DIGITAL MAGAZINE AND BOOKS

A digital magazine is a print magazine delivered to a computer and read on a computer screen and a digital book that is published online or for a handheld device, this book is printed on a laser printer rather than a printing press. (Electronic-Book) The electronic counterpart of a printed book, which can be viewed on a desktop computer or a portable device such as a laptop computer, PDA or e-book reader. Numerous e-books can be kept on portable units for traveling, eliminating weight and volume compared to equivalent paper books. Electronic bookmarks make referencing easier, and most readers allow the user to annotate pages.

E-Book FormatsThe major problem with e-books is the many formats competing for prime time, including Adobe PDF, which is very popular, as well as Microsoft Reader, eReader, Mobipocket Reader, OPS and OpenReader. Although it would seem a no-brainer, most formats do not support dictionaries and encyclopedias all that well. They have a search capability, but not a direct lookup, which means if a person looks up the term "network," all the definitions that contain the word "network" will be retrieved rather than the single definition of that term. The results are akin to the mountain of results retrieved by a search engine.

Advantages of Digital book
Text can be searched automatically, and cross-referenced using hyperlinks. This makes e-books an excellent choice of format for works that benefit from search and cross-reference capabilities, such as dictionaries, reference works, certain kinds of textbooks. Less physical space is required to store e-books. Because they take up little space, e-books can be offered indefinitely, with no 'out of print' date, allowing authors to continue to earn royalties indefinitely (copyright law permitting), and allowing readers to find older works by favorite authors. Errors in texts may be easily and quickly corrected, and no environmental resources are consumed by e-book replication, cutting down on paper and ink production, there is no risk of damage.

Disadvantages of Digital book
An e-book requires an electronic device to display it. Many e-book formats require special software to display them, which may not be freely available or compatible with a reader's existing computing device. Digital rights management techniques may be used to restrict what the user may do with an e-book. For instance, it may not be possible to transfer ownership of an e-book to another person, though such a transaction is common with physical books. Some can phone home to track readers and reading habits, or restrict printing. This includes restricting the copying and distribution of works in the public domain through the use of "click-wrap" licensing, effectively limiting the rights of the public to freely distribute, sell or use texts in the public domain

From a publisher's point of view, e-books can in some cases be hacked, or disseminated without approval from the author or publisher. The ease with which an electronic document may be copied means that a single unprotected document may be used to replicate an unlimited number of perfect copies.

Production
Some e-books are produced simultaneously with the production of a printed format, as described in electronic publishing, though in many instances they may not be put on sale until later. Often, e-books are produced from pre-existing hard-copy books, generally by document scanning, sometimes with the use of robotic scanners, having the technology to quickly scan books without damaging the original print edition. Scanning a book produces an image file, which must then be converted into text format by an OCR program. Occasionally, as in some e-text projects, a book may be produced by re-entering the text from a keyboard. As a newer development, sometimes only the electronic version of a book is produced by the publisher. Usually, it is possible to convert electronic book to a printed book by short-run printing.

Digital Magazine

A digital magazine is a print magazine delivered to a computer and read on a computer screen. As of June 2004, there were 95 magazines that had audited digital circulation, according to publisher statements supplied to the Audit Bureau of Circulations and the BPA. By December 2004, the BPA alone had audited 101 magazines with digital circulation. Providers of digital magazine publishing solutions include Ceros Media, I Digital Edition, NewsStand, NXTbook Media, Olive Software, Printless Publishing, Qmags, Real Magxine, Realview Technologies, Texterity, Zinio, and 7MM. Most online magazine / catalog implementations are simply scans of printed pages meaning rich text content is locked away from search engines in big image files.

Without a search engine reading your content it’s unlikely anyone else will ever find it.”
The landscape of web writing has changed. The value of well-edited and reviewed content is giving way to faster, less-refined posts on blogs, comments, and services like Twitter, and it is clear that many writers prefer to draw traffic to their own sites. There is a trend for magazines to go digital - so they can attract students and young people to read them. The Web is of course one of the prime delivery mechanisms, but also web technologies such as hyperlinking and rich media UI elements are key to the user experience. To make the online magazine reading experience more interactive , rich media elements like animated pictures ,hyperlinks, and embedded audio and video trailers are used.

The Future of Digital MagazinesThere is no doubt that digital magazines have always been a great option at giving publishers a proven digital replica option for their magazine, which can increase international subscriptions, and allow publishers to be more choosy in who they send their printed version to.

Linus Orakles
http://www.authorclub.info/