CN1341900A - Electronic Publishing System and Distribution Method of Its Publications - Google Patents

Abstract

An electronic publication system and its publication selling method are disclosed, which includes a central publication database for storing publications, electronic publication sellers including a processor for controlling operation, an input/output unit and an output unit for writing the stored publications into a medium, and a network for connecting each seller to the publication database. The method comprises detecting whether a purchaser has paid, selecting a publication from a publication database via a network, downloading the publication to a publication distributor, and writing the content of the publication to be purchased into a storage medium of the purchaser. The system and the method of the invention can save resources.

Description

Electronic Publishing System and Distribution Method of Its Publications

The invention relates to a publishing system, in particular to an electronic publishing system and a method for selling publications thereof.

The traditional publishing method is to show readers in printed matter. The whole process of making such printed matter involves paper production, printing, binding, and transporting the finished printed matter to different delivery points. All these procedures are harmful to the environment. Trees in the forest must be cut down to make paper, and printing and transportation will also pollute the environment. Due to the enormous scale of the publishing industry, its impact on the environment is also extremely significant.

In the last two decades, the advancement of digital information technology has gradually popularized electronic publishing operations and used them for knowledge dissemination. Today's publications are stored on standardized storage media such as floppy disks, compact disks (CDs), and solid-state non-volatile memory cards. The digital media commonly used in personal computers and other personal digital devices can also improve readers' reading conditions with the development of optoelectronics and other technologies. Publications in the form of digital media, which are small in size, light in weight, long in life, and low in production costs, can be displayed and sold together with traditional books and magazines in general bookstores and other stores.

However, this electronic publishing method has some disadvantages. In order for publications to be stored on common digital media inexpensively and accessible to the general reading public, such media must be mass-produced. For example, taking a compact disc (CD) as an example of a publishing medium, the number of CD publications must be sufficiently large. Although the mass production of CDs can reduce the cost of a single disc, it still requires a huge amount of capital to make tens of thousands of CDs in an efficiently operated production facility. Obviously, there are similar situations in the traditional book publishing industry, and its printing and materials also consume huge funds.

Since every single publication inevitably has to cost a lot of money, every author who intends to publish his work needs to convince the publisher that his work will achieve reasonable sales, and can generate profits. Publishers are naturally careful when selecting an author's work for publication. Such obstacles will obviously reduce the publication opportunities of some works, and even some truly valuable works may not be published or may be published after a long period of time, and may be read by readers. In addition, even if a work is accepted by the publisher, it will take a long time for readers to read it.

The way in which electronic books and periodicals are traditionally displayed and sold is not significantly different from the way in which traditional bookstores conduct print sales. They differ only in the medium in which the content of the publication is carried.

An object of the present invention is to provide an electronic publishing system capable of publishing inexpensive reading materials.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a distribution method of electronic publications with little environmental pollution.

Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an electronic publishing system for publishing reading materials in small quantities and a distribution method for publications thereof.

To achieve the above object, the present invention takes the following technical measures:

The system and method of the present invention use electronic publishing to sell reading materials by a publisher to readers who purchase publications. The publishing method is to use a central publication database to publish books and periodical publications. The publishing method of the present invention utilizes an electronic publishing system having a central publication database for storing publications authorized for sale. Several electronic publication distributors are installed in different locations, and each electronic publication distributor includes a processing unit capable of controlling the operation of the distributor. At least one input device accepts purchase-related information entered by a reader who purchased the publication, and at least one output device displays the purchase-related information to the reader who purchased the publication. At least one media-written output device for writing the content of the purchased publication to the media for storage of the publication. A wide area network connects each electronic publication distributor to the central publication database. The steps of the electronic publishing method of the present invention include: firstly, for the selected publications, it is detected whether a reader who purchases the publications executes the accepted payment. Then, the content of the selected publication is downloaded to the electronic publication distributor in the central publication database via a network. The reader who purchased the publication then selects one of the supported media for storing the downloaded content of the purchased publication. Finally, the contents of the selected purchased publications are stored by writing the contents of the selected purchased publications into the storage medium.

