[ contents ] Vol. 1, No. 1, 2003 pp.2-13

E- Publishing Today

Author: Deborah Wyatt

abstract

Publishers traditionally draw on a number of services and skills to create books and journals, including: (i) commissioning and (in the case of academic texts) peer review; (ii) editing and proofreading; (iii) design and typesetting; (iv) printing; (v) sales and marketing; and (vi) warehousing and distribution. The aim of the present study was to analyse the impact that e-publishing technology has already had on each of these areas and the extent to which traditional approaches to publishing may change in the future. This includes an overview of hypertext – both fictional and non-fictional – and a broad historical analysis of the reaction that publishers and booksellers have had to e-publishing to date. Drawing on this overview, the main section of this review consists of a ‘tour’ through the publishing process, balancing the merits and pitfalls of e-publishing’s effect on each of the aforementioned stages. The concluding section offers some conclusions and recommendations, based on the results of this study. For the purposes of this study, the term e-publishing was used to describe the provision of any text in an electronic format – from hyperlinked websites to CD ROMs to read-only PDF files – although it was most often used to describe ‘e-books’ (read through PDAs) and websites. based services.

Deborah Wyatt is a senior editor at Blackwell Publishing.

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