Workflow

The introduction of the Web to the previously print-centric world of publishing was only the beginning of what has turned out to be a major overhaul of the publishing industry as a whole. Initially, we witnessed close to a complete transition of many publication types, like directories and manuals, from print to the Web, which ultimately affected the other publishing markets in varying degrees and timeframes. This transition has also brought many opportunities.

Data Conversion Laboratory (DCL), a leading provider of electronic document conversion services, introduces a new online publishing portal that re-energizes previously dormant content into highly accurate digital knowledge that can be searched, reorganized, ported to eBooks, and published in virtually any format; all leading to new revenue streams.

Have you ever wondered how a great idea becomes a book? Or even how a really crummy one does?  Here's the heartwarming, only slightly messy, and roughly 74 percent accurate story of how an idea churns through the publishing process just like—as a publisher we once knew put it—a rat travels through an anaconda.

Not too long ago, just making an app made news—especially in the book world, where the utility (and desirability) of book apps was a subject of some debate. As publishers have come to see books as multimedia brands, however, the terms of the debate have shifted, from whether book apps have a place to when. Apps can accomplish many things when executed right—from content enhancement to marketing to fun and games, helping publishers meet audiences where they are and build loyalty to books, brands and authors. Realizing this, a few companies have gotten pretty sophisticated in their, ahem, app-roach, as the following examples show.

About 17 years ago or so, digital media folk were asking an important question: Would consumers buy online? Would consumers take the leap and actually enter their credit card information on a seller's website? More specific questions also arose about the growth rate of online commerce.

While only the most severe of futurists predict print's total demise, most publishers have accepted that digital products need to be a slice of their revenue mix, and a growing slice at that.

Yet it's one thing to recognize that change must happen; it's quite another to enact that change, especially when you can't exactly hit pause on your business while you reconfigure your workflow, to say nothing of tackling that massive backlist.

That's why many publishers are turning to the wide world of service providers who make it their business to help publishers solve digital content and digital transition issues.

AMACOM is pleased to have signed an agreement with Ingram’s Lighting Source which will allow over 200 of our print-on-demand titles, which are only available from Lightning, to also be delivered on the Espresso Book Machine platform.

At the Telescope User Group (TUG) Conference, North Plains, the leading provider of digital asset management (DAM), today announced that it has acquired Xinet. This acquisition combines two best-of-breed DAM companies to address the broader rich media management needs of creative workgroups, marketing departments and enterprises. In the process, it expands North Plains’ position as the largest pure-play DAM vendor in the industry. Now, the thousands of combined North Plains and Xinet customers can leverage the entire lifecycle of a rich media file, from its creation and work-in-process (WIP) to its global distribution and archiving as a valued asset.

In my previous column, Understanding Content Conversion: Unfortunately, There’s No ‘Easy’ Button, I examined the various areas that trip up the eBook conversion process –special characters, tables, hyphenations, and so on.  This column follows on that theme, based on a question from a consultant with a major consulting firm:

    “…I am researching the time it takes on average to convert from PDF to EPUB, including the time it takes to edit the ‘rough’ EPUB file created by the automated conversion …

Data Conversion Laboratory, the company I founded, has been doing document conversion for thirty years and every once in a while I still get asked from someone I haven’t seen in a while “are you still doing that?” or “isn’t there software that does all that?”

The truth is that if it was easy, it would indeed be all automated. But when it comes to documents and books, creativity will not be bound by rules and style sheets