A kind of electronic publishing system of the present invention comprises:

A central publications database storing authorized publications;

Electronic publication distributors installed at multiple locations, each electronic publication distributor including a processor operable to control the operation of the electronic publication distributor; at least one input device capable of receiving input from a reader who purchases the publication purchase-related information; at least one output device capable of displaying purchase-related information to a purchaser; and at least one medium-written output device capable of writing content of a purchased publication to the medium for storing the publication ;

A network connecting each electronic publication distributor to the central publication database.

The selling method of the electronic publication of the present invention comprises the following steps:

To check the acceptability of payment by a reader who purchases a publication selected for purchase;

downloading the contents of the selected publications from its central publications database to the electronic publication distributor via a network;

One of several pre-determined media is selected by the reader who purchased the publication to store the downloaded content of the purchased publication;

Writing the content of the selected publication into the storage medium, and storing the content of the selected publication.

Structural features of the present invention are described in detail as follows in conjunction with accompanying drawing and embodiment:

Brief description of the attached drawings:

Fig. 1: the circuit block diagram of the electronic publishing system embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 2: The block circuit diagram of an automatic publication issuer with input/output devices required for various reader interfaces in Fig. 1;

Figure 3: A block diagram of an automated publication distributor of Figure 1 with multiple distribution outputs;

Fig. 4: A flowchart of an embodiment of the electronic publishing method of the present invention.

As shown in Figure 1, it is the circuit block diagram of the electronic publishing system embodiment of the present invention; The system in Figure 1 includes a central publication database (CPD, Central Publication Database) 100, a wide area network (WAN) 200, and several Automated Electronic Publication Distributor (APED, Automated Electronic Publication Distributor) 301, 302, ... and 309. As can be understood by those skilled in the art, any form of network, whether it is a WAN, a local area network (LAN), or the Internet (Internet), can be used.

The central publication database 100 and each automated electronic publication distributor 301, 302, . . . , 309 can be installed in different locations. Therefore, all these devices can be connected to each other by using a wide area network 200 based on the mass communication service network. For example, each of the distributors 301 , 302 , . . . , 309 can be respectively set up in different places in a city or in different cities, or even in different cities in different countries. In this case, different paths of the wide area network 200 may include lines such as satellite links provided by communication and/or telephone companies.

Central publication database 100, may comprise a database system operated by a publisher. The database 100 may store in its electronic storage facilities a variety of commercially available publications for which it has licenses. The storage and retrieval of each publication in the database can be managed in an efficient manner by utilizing various existing database management systems (DBMS, Data Base Management System).

A reader 500 who intends to buy a publication sold by a publisher operating the system shown in FIG. Place. As will be explained hereinafter, a reader who purchases a publication may pay for the publication by any of several methods.

As shown in Figure 2, it is a circuit block diagram of an automatic publication distributor with various input/output devices required by the reader interface in Figure 1; it represents the automatic publication distributor 301, 302, ..., 309, the structure of an embodiment. As shown in the figure, the distributor 301 includes a processing unit 3011 that manages its operation. The main function of the distributor 301 is to deliver the publications purchased by a reader to the reader. On the other hand, the issuer 301 also identifies the identity of the reader who purchases the publication for the system, so as to provide an input port for the reader to carry out the purchase procedure.

In order to accomplish the above-mentioned input and output functions, the above-mentioned distributor 301 may have one or more reader interface I/O devices connected to its processing unit 3011 respectively. In the embodiment of Fig. 2, these I/O devices can include a keyboard 3012 as input devices, a pointing device 3013 and a card reader 3014, and a display 3015, a disk drive 3016, A CD recorder 3017 interfaces with a memory card 3018. Among these I/O devices, the display 3015 may be a touch-screen device for dual functions of input/output by the reader. For example, the publication items to be purchased and their prices can all be displayed on the screen of the display 3015 .

Readers can purchase desired publications at the site of the distributor 301 or purchase in other ways before coming to the site of the distributor. Using any combination of various input devices of the distributor 301, readers can complete the action of purchasing and paying for publications on the spot. For example, by using the cash receiving device 3019 that can identify the amount and authenticity of banknotes, it is possible to accept payments of smaller amounts on the spot. If you want to pay by credit card, the reader can use the card reader 3014 to directly input the resources on the credit card into the system. Alternatively, the reader can also use the keyboard 3012 or the touch screen 3015 to input credit card data. On the other hand, if the purchase of the publication has been arranged in advance by telephone or the Internet, the reader only needs to use the keyboard 3012 or the touch screen 3015 to input the verification information obtained in advance into the system to obtain the publication. During this process, if necessary, the pointing device 3013 can also be used to assist in the input of necessary resource information.

