due to convenience and environmental benefits.
“There are now around 30 million Internet users in Indonesia if I’m not mistaken ... and the numbers are growing very quickly, after India and China. So, e-books have enormous potential. E-books mean we can read any time, anywhere [with internet-ready devices] such as Blackberry, iPhone, although it’s a pity these [devices] are mostly only enjoyed by the middle class.”
Clara Ng, author of the MetroPop series and children’s story books, also accepts digitisation, as it would allow more to access her books.
Full report here The Jakarta Post
Showing posts with label e-publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label e-publishing. Show all posts
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Future of e-Publishing in India
e-publishing is very broad and encompasses a variety of publishing patterns, such as eBooks, print-on-demand, email publishing, web publishing services, etc. The Indian typesetting industry is in its nascent stage and is only a few decades old...
DURING 2000, there was scuffle between technology and content and the fight still continues as of this date. With the advancement of the technology, one question always strikes so as to whether e-readers would one day replace print books entirely.
E-publishing is very broad and encompasses a variety of publishing patterns, such as eBooks, print-on-demand, email publishing, web publishing services, etc.
The Indian typesetting industry is in its nascent stage and is only a few decades old. In India, typesetting activity commenced as providing data-conversion services to some foreign publishers. To this date, the Indian typesetting industry is poised to provide almost complete pre-press services to various global publishers. India continues to be a favoured outsourcing address, followed by the United States, Philippines, China and the United Kingdom. The industry is facing challenges in terms of global recession, the appreciating rupee and the emergence of new media. The publishers' expectations are increasing in terms of consistent quantity and quality, reduced pricing, multiple and complex deliverables and need to deal with fewer suppliers. Publishing has to encompass a gamut of services under one roof. For full-service jobs to be managed in-house, end-to-end services are the need of the hour for a typesetter/vendor in India.
India’s high-quality, cost-efficient services and huge competent human resources have transformed it to a spellbound address for global publishers. Fast turnaround times and the capability to provide round-the-clock services facilitate India as the most favoured terminus for typesetting. Office politics, fear of stagnation, stressful work schedule, and having to work night shifts are among the few primary concerns of Indian employees. Over the past few months, we all professionals have been a part and parcel of some kind of cost-cutting measures adopted by our respective employers; the various major approaches being: going digital, reducing print publishing, cutting different overhead costs, cutting salaries, bonus cuts, retrenchments, forced leaves, to name a few.
In spite of confronting the challenges of rupee values, talent crunch and growth of newer media, Indian e-publishing industry is estimated to spring up by 35 per cent and provide a 1.46 billion dollar outsourcing chance by the end of 2010.
To this day, India is also known world-wide as a major book-publishing country. Having more than around 17,000 publishing entities producing content in more than 29 regional languages, India is a huge market for ePublishing. After the IT boom, the conventional publishers in India have moved their business orientation into the ePublishing sector with diverse products. Till date, some among the Indian publishers have brought forth a large amount of ePublications catering to both Indian and foreign readers.
In the Indian context, the most substantial and satisfying potentiality is within the operations field, followed by editorial services. India is all set to come out as an impregnable and strong editorial and ePublishing base in the near future. Moreover, there have been acquisitions of companies in both the unorganised and organised sectors.
The publishing industry has been witnessing a paradigm shift from print to digital publishing. Starting with increasing costs of production and print, the industry is making a strenuous effort to deal with the digital content demand as opposed to print.
These days, service providers have also joined the eBook trend by actively offering eBook production. Technology is a great entry point into the publishing outsourcing sphere. Moreover, a great deal of peripheral IT and ITES companies has started working on it.
Full report here Meri News
DURING 2000, there was scuffle between technology and content and the fight still continues as of this date. With the advancement of the technology, one question always strikes so as to whether e-readers would one day replace print books entirely.
E-publishing is very broad and encompasses a variety of publishing patterns, such as eBooks, print-on-demand, email publishing, web publishing services, etc.
The Indian typesetting industry is in its nascent stage and is only a few decades old. In India, typesetting activity commenced as providing data-conversion services to some foreign publishers. To this date, the Indian typesetting industry is poised to provide almost complete pre-press services to various global publishers. India continues to be a favoured outsourcing address, followed by the United States, Philippines, China and the United Kingdom. The industry is facing challenges in terms of global recession, the appreciating rupee and the emergence of new media. The publishers' expectations are increasing in terms of consistent quantity and quality, reduced pricing, multiple and complex deliverables and need to deal with fewer suppliers. Publishing has to encompass a gamut of services under one roof. For full-service jobs to be managed in-house, end-to-end services are the need of the hour for a typesetter/vendor in India.
India’s high-quality, cost-efficient services and huge competent human resources have transformed it to a spellbound address for global publishers. Fast turnaround times and the capability to provide round-the-clock services facilitate India as the most favoured terminus for typesetting. Office politics, fear of stagnation, stressful work schedule, and having to work night shifts are among the few primary concerns of Indian employees. Over the past few months, we all professionals have been a part and parcel of some kind of cost-cutting measures adopted by our respective employers; the various major approaches being: going digital, reducing print publishing, cutting different overhead costs, cutting salaries, bonus cuts, retrenchments, forced leaves, to name a few.
In spite of confronting the challenges of rupee values, talent crunch and growth of newer media, Indian e-publishing industry is estimated to spring up by 35 per cent and provide a 1.46 billion dollar outsourcing chance by the end of 2010.
To this day, India is also known world-wide as a major book-publishing country. Having more than around 17,000 publishing entities producing content in more than 29 regional languages, India is a huge market for ePublishing. After the IT boom, the conventional publishers in India have moved their business orientation into the ePublishing sector with diverse products. Till date, some among the Indian publishers have brought forth a large amount of ePublications catering to both Indian and foreign readers.
In the Indian context, the most substantial and satisfying potentiality is within the operations field, followed by editorial services. India is all set to come out as an impregnable and strong editorial and ePublishing base in the near future. Moreover, there have been acquisitions of companies in both the unorganised and organised sectors.
The publishing industry has been witnessing a paradigm shift from print to digital publishing. Starting with increasing costs of production and print, the industry is making a strenuous effort to deal with the digital content demand as opposed to print.
These days, service providers have also joined the eBook trend by actively offering eBook production. Technology is a great entry point into the publishing outsourcing sphere. Moreover, a great deal of peripheral IT and ITES companies has started working on it.
Full report here Meri News
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