Publishing Industry News & Articles

Thanks to mobile devices like the iPad and the Kindle, eReading and ebooks are growing in popularity, bringing new life to the publishing industry. A recent report illustrates just how far the eBook market has come in the past year.

Do you want reach a wider audience in a search engine friendly capacity or increase revenue through paid subscriptions and advertising? Do you want to improve editorial efficiency with easy access to archives? If so, take a look at Pressmart’s new pay-as-you-go, hosted Web CMS product ePortal.

Hitting version 12.1, Vasont (news, site) adds a store-once, use-many system to help make translation more efficient with its publishing-focused content management system. 

Vasont's last update hit back in April and now the multi-format publishing system for non-technical users gets another boost. The latest update to Vasont Content Management System goes a few more steps in beefing up its usefulness in the international arena.

Having been in existence since 2002, in a SaaS offering nonetheless, Vasont has pretty much everything publishers need. But, there is always room for improvement. Features in the new update include:

• Improved Translation: Vasont now works at a component or granular level. Once a component is translated, it is saved and doesn't have to be translated again, saving time and resources, assuming your company repeats lots of standard phrases over and over again.
• Project Management: Vasont now includes drill down charts to help assess a project's health. Rescheduling has also been upgraded for both projects and component tasks. Modular management helps break down a big project into sub-components and it checks that these are all complete before allowing a project to be signed off and published.
• Additional Enhancements: Further additions include vector graphics support, variant master data -- which checks for similar components to prevent duplication and encourage reuse and improved search to help find content.

Vasont is available in several versions including a Client/Server, Hosted and a Small Groups edition for smaller outfits.

While the latest release from Georgia-based GMP Services has it eyes set firmly on the publishing industry -- perhaps recognizing current difficulties in the sector -- it is also targeting other professions that might be looking for an in-house Content Management System.

Available starting next month, the new version of Media Publishers Professional CMS, which in another life was known as GMP CMS, is an ASP.NET 2.0 Content Management System that has taken six years to develop.

Significantly reducing the need for coding, it includes application services and controls that can be reused across a given website, as well as role-based access to content for security purposes.

It has been awhile since we talked about newspapers.

To recap, they are still struggling. And there is not a shortage of armchair publishers offering their ideologies and suggestions about how newspapers can regain their footing and rebuild their empire.

At MarketWatch, a site which follows business news, personal finance information, and offers real-time commentary and investment tools and data, they asked three media experts -- Larry Kramer, Lauren Rich Fine and Nathan Richardson -- to offer their assessments of the problems of newspapers and what can be done.

Each expert honed in on a different issue, from monetizing content, to charging for online content and handling change. 

This past October, we covered the launch of Impelys’s iPublish Central, a self-service e-content delivery platform for publishers. Since then, more than 60 publishers have come aboard, from India to Iceland, for the opportunity to promote their brands and titles by way of viral Web marketing.

CMSWire had an opportunity to speak with Sameer Shariff, CEO of Impelsys about the progress, future and impact of iPublish Central.

It’s safe to say, that many publishers don’t know exactly what going digital entails. O’Reilly comes to the rescue by offering a free Webcast on Wednesday, November 12, at 1 p.m. EDT about What Publishers Need to Know About Digitization.

The Webcast will last approximately 90 minutes. You can register here.

Consultant and software engineer for the publishing industry, Liza Daly, will lead the Webcast. As an independent consultant and the founder of Threepress, developer of the Bookworm EPUB e-reading application, blogger for several publishing and technology blogs, and a member of the advisory boards for the Web 2.0 Expo NYC 2008 and O’Reilly Tools of Change (TOC) 2009 conferences, Daly will aim to offer guidance and support for those in the industry struggling to go digital.

The Webcast assumes no prior experience with digitization, as Daly presents a “friendly and accessible overview of the conversion process”. The Webcast will cover the following topics:

• What’s XML and do you need it?
• What’s the cost-benefit analysis versus PDF or other formats?
• What to look for in selecting a vendor and how to watch out for hidden costs.

In addition, the Webcast will tackle issues of control and lock-in versus cost savings, partnering with Google, Amazon, or a centralized platform, or going on your own — among many other topics.

The Webcast is a component of O’Reilly’s Tools of Change (TOC) for Publishing division, which seeks to connect the people, companies and organizations asking and answering the questions that will define the future of publishing.