Once the purchase of the publication is confirmed on site, the reader can obtain a copy of the purchased publication on the distributor 301 via the output device of his choice. The media used to carry the purchased publications can be chosen by readers according to their wishes and needs. In the embodiment of FIG. 2 , the media that can be selected by the readers may include a variety of common and popular digital storage media. The CD recorder 3017 may be an industry standard rewritable optical disc such as CD-R and CD-RW. On the other hand, if the system is provided with a suitable disk drive 3016, then high-density floppy disks with specifications such as Zip from Iomega and LS-120 from Imation can also be selected. For smaller publications, at least one standard floppy disk may also be used. Connected to the distributor 301 via the interface 3018, solid state semiconductor memory cards, such as standard PCMCIA memory cards, are also suitable for smaller publications.

As an option, as shown in the block diagram of Figure 1, multiple licensed authors can also connect to the system using their own personal computer devices 401, 402, ..., 409, via picking WAN 200 to participate in electronic publishing with its works. In the system of FIG. 1 , authors who are authorized to use the system can deliver their works to the publisher of the operating system via WAN 200 . Publishers who operate the system in Figure 1 can consider selling the work after reviewing the received work, or they can directly publish introductory information for the work without any review, and then sell it directly to the public.

In this way, the electronic publishing system in FIG. 1 can publish a small amount of publications at a reasonable and low cost. This is good for all three aspects involved in the normal publishing business. First of all, as far as readers are concerned, the fees that readers have to pay for a publication, in addition to the copyright fees paid to the author and the service fees paid to the publisher, only need to bear the popular digital storage used to carry the publication. media, for its relatively minimal cost. Publishers, on the other hand, don't have to incur the risk of making a lot of printed or recorded copies of a particular work by a particular author, which end up as inventory that no one wants. As far as the author is concerned, his or her work may even have a minimal readership and the opportunity to get published. In addition, in such a system, any finished work can reach the reading market of the general public almost instantly.

Each of the automated electronic publication issuers 301, 302, ..., 309 in the system of Fig. 1 can be installed in an unmanned bookstore in the form of a wall-mounted or wall-mounted device, similar to the ATM machine of an unmanned automatic bank. Installation method. In fact, one or more such automated electronic publication dispensers can be located in locations such as convenience stores, grocery stores or hotel lobbies. It should also be pointed out that an automated bookstore or other publication distribution points can be installed with multiple distribution devices 301 connected by a local area network (LAN, Local Area Network). The block diagram among Fig. 3 promptly depicts such a kind of structure, wherein a plurality of automatic electronic publication distribution devices among Fig. 2 are interconnected with a LAN 330. These publishers 301, 311, ..., 319, which are interconnected by local area network, can be centrally installed at the same place, so as to allow many readers to purchase publications at the same time. This small area network 330 of the bookstore can be connected to the central publication database 100 of FIG. 1 via the normal WAN 200.

The WAN 200 purchased to support this electronic publication distribution network can optionally have an appropriate transmission bandwidth to ensure a fast enough download time. Depending on the download file size of the publication, the download time required for on-site purchase should ideally be limited to less than a few minutes or tens of minutes. On the other hand, readers ordering larger archival publications can make prior arrangements with the publisher to ensure that the entire content they purchase is downloaded to the point of sale in advance. In this way, when the reader arrives at the electronic bookstore, after the reader's identity is verified, the recording operation of writing the publication content into the recording medium can be started immediately.

As far as the procedure of writing the publication content is concerned, the time required to write the capacity of an entire CD into a typical ISO-9660 standard CD-R and CD-RW can be reduced to no longer than ten minutes. Floppy disk-type media can often support even faster write rates than CDs, while solid-state semiconductor-type non-volatile memory cards, such as PCMCIA cards, can write even faster.

