Ebooks - the savior of the publishing industry.

While bookstores are gradually shrinking in size and slowly disappearing, the consumption of printed books is declining in the market.

The habit of reading on tablets threatens to kill off printed books.

While traditional bookstores are shrinking in size and gradually disappearing, and the consumption of printed books is declining, the e-book market, with its soaring revenue, represents a new turning point for the publishing industry. According to the latest statistics from the Publishers Association of America, e-book revenue has surpassed that of printed books in the US, and this is becoming a reality in Vietnam in the near future.

After one year of operation, despite entering the ebook market relatively late, Ybook – the e-book business unit of Tre Publishing House – has achieved a revenue level that has surprised many publishing giants: 4 billion VND per year, owning 3,000 digital titles. Achieving this is no easy feat, as the cost to digitize one book is 1 million VND. Although they have just escaped the situation of "using revenue to cover expenses," this is still a positive sign. And in the near future, Tre Publishing House plans to digitize its extensive book collection with other book partners, adding tens of thousands of titles annually – a truly remarkable achievement.

Currently, there are many online ebook providers, but the ones with the most copyrights are mainly: Alezaa, Phuong Nam, Lac Viet, Ho Chi Minh City General Publishing House, and Ybook. Compared to technically strong providers like Alezaa and Lac Viet, Phuong Nam, General Publishing House, and Ybook have a richer selection of books, especially copyrighted ones. To compete in the market, each provider has its own way of attracting readers. Specifically, Alezaa Reader protects ebook copyrights through encryption and modern anti-copying methods. Costs from internet connection, taxes, service fees, etc., account for 30% of the cover price on Alezaa. The remaining 70% is split 50/50 between the bookstore and the author.

Ybook is the only ebook publisher in Vietnam with an ebook reader application that is supported by all four major app stores worldwide: Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Samsung. Furthermore, it was the first to offer university textbooks and student theses in ebook format to students nationwide at an affordable price.

Another notable point is that, starting in Q1 2014, Ybook developed publishing services, supporting authors in self-publishing e-books at a much lower cost than print books (only requiring a publishing license). This is a "new horizon" that the publishing industry could only dream of, because only by eliminating all related costs will the ease of appearing on the e-book market bring new names to readers faster, and who knows, after a period of success online, they might officially enter the real world as writers with a large readership?

Despite opening up such bright prospects for the publishing industry, digitization is also frequently subjected to blatant theft. Numerous online libraries freely share ebooks while still charging readers fees, even if the quality of the books is substandard. Recently, following warnings and pleas from many booksellers and publishers, several websites have been forced to shut down due to the overwhelming number of unlicensed books. However, immediately after these libraries announced their closure, their entire data repository was moved to another address for public access.

According to Labor