Publishing revolution: Is there love in the air for the new Mills & Boon app?

[dropcap]T[/dropcap] here can be no doubt that the digital age has had colossal effects on the publishing industry and the way people read today. Gone are the times when you would see people reading for enjoyment (everyone would much rather watch the film or television adaptation), and those who do read seem to choose e-books over the physical version because of ease and convenience.

It comes as no surprise, therefore, that publishers are looking to the digital market to keep up-to-date. Mills & Boon, known for their romance novels, have created their own e-reader app to cut out the “middle man”, referring to e-book distributors like Amazon and Apple. This aims to streamline the buying and selling process, allowing customers to buy directly from publishers rather than going through companies like Amazon. Currently, with every e-book downloaded, Amazon and similar companies receive a percentage of the profits but this app will stop this from happening.

However, Mills & Boon face difficult challenges from e-readers, as the app will only allow reading on smartphones and tablets, meaning that those who swear by the Kindle will still be buying from Amazon. Despite these potential problems, there has been a recent increase in the number of people who read e-books on smartphones and tablets, meaning that the venture will hopefully pay off.

[pullquote style=”right” quote=”dark”]This is just another step towards the inevitable digital domination[/pullquote]The benefits which Mills & Boon could gain from this app makes it very likely that other publishers will join them in this initiative, leading to a further decline in sales for bookshops. Despite the costs to create, maintain and improve an app the number of customers that they bring in outweighs the disadvantages for a publisher like Mills & Boon.

The situation for smaller publishers is slightly different. Mills & Boon are well known for romantic fiction and so they will have loyal readers ready to download their app but smaller publishers, who do not have such a strong identity, will find it more difficult to entice readers who have much stronger ties to Amazon or Apple. Nonetheless, for big publishers, digital publishing is the way forward. It has already changed the way in which people buy and read books and will now affect how books are published and through which digital medium.

And my opinion? A smartphone versus a Kindle, Amazon versus a publishers app…who needs any of it when you could choose to actually pick up a book.[pullquote style=”right” quote=”dark”]A real, tangible book, remember those?[/pullquote]Unfortunately there is no denying the reality that e-books will continue to rise in popularity. I am almost certain that there will be love in the air for the Mills & Boon app, and I do not imagine we will have to wait too long to see other big publishers following suit.