Building better digital books

Book publishing is steeped in generations of tradition and in many ways shaped how we identify with technology. From the interfaces and icons, we see every day, to the physical format and gestures we use to interact with our digital devices. Swiping on a phone is not much different to skimming through a print magazine after all.

Users have expectations of various familiar features when accessing books – cover, table of contents, large section headings, lists, etc. When transitioning a print book to digital it is comforting for the reader for these elements to be recognisable and behave in a familiar way. As publishers engage with digital books they quickly become aware of the complexities of producing digital products across multiple platforms while maintaining familiarity. However, the exact same engagement will realise the many opportunities that digital brings to publishers.

Many publishers have already dug into the ebook process and have followed through with the print workflow for creating ebooks. While this gets the job done, there is an expectation from the user for far more. Content producers who meet this expectation will grow customer engagement and branding as users will return to the product. With carefully planned incremental updates the user will return over and over again and eventually become a habit.

Demand for enhanced digital publications (audio, video, animation, interactive elements) is growing, especially for education where it holds great potential for improving outcomes for learners. Building well designed enhanced ebooks which are familiar, but engages the user with innovations, provides publishers with the opportunity to stand out in the market.

Many publishers have already dug into the ebook process and have followed through with the print workflow for creating ebooks. While this gets the job done, there is an expectation from the user for far more. Content producers who meet this expectation will grow customer engagement and branding as users will return to the product. With carefully planned incremental updates the user will return over and over again and eventually become a habit.
Demand for enhanced digital publications (audio, video, animation, interactive elements) is growing, especially for education where it holds great potential for improving outcomes for learners. Building well designed enhanced ebooks which are familiar, but engages the user with innovations, provides publishers with the opportunity to stand out in the markets.

Some key issues for publishers to consider when looking at their digital publishing strategy:

Producing digital products quickly and efficiently has become essential to keeping content current and relative to the user. This is especially pertinent to educational publishing as learning products become increasingly personalised and localised. Critical to this is managing content – storing, retrieving, updating, and automating output of digital products.

Reimagining “publishing” for digital products as it has quite a different “culture”. Digital products are often built incrementally along a continuum of design, build, test, rollout, and user feedback. Once new features are prioritised from the user feedback, the process starts again with build, test, … all often on much shorter cycles than conventional print book publishing. Collaborative software tools and platforms, and automation of menial tasks feature strongly as game-changers for digital publishing.

Metadata and SEO is the key to discoverability of content. Managing and optimising metadata and integrating with existing backend systems can provide immediate efficiencies with delivering digital products and making sure your products are high up on the list of searches.

Realm Digital has an established record of award-winning innovation, design and integrations across diverse industries, including partnering with publishers and book retailers.

If you are in the publishing industry and feel your business needs a digital transformation, get in touch. We would love to discuss the many, innovating possibilities, and how Realm can make that happen for you.