A Study Of Self-publishing Platforms In Internet Age

Self-publishing was in an early form at the beginning of the global publishing industry. It was common that authors self-published their works in America in the19th century. Tristram Shandy is considered to be the first known self-published book. With the rapid development of Internet technology and digital publishing in the21th century, digital self-publishing emerges at the right moment and shows a new vitality. American self-published books exceeded books published by traditional publishers in number for the first time in2008. Self-publishing platform providing service for self-publishing books also has a tendency to break publishing monopoly situation of traditional publishers.Taking Douban Reading, one of the leading domestic self-publishing platforms as the main research object, this dissertation makes a research into and analysis of Douban reading’s experience and characteristics in its products and services. By comparing Douban Reading with other advanced self-publishing platforms home and abroad, the author makes an objective evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of Douban Reading and finally makes suggestions on the development of domestic self-publishing platforms.The first chapter describes the significance and background of the research. On the one hand, with the wide application of Internet technology and mobile internet, Chinese digital reading market is showing a huge space for development. On the other hand, as a new direction of the development of the publishing industry in Internet Age, self-publishing is an inexorable product when digital publishing develops to certain stage. Therefore, research on Douban Reading has a guiding significance to the development of domestic self-publishing platforms. Moreover, the author defines the concepts of self-publishing and self-publishing platform.The second chapter introduces the development of self-publishing platforms and the development environment, and makes a brief interpretation of Douban Reading. As a professional self-publishing platform, Douban Reading, based on the literary Douban Community, has created its characteristic path for self-publishing in just two years.The third and forth chapters make an analysis of the products and services of Douban Reading separately. In terms of products, the author summarizes the content resources of Douban Reading and the characteristics of Douban reader, interpreting the pricing strategy of the products. In terms of services, the author makes an overall analysis of Douban Reading’s services for authors, readers as well as publishers.The fifth chapter summarizes and objectively evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of Douban Reading by comparing Douban Reading with other advanced self-publishing platforms home and abroad. On the one hand, Douban Reading forms its own advantages, that is, ideal creative process, comparatively low threshold, loyal customers and interactive reading experience. On the other hand, it is faced with such problems to be resolved as inadequate personalization and customization, non-transparent audit mechanism as well as narrow sales channel.The last chapter makes suggestions on the development of domestic self-publishing platforms. Under the premise of abiding by the domestic publishing policies and regulations, self-publishing platforms should make efforts to enrich their content resources, highlight the subject status of the authors, build professional service team, provide overall personalization and customization, improve reading experience, strengthen multiple interactions among authors and readers, as well as cooperate with other platforms to expand marketing channels, thus promoting the vigorous development of the self-publishing industry...