Electronic publishing

Electronic publishing (also referred to as e-publishing or digital publishing or online publishing) includes the digital publication of e-books, digital magazines, and the development of digital libraries and catalogues. Electronic publishing has become common in scientific publishing where it has been argued that peer-reviewed scientific journals are in the process of being replaced by electronic publishing. It is also becoming common to distribute books, magazines, and newspapers to consumers through tablet reading devices, a market that is growing by millions each year,[1] generated by online vendors such as Apple's iTunes bookstore, Amazon's bookstore for Kindle, and books in the Google Play Bookstore. Market research suggests that half of all magazine and newspaper circulation will be via digital delivery by the end of 2015[2] and that half of all reading in the United States will be done without paper by 2015.[3]

Although distribution via the Internet (also known as online publishing or web publishing when in the form of a website) is nowadays strongly associated with electronic publishing, there are many non network electronic publications such as Encyclopedias on CD and DVD, as well as technical and reference publications relied on by mobile users and others without reliable and high speed access to a network. Electronic publishing is also being used in the field of test-preparation in developed as well as in developing economies for student education (thus partly replacing conventional books) - for it enables content and analytics combined - for the benefit of students. The use of electronic publishing for textbooks may become more prevalent with iBooks from Apple Inc. and Apple's negotiation with the three largest textbook suppliers in the U.S.[4] Electronic publishing is increasingly popular in works of fiction. Electronic publishers are able to respond quickly to changing market demand, because the companies do not have to order printed books and have them delivered. E-publishing is also making a wider range of books available, including books that customers would not find in standard book retailers, due to insufficient demand for a traditional "print run". As well, e-publication is enabling new authors to release books that would be unlikely to be profitable for traditional publishers. While the term "electronic publishing" is primarily used in the 2010s to refer to online and web-based publishers, the term has a history of being used to describe the development of new forms of production, distribution, and user interaction in regards to computer-based production of text and other interactive media.

Process

The electronic publishing process follows some aspects of the traditional paper-based publishing process[5] but differs from traditional publishing in two ways: 1) it does not include using an offset printing press to print the final product and 2) it avoids the distribution of a physical product (e.g., paper books, paper magazines, or paper newspapers). Because the content is electronic, it may be distributed over the Internet and through electronic bookstores, and users can read the material on a range of electronic and digital devices, including desktop computers, laptops, tablet computers, smartphones or e-reader tablets. The consumer may read the published content online a website, in an application on a tablet device, or in a PDF document on a computer. In some cases, the reader may print the content onto paper using a consumer-grade ink-jet or laser printer or via a print on demand system. Some users download digital content to their devices, enabling them to read the content even when their device is not connected to the Internet (e.g., on an airplane flight).

Distributing content electronically as software applications ("apps") has become popular in the 2010s, due to the rapid consumer adoption of smartphones and tablets. At first, native apps for each mobile platform were required to reach all audiences, but in an effort toward universal device compatibility, attention has turned to using HTML5 to create web apps that can run on any browser and function on many devices. The benefit of electronic publishing comes from using three attributes of digital technology: XML tags to define content,[6] style sheets to define the look of content, and metadata (data about data) to describe the content for search engines, thus helping users to find and locate the content (a common example of metadata is the information about a song's songwriter, composer, genre that is electronically encoded along with most CDs and digital audio files; this metadata makes it easier for music lovers to find the songs they are looking for). With the use of tags, style sheets, and metadata, this enables "reflowable" content that adapts to various reading devices (tablet, smartphone, e-reader, etc.) or electronic delivery methods.

