The Study On The Business Mode Of Digital Publishing

Digital publishing is a hot topic in today’s publishing industry, whose development was still in its infancy years ago with a huge boom in recent years. According to the "the annual report of China’s digital publishing industry2010-2011" released by China Publication Science Institute, the total income of China’s digital publishing industry reached105.179billion Yuan in2010,65times larger than that in2002, with an annual growth rate68.88%. In particular, the concepts of web2.0grassroots, interaction, participation and share that were put forward since2005and the maturation of new technologies such as mobile internet, Cloud Computing, Tablet PC, handheld reader since2010has made the combination of concepts and technologies possible and thus brings about some new features of digital publishing in this stage. However, factors that impede the further development of digital publishing still exist, among which the lack of a business mode, which is stable, mature and beneficial to the long-term development of digital publishing, is an essential one. Throughout China’s digital publishing enterprises, continuous efforts have been made in the exploration of a business mode. Some unique business modes have been formed, but few of them can be stabilized and gain continuous profits. Many enterprises simply copy or imitate mature business modes of other countries with no attention paid to the real situation of the domestic market, which will undoubtedly results in negative impact on China’s digital publishing industry.In this context, the present paper focuses on the research on business modes of digital publishing. The whole paper is divided into seven chapters. Chapter One and Chapter Two are two introductory chapters, which involve literature review, rationale and recent developments. Chapter Three starts with a comparison between business mode and profit mode, discusses the value realization process of digital publishing based on the value realization principle of business mode, and summaries four stages: audience needs, business forms, realization channel and profit gains. A thorough and detailed classification of business modes is made according to these four perspectives. According to audience needs, business modes can be classified into professional publishing business mode based on knowledge structure, business mode based on education value-added services and mass publishing mode based on market interaction. According to business form, business modes can be classified into original network literature publishing mode, mobile phone book publishing mode, Google digital library mode and e-book platform plus terminal mode. According to realization channel, business modes can be grouped into copyright operation, bundle sales, lease borrowing, direct trade ownership and the Attention Economy. According to profit gains, business mode can be divided into direct charging mode and the third party paying business mode. Chapter Four discusses the existing problems of China’s digital publishing business mode based on the comparison to the mature American business mode, and arrives at problems regarding publishing systems and personnel construction, business form layout problems which emphasizes technology and neglects contents, single income method problem, and profit distribution injustice problem. Chapter Five puts forward suggestions from three perspectives:macro national policy, medium industry analysis and micro enterprise operation. From the macro perspective, three suggestions are made:promote Publishing system reform, accelerate industry soft environment construction, strengthen copyright protection and complex publishing personnel training. From the medium perspective, another three suggestions are made:improve and integrate industrial chain, Unify industry technical standards and establish trade union. From the micro perspective, suggestions are made as follows:build content platform, give play to the resource integration platform value, dig out the greatest value of contents, expand value realization channel, set up the third party regulatory agencies and perfect the profit distribution system. Chapter Six selects Shanghai Digibook industrial Co., LTD-an embodiment of the emergent digital publishing enterprises, as the target for case study and untilizes SWOT analysis method to research its industrial chain environment, business organization, enterprise strategy and so on with a purpose to make a close observation of the business mode and operation situation of digital publishing enterprise from a micro perspective.