Zoo having a big say in e-book market

ZOO Digital is grabbing a slice of the rapidly-growing e-book market as it bolsters its services to the media industry.

The Sheffield-based company already counts major Hollywood studios among its customers, and is expanding its services by developing its automated editing tools.

The company helps media groups cut the cost and speed up development of titles, as well as reducing the impact of piracy.

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Studios including Warner and Disney use its products to replicate DVD titles in various languages without having to rely on manual inputting for each title.

The company’s latest development is an eBook Builder, which Zoo says provides an efficient way to reproduce traditional books online. It builds on Zoo’s core software and can be used to repurpose items including comics, travel guides and cookery books.

“It’s a really big, growing market right now,” said Zoo finance director Helen Gilder. “The e-book market is really expanding.”

The group has also been targeting the music industry with its new Interactive Content Editor.

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This allows record labels to efficiently create packages which include additional features as well as music tracks. “Rather than just having the tracks in a music album, we can add bits such as lyrics and videos,” said Ms Gilder. “It just adds to the proposition.”

Zoo’s software is designed so that users do not need to be technical experts, helping cut the cost of production for content owners.

Zoo is tapping multi-million pound markets for e-books and music software. According to Futuresource Consulting, the e-book market grew by more than 200 per cent to top $900m in 2010.

Digital music sales are forecast to reach $2.8bn in 2012, beating physical sales for the first time.