Because electronic publishing often requires text mark-up (e.g., Hyper Text Markup Language or some other markup language) to develop online delivery methods, the traditional roles of typesetters and book designers, who created the printing set-ups for paper books, have changed. Designers of digitally published content must have a strong knowledge of mark-up languages, the variety of reading devices and computers available, and the ways in which consumers read, view or access the content. However, in the 2010s, new user friendly design software is becoming available for designers to publish content in this standard without needing to know detailed programming techniques, such as Adobe Systems' Digital Publishing Suite and Apple's iBooks Author. The most common file format is .epub, used in many e-book formats. .epub is a free and open standard available in many publishing programs. Another common format is .folio, which is used by the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite to create content for Apple's iPad tablets and apps.

Academic publishing

Main article: Academic publishing
See also: Eprint

After an article is submitted to an academic journal for consideration, there can be a delay ranging from several months to more than two years[7] before it is published in a journal, rendering journals a less than ideal format for disseminating current research. In some fields such as astronomy and some parts of physics, the role of the journal in disseminating the latest research has largely been replaced by preprint repositories such as arXiv.org. However, scholarly journals still play an important role in quality control and establishing scientific credit. In many instances, the electronic materials uploaded to preprint repositories are still intended for eventual publication in a peer-reviewed journal. There is statistical evidence that electronic publishing provides wider dissemination,[8] because when a journal is available online, a larger number of researchers can access the journal. Even if a professor is working in a university that does not have a certain journal in its library, she may still be able to access the journal online. A number of journals have, while retaining their longstanding peer review process to ensure that the research is done properly, established electronic versions or even moved entirely to electronic publication.

Copyright

In the early 2000s, many of the existing copyright laws were designed around printed books, magazines and newspapers. For example, copyright laws often set out limits on how much of a book can be mechanically reproduced or copied. Electronic publishing raises new questions in relation to copyright, because if an e-book or e-journal is available online, millions of Internet users may be able to view a single electronic copy of the document, without any "copies" being made. Emerging evidence suggests that e-publishing may be more collaborative than traditional paper-based publishing; e-publishing often involves more than one author, and the resulting works are more accessible, since they is published online. At the same time, the availability of published material online opens up more doors for plagiarism or unauthorized use or re-use of the material.[9] Some publishers are trying to address these concerns. For example, in 2011, HarperCollins limited the number of times that one of its e-books can be lent in a public library.[10] Other publishers, such as Penguin, are attempting to incorporate e-book elements into their regular paper publications.

Examples

Electronic versions of traditional media:

New media:

Business models

See also

References

  1. ↑ Pepitone, Julianne (April 19, 2011). "Tablet sales may hit $75 billion by 2015". CNN Money. CNN.
  2. ↑ Rebecca McPheters, Magazines and Newspapers Need to Build Better Apps, Advertising Age, January 13, 2012.
  3. ↑ Dale Maunu and Norbert Hildebrand, The e-Book Reader and Tablet Market Report, Insight Media, October, 2010. As reported by Richard Hart, E-books look to be hit over holiday season, ABC 7 News, November 21, 2010.
  4. ↑ Yinka Adegoke, Apple jumps into digital textbooks fray, Yahoo News, January 19, 2012.
  5. ↑ Chicago Manual of Style, Chapter 1
  6. ↑ Chicago Manual of Style, Chapter 9
  7. ↑ G. Ellison (2002). "The Slowdown of the Economics Publishing Process". Journal of Political Economy 110 (5): 947-993
  8. ↑ Online Or Invisible? by Steve Lawrence of the NEC Research Institute
  9. ↑ Chennupati K. Ramaiah, Schubert Foo and Heng Poh Choo, eLearning and Digital Publishing.
  10. ↑ Randall Stross, Publishers vs. Libraries: An E-Book Tug of War.
  11. ↑ The term "non-subsidy publisher" is used to distinguish an electronic publisher that uses the traditional method of accepting submissions from authors without payment by the author. It is, therefore, to be distinguished from any form of self-publishing. It is traditional publishing, probably using a non-traditional medium, like electronic, or POD. See also: Subsidy Publishing vs. Self-Publishing: What's the Difference?

External links

Wikiversity has learning materials about Collaborative play writing
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