The Future of Publishing

VUI Opportunities

Although it might create some challenges for publishers, voice technology offers opportunities for promotion, distribution, recognition, and discoverability. Voice-first applications make content searches easier and customers make book selections and purchases more quickly. For example, some possible conversations with voice assistants could be:

“OK Google, give me a list of books with similar content as My Favorite Book,” or

“Alexa, find me the top-rated book that talks about preventive medicine and add it to my shopping basket.”

Like websites, voice assistants are platforms that help companies or individuals to protect their identity, create a persona, promote their products, and interact with customers. Publishers are able to build their brand, develop their own unique features (Amazon calls them “skills and Google calls them “actions”), and become part of a completely new storytelling methodology, adding layers to the overall customer experience. Authors can also take advantage of their story creating capabilities and help other brands build their own dialogues between the company and the customer.

One interesting use case is the Google Assistant’s HarperCollins StoryCastle app (or “action”). This is a voice-activated audiobook for children that offers a unique listening experience for kids and parents with two new stories every day. This application becomes even more engaging when the user takes part in an interactive and gamified story. Readers essentially create the plot by, selecting among several scenarios that lead to different endings. Some applications that are currently available and are based on this logic are the Amazon apps (or “skills”) “The Magic Door” and “Choose Your Own Adventure.”

This idea is not new and has proven successful in nonvoice-related applications. In 2010, the “choose a different ending” concept was applied by the London Metropolitan police in their anti–knife crime campaign on YouTube. Similarly, in 2011, Tipp-Ex launched a gaming advertising campaign in which customers could select the ending of the advertisement based on several options. From a marketing perspective this is a clever method of raising brand awareness and keeping customers engaged in a creative and innovative way. From the customer side, the high user response rate reveals that people are willing to interact with and respond to attractive and fascinating stories.

The development of voice recognition technology, artificial intelligence, and natural language processing will play a significant role in the years to come. In the publishing industry, voice assistants can become a useful tool for speech-to-text applications, provide assistance to people who struggle with handwriting or typing, and proofread text for dyslexics. Some writers claim that the ability to walk around while speaking gives them more freedom and leades to more natural and creative expression. Also, focusing more on the words and less on writing can make people more productive and improve the flow of their thought process.

Moving Forward

As voice technology grows and evolves, the publishing industry needs to move quickly to overcome challenges and adopt voice-driven practices effectively. The faster it integrates the current technology trends, the smoother the transition will be.

Rapid changes in technology have affected not only our daily routine and personal habits but also the professional status quo. Companies used to be in the financial, real estate, insurance or healthcare sectors. Now, we work in fin-tech, real-tech, insur-tech, health-tech, and so on. Nonetheless, we are heading to an age where today’s high-tech will be so integrated into our businesses that we will start removing the ‘tech’ suffix from the sectors’ names and make the old names the new norm.