From the press release:
Data Conversion Laboratory, Inc. (DCL), a leading provider of digital publishing services, reports 70 percent of 411 respondents to a survey drawn from a cross section of the publishing industry cited ‘quality’ as the most important consideration when publishing an eBook. Another important finding is that 63 percent of the respondents plan to publish a digital book in 2012.
“Eighteen months ago, more publishers were concerned about getting their information onto an eBook platform and quality was not the overarching theme it is now,” said DCL President and CEO Mark Gross. “The survey demonstrates that the publishing industry realizes consumers will not tolerate typos and bad formatting in a $15 eBook,” predicted Gross.
In another shift from tradition, 64 percent of the respondents stated they were interested in publishing non-fiction and technical digital content. This statistic is indicative of an expansion in the use of e-readers from casual reading of novels to a myriad of business and technical applications
“The survey confirms what we have been hearing from publishers, that while the initial push to digital was important, they are now seeing a need to go with the best partners and to improve their quality control and workflow,” said Bill Trippe, vice president and lead analyst at Outsell, Inc. an industry analyst firm. “Digital products are becoming the lifeblood for publishers, and consumers are expecting an optimal experience,” he added.
The DCL survey also discovered 43 percent of publishers realized the importance of compatibility with all e-readers, including iPad, MOBI (Kindle), Nook and custom formats. Within the publishers group, the iPad edged out Kindle at 44 percent as an e-reader, versus 36 percent preferring a Kindle.”
Naturally, I’m most concerned that only 70% of respondents think quality is the most important consideration. Does the survey indicate what the other 30% thought was most important? (Is there a link to the survey or the press release?)
Compare errors in print to errors in screen display and the margin for improvement is obvious. But format and display errors, rather than editorial, infest screen books. I do find the question of 30% importance a good one. Screen readers have a early adopter tolerance for error embedded in display transmission and device display. This error source has been purged by 500 years of print production control.
Thank you for your interest & comments in our recent press release regarding the eBook survey. Please find links below to both the press release & the full survey results.
http://dclab.us/eBookSurveyPR
http://dclab.us/DigiPubSurvey2011 (PDF link)
The full survey is at:
http://www.dclab.com/resources/dcl_digital_publishing_survey_2011.pdf
The other options were “cost” 36%, short turnaround time 19%, and customer service 28%.
Obviously, this begs the question of how the survey was actually worded, since the results add up to 153%. Presumably, publishers could select multiple “most important” factors.
Coincidentally, “Quality” was not actually an option in the survey. It was “Accuracy”. Guess they didn’t get the point.
Peter: The question asked was “In order of priority, which of the following are most important to you when publishing a digital book (with number 1 being most important)?”
Each column adds up to 100%, showing how often a given variable was placed in a given priority. In the accuracy column, that 70 means that 70% of respondents placed accuracy in the first priority, 18% in the second priority, 5% in second, and 7% in fourth. However, yes, from the chart, it does seem that respondents were given a 1-4 likert scale for each variable, and could have selected 1, 2, 3, or 4, for each one of them. Which makes sense, perhaps for one particular publisher, Accuracy AND Cost were both equally important, etc..
Also, for a publisher, accuracy (of the conversion when compared to the source material) and quality are the same thing in the digital world.. An eBook is just text, markup, and a style sheet, “quality” has nothing to do with the product except for the quality of the content…
In any case, I have to agree with the results because I’ve seen way too many typos, missing text, and just unreadable drivel in some free or 99¢ eBooks.. Even some more expensive ones, and from big publishers, too.. It’s a shame, but it has to be addressed.
(Double posting because apparently my post was “too long.”)