Pros And Cons Of Electronic Publishing

With the onset of digitization, the popularity of electronic publishing also saw an upsurge. From physical storybooks to eBooks, from daily newspapers to online news portals such as mirrordaily.com, from voluminous medical journals to online journals – the publishing industry has come a long way. So has this paradigm shift from paper to electronic models been really beneficial? Read on to learn more about some of the significant benefits and loopholes of electronic publishing.

Advantages of electronic publishing

• Low cost affair – The first and foremost benefit of electronic publishing is the low cost associated with it. The publisher need not spend extra bucks to get the books or papers printed. Also, the sum of expenses involved in setting up a few state-of-the-art computers and offering online access to readers is way less compared to printing volumes of material. Moreover, the distribution cost is absolutely zero in case of electronic publishing.

• Environment-friendly – Digital printing is a more eco-friendly method as there is negligible use pf paper. Unlike traditional printing where reels of paper are wasted in printing the first copy, the proofread copy and finally, the printable version, electronic publishing manages this using various publishing tools and sharing them over mails or on the Web.

• Improved quality – The final product offered to the reader through electronic publishing is of a premium quality not only in terms of the animations, live links, interactive content, videos, and graphics used, but also from the point of view of layout. A well-completed digital magazine engages a reader more than a physical magazine in hand, thanks to the appealing look of the published document.

• Easy to update and edit documents – Articles and journals often need regular edits to have a better impact on the readers. A number of documents such as repair manuals also need to be kept up to date always so that they are of help to the person referring them. In case of print manuals, it is extremely expensive and tedious to keep the content updated. However, with electronic publishing, you just have to edit portions an existing manual and your document is ready to go live.

• Wider reach – Printed material are limited and they reach only a specific number of readers. However, in the case of electronically published documents, the number of readers multiply extensively. In other words, digital publishing means an ever-growing reader base, provided the published document is worth a read.

Disadvantages of electronic publishing

• Marketing efforts are high – Although the distribution costs associated with digital publishing is almost zero, the effort required to market the publication is quite high. Although nowadays social media marketing plays a pivotal role in such scenarios, growing readership may take time.

• Chances of plagiarism – Most of the electronically published articles are available easily on the Internet. As such, several authors remain apprehensive of losing their copyright on the content. There is no dearth of people who are ready to plagiarize quality material, and electronic publishing, in an indirect way, makes way for it.