Over the last 10 years, eBooks have become the go-to medium for both individual writers and publishing companies to generate book content. Today, eBooks are available across a wide range of genres, including education, which is a growing segment for eTextbooks.
The reason for the mass adoption of eBooks is that they come with several advantages. They are much more cost-effective and less cumbersome to produce than print books.
They come with several features that make them easy to customize and consume for readers. They also disrupt the traditional ideas of books by making them interactive in nature with additional formats besides text and images.
Another advantage is that one can host eBooks online via a wide range of platforms with unique features. Just as one can host a blog on a blog hosting platform, eBooks can be hosted on platforms such as online publishing sites.
What is an eBook Hosting Platform?
Simply put, an eBook hosting platform is a home for your eBook. This is a digital platform that enables you to perform several tasks related to your eBooks professionally, as follows:
- Create: An eBook hosting platform has all the tools to enable you to create your eBook with ease. You can add videos and audio and build in other interactive elements by leveraging the relevant features and producing a professionally designed eBook from scratch.
- Publish: Once your eBook content is ready and you are satisfied with the final copy, you can go ahead and publish it. Online publishing sites also enable you to make changes and update your eBooks with ease.
- Display: You can host eBooks online on your very own eBook store. This is a branded platform that enables you to display all your books in one place and showcase them to the world. Your eBook store can reflect your brand’s personality and communicate your message to the world.
- Distribute: Another feature of innovative online publishing sites is that they enable the easy distribution of your eBook to your audience. Copies of your eBooks will be accompanied by an access code, and legitimate audiences can also access offline copies of your eBook.
Why Choosing an eBook Hosting Platform is Important?
In today’s times, there are several approaches to publishing a book. You can go the traditional route by approaching a publisher, pitching your book, and awaiting their response.
The second route is to self-publish your book with a self-publishing platform. In this case, the publisher takes the onus of helping you edit and publish the book, for which they would charge a fee.
The third option is to publish it yourself by leveraging the tools and features of a digital publishing platform.
There was a time when self-publishing was looked down upon. However, today the stigma has worn, and self-published authors are viewed as influencers who are building new narratives.
Online publishing sites give you the autonomy to design, produce, publish and distribute your eBook as you see fit. Furthermore, you can continue your eBook publishing journey without any interruptions.
Be the Sole Owner of Your eBooks
Since you host your eBooks on a digital publishing platform, you own the digital rights to all your eBooks. Hence, there is no conflict about aspects such as royalties going to a publishing house. You bag the profits.
Secondly, a superior digital publishing platform offers Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection as a solution to address issues such as digital piracy and unauthorized access.
DRM empowers publishers to create and distribute eBooks securely while offering Intellectual property (IP) protection. DRM also ensures that authors of eBooks earn their rightful revenues.
Keep Experimenting
eBooks, unlike their print counterparts, offer authors a lot of scope for experimentation. You can visualize a story or content in diverse ways and leverage a range of formats to bring it to life.
From videos and podcasts to interactive quizzes, the possibilities are endless with eBooks. Hence, with every eBook, an author can try new things and tell stories in different ways.
They can also amplify their eBooks with ease due to the superior, sophisticated, and in-built distribution mechanisms of digital publishing platforms.
Choose the Right Platform to Host eBooks Online
There are several factors to keep in mind when choosing the right platform to host your book online. Here is a snapshot of the must-have features:
- Choose a cloud-based platform that enables you to execute all aspects of the eBook workflow – create, publish and distribute eBooks.
- It should help you create eBooks that are mobile-friendly and multimedia-rich in presentation.
- Today, eBooks can also be presented in an augmented reality (AR) environment. Ensure that the platform enables rendering via AR.
- It must be able to convert eBooks into the ePub format, which enables customization using multiple formats.
- The platform should be compatible with Windows, Android, and iOS operating systems for ease of use.
- The platform must give you access to advanced user analytics that enable you to slice and dice your eBooks’ performance and review reader trends. Over time, you get to understand what formats are working, where your readers are coming from, and which aspects of the eBook they love the most.
- Being able to distribute eBooks securely is extremely important. The platform must offer DRM protection and encrypted access to your audience to facilitate this.
- You should be able to build a branded storefront and market your books across the world.
Conclusion
Feature-rich, all-encompassing online publishing sites are the future of eBook publication. With access to such a tool, the publishing space is truly becoming more democratized in terms of access to creating eBooks.
It enables eBooks to reach a wide audience and be accessible to underserved demographics. It also enables authors to have a seamless experience of building their brand with the right set of tools.
The eBooks space is able to offer an elevated quality of output because of the customization and visualization capabilities of superior online publishing sites.
Today, writers, businesses, and publishing houses can leverage state-of-the-art cloud-based publishing platforms, such as KITABOO, to publish, distribute, market and amplify their eBooks to audiences around the world.
Contact our expert team now and get started!
To know more, please write to us at KITABOO@hurix.com
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Kitaboo is a cloud-based content platform to create-publish & securely distribute interactive mobile-ready ebooks.
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Blog,Digital Publishing,eBook solution / January 18, 2023