Improving copyright protection is just one way in which more progress can be made

In the past two years, China's digital publishing industry has grown rapidly. The value of its output continues to rise and there are more product varieties. Last year, the country's digital publishing revenue was 193.55 billion yuan ($31.63 billion; 23.44 billion euros), of which revenue from e-books was 3.1 billion yuan. That last figure was 340 percent higher than in the previous year.

That phenomenon is against a backdrop of continued transformation of publishing. Digital publishing business models are gradually becoming well established; smart phones, tablet PCs and other mobile terminals are ubiquitous, pushed by telecom and network operators and technology providers; the construction of massive digital content delivery platforms is pushing ahead. All this has played a powerful role in boosting the development of the e-book industry.

With the transformation, most publishing houses have established independent digital publishing departments to push electronic products.

The annual volume of e-book publishing has been rising, with 180,000 e-book titles published last year. In addition, audio books, videos and other types of books are increasingly being integrated into multimedia.

The rapid development of mobile Internet and mobile intelligent terminals is accelerating the growth of digital publishing.

First, the scale of mobile phone users is increasing. Mobile phones, with their portability and ease of use, have become one of the main mediums for reading. In fact, with the rise of micro blogs and apps such as Wechat, mobile reading has become a mainstream activity.

Second, tablet PCs give readers a high-quality reading experience, and they have become the new darling of mobile reading. Sales of electronic readers in China had stagnated in recent years, but the introduction of Kindle to the country has helped boost the domestic e-reader industry. Practitioners can get some inspiration from its business model.

Over the past two years, in addition to traditional publishing houses and original literature websites, e-commerce, telecom operators, service providers and other technology solutions operators have also been involved in the field of e-books. China's three major telecom operators have all set up mobile reading platforms, based on a large user base, convenient user payment model, and mature cooperation with content providers.

They push personalized, fragmented digital content to users through customization and packaging, Meanwhile, dangdang.com, JD.com and other e-commerce websites have become a force to be reckoned with in the field.

Also, some public service projects have made substantial progress. Electronic reading columns, digital libraries and other public service facilities have speeded up the construction, and e-books are becoming increasingly popular in rural areas.

But many problems have emerged as China's e-book industry has developed. Content resources are scattered, and there is an evident lack of quality.

That is mainly because the traditional publishing houses are reserved when it comes to e-book market returns. Their lack of confidence has stopped them from putting more valuable and high-quality digital content online.

The scale of China's e-books industry continues to expand, but most publishing houses work independently without in-depth inter-industry collaboration. Their lack of a win-win consciousness has led to an imbalance of interests in the industrial chain, and this has caused the dispersion of content resources.

Another problem is that payment mechanisms have yet to form. With the growing popularity of mobile terminals, people's reading habits have changed. Many e-book platforms have accumulated a certain number of users and try to implement pay-to-read in gradual steps.

However, it seems that consumers generally are unwilling to pay, and online payment habits have not resulted. The number of those willing to pay to read is still low, so it is difficult for e-books to be profitable through content alone.

The third problem concerns copyright. Although in recent years, copyright protection authorities have done a lot of work and introduced a number of initiatives, piracy, copyright infringement and other problems still exist. The rise of the mobile Internet has provided people with a more convenient way of reading, but has produced new copyright issues. Diversified, personalized content delivery has made piracy more subtle, and increased the difficulty of management. On the other hand, the lack of online payment mechanisms has left loopholes for pirated content to survive. Thus, copyright protection needs to be improved.

Content production closer to that of the mobile Internet is an important direction of development for mobile reading, and recent years of development of mobile terminals and applications attests to this trend. At present, content is in most parts transformed from traditional library resources, and content specifically designed for the mobile Internet is lacking. Therefore, the content of e-book production will be more in line with that of the mobile Internet in the future, and the reading experience will be more responsive to the needs of users.

Only an innovative profit model can help the e-book industry become a value-added business.

Although the current e-book business model is gradually becoming clear, and products have become more diverse and innovative, and the diversified business model still has a long way to go. The traditional publishing houses in particular have to break the single-profit model that relies on content only. Content delivery, personalized service and Internet advertising should be coordinated to achieve profitability. We are talking about digital transformation, not just the traditional simple digitized books, but also changes in business ideas and business models. The change has been achieved in some digitized journals, and all e-books providers would do well to study these.

The author is an assistant researcher at the Institute of Digital Publishing, Chinese Academy of Press and Publication.

(China Daily European Weekly 10/04/2013 page9)