Taking the Reins of the eBook Market

The world’s largest English-language trade book publisher moved into the eBook marketplace in decisive fashion in November 2008, announcing an ambitious digital initiative to make thousands of additional best-selling books available in digital form. The titles would be viewed online through the publisher’s own browsing service, giving search engines and distributors access to the digitized content.

Challenge Expand eBook Offerings

While the publisher already had more than 8,000 books in eBook format, they wanted to add an additional 15,000 titles to expand the offerings in its digital library, driving additional revenue from existing content assets and also building a pipeline to turn new titles into eBooks as part of their ongoing digital supply chain.

They needed an eBook production partner that could deliver the requisite quantity while meeting the publisher’s high quality standards. Otherwise, content would be rejected and sent back to the conversion partner, which would add considerable cost and time delays.

Solution Find an eBook Production Partner To Meet Stringent Quality Standards and Deadlines

Aptara was chosen as their eBook production partner because of its proven track record for setting and meeting high standards of quality from a broad range of source materials and for numerous output devices. Aptara began converting books from application files such as InDesign, Quark, printer PDF, hard-copy, scanned PDF files and OeB files.

To ensure that the final product reflected the prestige of the publisher’s brand, the Aptara production teams took a number of extra steps, including manual browsing of the eBook formats for correct text flow and data integrity. The teams also developed an automated comparison tool that reviews files for data quality and a specific toolset to validate the final EPUB files, which includes key book elements such as headers, hyperlinks and images.  All work was completed within tight deadlines, including a two-week turnaround for all front list titles.

Results A Quality Stronghold in the eBook Marketplace

In a given year, this large trade publisher typically produces 4,000 new titles and manages an active back list of more than 45,000 titles, with a total list of more than 200,000 titles.

With such a deep back list, they can generate additional revenue by tapping into the new eBook demand for popular titles.  Just as important, by having built a solid eBook production workflow and pipeline with a partner that shares their passion for quality, they can now take advantage of rapidly increasing sales while maintaining their established brand as the leader not just in print, but also now in digital publishing.

Added Value An Entrée to All eBook Devices and Platforms

Aptara’s multi-channel eBook production platform enabled the publisher to create output simultaneously for all mobile reading devices and eBook mediums, including smart phones and tablet PCs. With a dynamic eBook production strategy in place, this large trade publisher is now well prepared to take the eBook market head-on and capitalize on new revenue opportunities.