Challenges faced by the ePublishing Industry in India

According the new report launched by India-Reports on ePublishing, India is a major book publishing country. With more than 15,000 publishing houses generating content in more than 24 regional languages, India is a huge market. Post the IT boom, the traditional publishers in India have entered the ePublishing market with various products. Today the Indian publishers produce a large amount of ePublications.

But the adoption of eBooks by Indian consumers is still at a nascent stage. Consumers in India have taken to the use of Internet, PCs, mobile phones, handheld communication devices, yet eProducts like e-Papers, e-Reports or e-Journals are far more popularly used that than eBooks.

The availability of better and user-friendly devices and robust e-reading infrastructure in the future would ensure the growth of this medium. There are some fundamental constraints that need to be overcome and behavioral aspects that need to change before eBooks can become popular in India:
Internet penetration is relatively low, ease of connectivity and secure payment options are issues Credit card penetration (usage) is low; concept of online purchase is still not popular Indian readers are not used to or comfortable with reading on screen or on small devices Apprehension of piracy inadequate DRM policies and enforcement; users can avail pirated copies of eProducts. Good interfaces or devices for eBooks are not available in India Users want content in their local/regional languages. No concrete strategies or benefits from the Government to encourage ePublishers or e-Readers Inadequate marketing of eBooks by publishers, hampered by low revenues. It is interesting to note that while the readership of printed newspapers is increasing in India today, elsewhere in the world especially in the US, there is a decline in such readership figures. US newspaper houses are skeptical and threatened by the popularity of the online medium and may even need to close down in the future.
To address the regional eBook requirement, publishers are developing software computing solutions for regional languages. For example, all fonts for varied languages are packed into a PDF book, which can be opened by the user in the language of their choice. This is the only option to read regional books; however, there are still issues with regional language compatibility on PCs or mobile devices. As there are not many options for native fonts on a mobile device, e-Users will probably only view garbled text on their screens. The ePublications market is in its nascent stage in India and is poised for rapid growth in the future.

Read about the growth and potential of the ePublishing Industry at: http://www.india-reports.com/summary/Publish.aspx