The publications purchased by readers can be picked up or read in various ways. Publications stored on CD can be viewed on a personal computer monitor. Alternatively, digital, hand-held book-size reading devices with CD data format compatibility can also be used to read purchased publications. Some handheld readers also accept PCMCIA-rated memory cards. A standard PC can also be equipped with a PCMCIA card interface. On the other hand, most notebook computers already have a PCMCIA card interface as their standard configuration, so purchased publications can also be easily read.

As shown in FIG. 4 , it is a flowchart of an embodiment of the electronic publishing method of the present invention. The flow of the method embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to FIG. 1 , FIG. 2 and FIG. 3 .

The program of electronic publication starts from step 500. At this time, a reader who wants to purchase a publication comes to the setting place of one of the automated electronic publication distributors 301, 302, ... or 309 of the sales system, and starts a publication The process of purchasing items. This assumes again that it is using the issuer 301 shown in FIG. 2 . Once the program starts, the flow proceeds to step 502. At this time, the processing unit 3011 of the issuer 301 asks the reader whether this is an on-site purchase. The processing unit 3011 can display the questions asked to the reader on the screen of the display 3015, and at the same time, display the title and price of the book that the reader wants to buy, for the reader to confirm. If the reader inputs his answer through any combination of all input devices, it means that it is an on-site purchase, and the process will proceed to step 504, so that the reader can perform on-site payment for the publication he wants to buy. The reader can use, for example, input credit card data via the keyboard 3012, or directly insert the credit card into the card reader 3014, or as mentioned above, directly use the cash collection device 3019 to make payment.

After the payment action in step 504 is completed, the process proceeds to step 506. At this time, the processing unit 3011 can connect to the corresponding bank to obtain credit card payment approval. This can be done via connection to WAN 200. On the other hand, if the reader who purchased the publication indicates that his payment has been completed before coming to the distributor 301, the processing unit 3011 can connect back to the central publication database 100 in step 506 to confirm whether the publisher Payment has indeed been received.

If the check result of step 506 is negative, it means that the payment-related information input on site is wrong, or the previous payment procedure failed, at this time, the process will proceed to step 508, so that the processing unit 3011 can determine Whether to allow patrons who purchased publications to try to make payment again. Such a checking step is necessary to prevent someone from repeating the invalid payment procedure maliciously or not in step 504 . For example, the system may limit up to three payment attempts per reader who makes a purchase. After three failed payment actions, the system can conclude at step 510 that the purchase action has failed, and the process ends at step 512 . If the system allows the payment process again in step 508, then the process can return to step 504 for the reader to try to make payment again.

On the other hand, if the result of the payment verification step 506 is affirmative, it means that the payment has been successfully accepted by the reader who purchased the publication, and the process can proceed to step 514 . In step 514 , the processing unit 3011 checks whether the publication the reader wants to purchase has been stored locally in the distributor 301 . If not, then the process starts the downloading program in step 516, so that the publication is transmitted by the far-end central publication database 100 through the WAN 200. After the download is complete, proceed to step 518 . On the other hand, if the checking result of step 514 is affirmative, it means that the publication desired by the reader has been stored locally in the distributor 301, so the process can directly jump to step 518. In step 518, the processing unit 3011 allows the reader to select the media they wish to use to store their purchased publications. As previously stated, the choice may be one of a CD, floppy disk, solid state electronic memory card, or any other suitable medium. After the storage medium is selected in step 518, proceed to step 520, at this time, the process of writing the publication to the selected medium can begin. After step 520 completes the writing operation successfully, step 522 ends. Including the purchased publication, the finished media can be taken out from the distributor 301 and taken away by the reader who purchased the publication.

Compared with the prior art, the present invention has the following effects:

Using the simple and straight-forward operation procedure of the method of the present invention, any reader can purchase desired publications from the automated electronic publication distribution machine within minutes or even seconds. Since each purchase operation is carried out under control, the publication price paid by each reader includes the copyright fee, so the author's copyright fee can be guaranteed. And because the electronic publishing method disclosed by the present invention does not involve paper at all, it can save environmental resources and maintain the ecological environment.

