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Growth of Publishing BPO

May 18, 2009

Research and Markets has come out with a report that indicates that despite economic slowdown, offshore publishing industry is poised for some robust growth mainly in the Asian sub-continent (India, Philippines, Vietnam, China, Sri Lanka. Dubbing this region as the world’s publishing destination, the report estimates that the offshore pre-press services offered by these countries were worth $780 m as of 2008.

The biggest share ($660 m) of this market is with Indian desktop publishers who mainly operate in the STM/Academic, educational and legal publishing fields, with smaller traction in magazines, corporate/B2B publishing, etc.

Of significance is the offshore vendor’s transition from low value services such as tagging, editing existing designs and copy editing to high value inputs such as making original designs or devising testing, assessments and e-learning tools for school curriculum. The report predicts that with better technological input, the industry will grow from $780 m in 2008 to $1.2 b by 2012. Already, the report identifies over 140 credible vendors in this field.

publishingBPO Growth of Publishing BPO

Meanwhile, another report by ValueNotes, a business intelligence company in Pune, India estimates that already there are some 35,550 people in direct employment generating revenues worth USD 660 million as of end-2008 in India. The maximum revenue is earned through content creation. Further, the STM/Academic segment contributes 60% to the offshore revenues, followed by the Educational publishing segment. The market leaders in this sector are SPi, Aptara, Integra and Laserwords to name a few.

Meanwhile, with digital publishing gaining ground in the sub continent, and with the entry of Rs 3,000-crore Future Group’s Depot into the business, the nascent self-publishing industry has also begun to grow in size and scope. Self-publishing is a very cost-effective solution for first-time authors who want to keep a control over their print-runs.

On the global plane, the biggest player in this sector is Lulu.com, followed by BookSurge.com, another print-on-demand service acquired by Amazon.com. Optimists go so far as to suggest that mass market paperbacks will die out and over time be completely replaced by the self publishing industry.

For interesting trivia and stats on self-publishing industry, quickly log on to http://www.selfpublishingresources.com/Booknews.htm.

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Written by Radhika · Filed Under BPO Blogs 

Comments

4 Responses to “Growth of Publishing BPO”

  1. Rj on May 21st, 2009 8:50 am

    HI,
    Can anyone tell what type of publishing BPO work is currently being outsourced to India?

    -Rj

  2. Aptara on May 21st, 2009 4:58 pm

    Editorial services like proof reading, ebook creation, art work design, etc are outsourced to India. Now outsource vendors are capable handling full life cycle editorial management services

  3. Jastin on June 5th, 2009 8:56 am

    I didn’t know that publishing work has been outsourced to India? Does anyone knows how big the market is going to be in the next couple of years?

  4. David on December 21st, 2009 5:39 am

    India as got best human resources is the reason, why outsourcing to India.

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