5 Benefits of Going Digital

There has been a shift toward digital content in the publishing space due to the increasing advantages of delivering content in a digital form. Many content publishers are moving their materials to digital format so they can better engage and connect with their readers. Here are some of the key benefits of digital content.
 

1. Transportation

Digital content is easy to transport. Instead of carrying around lots of heavy books and stacks of documents from location to location, information can be accessed in a digital space. Readers might carry one device to access all their reading materials, or view the material on various computers. Information is more accessible, and there is less strain on the back.
 

2. Interaction

There can be more interaction with reading materials. Within this digital content, links, videos, and other multimedia can be embedded for a varied reading experience. Readers can engage with the content in a way that suits them best, whether they prefer to read it on a screen, print it out, or listen and watch the audio-visual material. The option is there to include that content.
 

3. Customization

It’s easier to customize digital material than printed material. If readers only want certain sections of a book, they have to purchase the whole book. This can be costly and inefficient. An option is custom publishing, which also has associated costs and limitations. With digital content, publishers can give readers the option to select sections of different materials to compile customized content easily and at a much lower cost. Additionally, revisions can be made to a text quickly and new editions can be released immediately rather than several years later.
 

4. Revenue and Costs

For content providers, there are considerable reductions in cost in printing, binding, and distributing when new and revised editions of books and documents are released. These costs can be reduced or even eliminated by switching to a digital version. Revisions of old books and documents can be streamlined and there would be virtually no costs to produce a new edition. Publishers also have the potential to earn additional revenue currently being lost on the resellers’ market of printed books. If books were digital with a content protection strategy in place, readers would have to purchase a new copy, as there wouldn’t be a used one on the market.
 

5. Environment

An important consideration of any discussion of digital vs. print is the environmental impact – the impact that printing paper material has on trees and the impact that transporting physical goods has on air quality for example. In addition, as new editions of books or documents are printed, old editions become obsolete and wasteful. By transitioning to digital content, content providers avoid the printing and traditional distribution processes, and old books or documents become merely a waste of hard drive space.