Cloud Revolution: 5 Publishing Transformations

The digital movement in publishing began as far back as 1971, when Project Gutenberg was founded to “encourage the creation and distribution of e-books.” Digital publishing opened the doors to ensuring quick and easy access to publications with powerful yet simple search and retrieval features. The digital revolution picked up steam in the 2000s with the launch of eReaders by some of the largest tech giants, such as Amazon, Apple, Google, and Sony. The next milestone in this journey was the emergence of the IDPF standard with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 2017. This heralded the era of the ePub format, with a focus on easy access to journals and other publications via web-based browsers. 

But what has really spurred growth for the publishing industry is the availability of cloud-based platforms for content creation, publishing, and distribution. Today, whether it is open access publishing or intelligent automated workflows, the publishing industry is benefiting from cloud-based platforms. The cloud era has brought about transformative shifts in the sector. Here’s a look. 

Seamless Author Collaboration

When publishers deploy a cloud-based content authoring and publishing platform, they not only benefit from automated workflows, but also enable the collaboration of multiple authors across diverse locations. Authors can update information and make edits in real-time and from anywhere with 24/7 platform availability on the cloud. Documents can be shared with multiple individuals, including authors, editors, peer reviewers, etc., and feedback can be synchronized. Multiple runs to enhance the quality of the manuscript and ensure compliance with a journal or publication’s guidelines are also simplified. 

Scalability and Cost-Savings

Cloud-based intelligent automated publishing platforms eliminate the need for on-premises servers, managed networks, and expensive hardware and software. Resources can, therefore, be better deployed to drive business growth and expansion. With cloud-based technology tools to edits, format, automated addition of metatags and metadata, and AI-powered language and grammar checks, publishers are well-positioned to save on manual effort, costs, and time-to-market. 

Large files can be edited by multiple parties with some level of version control, ensured through traceability and easy scheduling. The biggest advantage of a cloud-based open access publishing platform is easy scalability, in sync with organizational needs. In addition, cloud storage adds a layer of security, allowing only authorized access to intellectual property. 

Easy Expansion of Reach

Not only do AI-powered content publishing platforms accelerate the publishing cycle via intelligent automation, but they also ease simultaneous publishing across a wide array of distribution channels. This opens up avenues for global reach and expansion. Plus, being cloud-based, updates can be made to publications quickly and seamlessly, with real-time content delivery. AI-powered content creation and publishing platforms also enable quick and accurate translation of content into multiple languages. This also ensures easy reach for global audiences.

Data-Driven Insights

The biggest boon of digitalization is the generation of enormous data volumes, which can be leveraged via AI-driven analytics to make data-driven strategic decisions. The best open access publishing platforms come with AI/ML-powered analytics capabilities to collate structured and unstructured data from diverse sources to identify patterns, relationships, and correlations that can be easily missed by the human eye. These insights can be used for predictive, prescriptive, and descriptive to drive business growth. 

Data Security and Integrity 

With powerful security measures, such as end-to-end encryption, access control, regular back-ups, and much more, cloud-based platforms keep sensitive and proprietary information safe and ensure compliance with data privacy regulations. Intelligent automated publishing platforms also offer the advantage of version control and multiple recovery options to make sure that natural or manmade catastrophes do not harm the publishing house. 

Are You Leveraging the Cloud for Business Growth? 

Cloud-based content publishing platforms power publishers with robust technology tools and features, from advanced grammar and language checks to automated HTML-based formatting, so that you can maintain the highest quality standards for every publication. Integra’s Content Suite is a powerful cloud-based content authoring and publishing platform that empowers businesses to not simply survive but thrive in the dynamic digital publishing landscape. 

Get in touch with the Integra team to learn how you can harness the power of the AI-driven publishing platform to reach a global audience.

How AI-Powered Workflow Automation Benefits Your Publishing Operations?

In the digital age, meeting customer expectations for convenient access to their preferred journals and eBooks has become crucial. The traditional journal publishing process must adapt to evolving customer demands which necessitates optimizing workflows, and intelligent workflow automation incorporating advanced technologies like AI is the key solution. Real-world statistics highlight the transformative impact of workflow automation on productivity within the publishing sector. According to a Zapier study, 63% of knowledge workers credit automation with helping them combat work burnout, while 65% believe it effectively reduces stress levels. This implies that AI driven workflow automation within journal publishing is aimed to enhance productivity and scale the output for publishers.

 

Prominent Challenges in the Publishing Industry

From submission of the manuscript to final distribution of the journal, the multiple runs of editing, corrections, revisions, and styling, have their own set of challenges.

  • Submission and Review– The authoring and editing phase might require numerous runs. Often, these are delayed due to out-of-sync timelines to manage both peer reviews and edits. Additionally, authors are often researchers first and writers second, which means huge gaps in their proficiency with language and writing tools.
  • Layout Design– Another prominent challenge for publishers comes after the final round of editing. The content design must be optimized for production across screens of all sizes and underlying platforms. All this has to be achieved while ensuring that digital publishing standards are met. Then, there is another round of author and editor proofing.
  • Content Standardization and Management– Finally, the gigantic task of distribution begins. Despite distribution being just a few swipes away with the digital format, it takes significant publisher effort to have it discovered and referred by scholars. XML-tagging, meta-tagging, managing the digital asset repository and ensuring appropriate credits are critical. This requires high-speed, cloud-based archive and license management.

Making Lives Easier for Publishers with AI-powered Workflow Automation Platform

To address the above at scale, publishers must employ cutting edge and efficient technologies to overcome workflow bottlenecks and deliver faster, better, and cheaper journals. In short, they need technology-driven intelligent workflow management platforms.

 

Leveraging artificial intelligence for efficient workflows has the potential to disrupt the publishing industry in many ways.

  • Accelerating turnarounds from content ideation to publishing: Automated grammar checks to assessing language quality and making recommendations for change speed up language quality checks and editing; NLP-based editing tools also facilitate guided editing to improve speed and quality.
  • Improved citation management with cross-linking and referencing from repositories: AI/ML-powered technical diagnosis helps identify missing information and references much faster and more accurately than human checks. It also aids adequate source-tagging.
  • Automated XML-tagging: Completely configurable cloud-based style managers can automate XML-tagging to style the documents according to each journal’s style guide. They also ensure compliance with industry standards. Machine-readable stylesheets reduce manual labor and accelerate layout design.

The most pressing challenge is choosing the right technology partner to facilitate efficiency in publishing workflows using AI services, such that the complexities of the publishing process are simplified via technology. Leveraging an intelligent automated publishing platform that comes with analytics capabilities can help publishers make informed decisions on content style and publishing format. It can also help them discover the most in-demand topics. In short, automation enables publishers to focus on strategic and creative aspects of journal publishing rather than tying up resources. Intelligent workflow automation ensures meeting timelines by streamlining and managing every step of the publishing process.

 

The full-cycle authoring and publishing platform from Integra ensures efficient workflow automation, powered by artificial intelligence. Its intuitive interface and rich functionalities can ease your content production journey. Contact us to streamline your workflows with the latest new technology in book and journal publishing.