The above content is to use the embodiment to illustrate the technical characteristics of the present invention, and is not used to limit the protection scope of the present invention. Even if someone makes a slight change on the basis of the concept of the present invention, it should still belong to the protection scope of the present invention. For example, the distributor described therein is mainly for use with WAN, but in fact any suitable network system is equally feasible. For example, a local area network LAN or even the entire Internet can replace the aforementioned WAN network.

Claims (22)

1. An electronic publishing system, characterized in that, comprising: A central publications database storing authorized publications; Electronic publication distributors installed at several locations, each electronic publication distributor including a processor operable to control the operation of the electronic publication distributor; at least one input device receiving input from a reader who purchases the publication purchase-related information; at least one output device capable of displaying purchase-related information to a purchaser; and at least one media-written output device capable of writing the content of the purchased publication to a medium for storing the publication; A network connecting each electronic publication distributor to the central publication database. 2. The electronic publishing system according to claim 1, wherein the network is a regional network. 3. The electronic publishing system according to claim 1, wherein the network is a wide area network. 4. The electronic publishing system according to claim 1, wherein the network is an international network. 5. A method for selling electronic publications applicable to the electronic publishing system of claims 1-4, characterized in that it comprises the following steps: To check the acceptability of payment by a reader who purchases a publication selected for purchase; downloading the contents of the selected publications from its central publications database to the electronic publication distributor via a network; One of several pre-determined media is selected by the reader who purchased the publication to store the downloaded content of the purchased publication; Writing the content of the selected publication into the storage medium, and storing the content of the selected publication. 6. The method of claim 5, further comprising the steps of confirming payment accepted within a predetermined number of attempts, and terminating reader delivery of purchased publications after exceeding the predetermined number of attempts Publication steps. 7. The method according to claim 5, wherein the step of detecting payment acceptability includes the step of confirming credit card information with the corresponding bank. 8. The method according to claim 5, wherein the step of storing the content of the selected publication includes the step of writing the content into a high-density floppy disk. 9. The method of claim 5, wherein the step of storing the content of the selected publication includes the step of writing the content to an optical disc. 10. The method of claim 5, wherein said step of storing selected publication content includes the step of writing said content to a solid state electronic non-volatile memory card. 11. An electronic publishing system, which can utilize electronic publishing to allow a publisher to sell reading materials to readers who purchase publications, which is characterized in that it includes: A central publications database storing authorized publications; A plurality of electronic publication distributors installed in different locations, each electronic publication distributor includes a processing unit capable of controlling the operation of the electronic publication distributor; input of purchase-related information; at least one output device capable of displaying the purchase-related information to readers of the purchased publication; and at least one output device for media writing to which the content of the purchased publication can be written to the medium for storage the publication; Connect each electronic publication dispenser to a network of central publication databases, wherein the electronic publication dispenser picked up by a reader who purchases publications can transfer the purchased publications via the connection route of the network Downloaded from the central publications database for writing to a storage medium of the reader's choice. 12. The system according to claim 11, wherein at least one input device of each electronic publication distributor is a keyboard for receiving information input by readers purchasing publications. 13. The system of claim 11, wherein at least one input device of each electronic publication distributor is a pointing device for receiving information input by a reader purchasing a publication. 14. The system according to claim 11, wherein at least one input device of each electronic publication distributor is a card reader for receiving information input by readers purchasing publications. 15. The system of claim 11, wherein said at least one input device of each electronic publication dispenser is a cash receiving device for accepting banknotes inserted by readers purchasing publications. 16. The system of claim 11, wherein at least one input device of each electronic publication distributor is a touch screen display for receiving information input by a reader purchasing a publication. 17. The system of claim 11, wherein at least one output device of each electronic publication distributor is a touch screen display for displaying information to readers purchasing publications. 18. The system of claim 11, wherein the at least one media-written output device of each electronic publication dispenser is a high-density floppy disk drive. 19. The system of claim 11, wherein the at least one media-written output device of each electronic publication distributor is an optical disc recorder. 20. The system of claim 19, wherein the optical disc recorder is a CD-R reader. 21. The system according to claim 19, wherein the optical disc recorder is a CD-RW reader/writer. 22. The system of claim 11, wherein the at least one media-written output device of each electronic publication dispenser is a solid-state electronic non-volatile memory card writer.

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