How to Develop an Ideal Mobile Reading App

• Mobile
• September 23, 2020

by Beantsingh Duggal

Businesses often look for strong and unique sales channels to grow smoothly. Irrespective of how developing or accomplished a business is, it requires reaching more clients. And it applies to every business – whether it’s a startup or a big publisher, everyone seeks to involve more digital readers, and offline retailers think about going digital.

These days, more offline book retailers and publishers are reaping the benefits of online reading apps. This is high time to follow the current trend as every book publisher creates its e-reading app.

So, let’s discuss what an e-reading app is, what its essential features are, why you should build your digital reading application, and how you can create it cost-effectively!

What is An E-Reading App?

As its name implies, an e-reading app is a robust mobile service that is developed to make the reading procedure more convenient, comfortable, enjoyable, and hassle-free.

Why You Should Develop an Mobile Reading App

These days, nearly every person carries a smart device like Android mobile, iPhone, iPad, or Tablet that offers the platform for a best-selling reading app. Since people have become tech-savvy, they usually look for a convenient e-reading app through which they not just can read but also purchase books.

Developing an mobile reading app is not regarding the number of books sold out and the money earned. Alongside them, you will get a complete set of benefits.

1. Higher Sales

A mobile reading app serves as an extra source of earning and eases the checkout procedure for both offline and online sales.

2. Absolute Feasibility

eBook reading apps save you from carrying heavy books. Although there are special devices like Kindle for reading eBooks, they have some flaws like they are single-purpose, whereas our smart devices can fix many issues. And they are not cost-effective. So, why waste your money when you can download a free e-reading app and install it on your smart device?

3. Variety of Options

Generally, these apps provide their readers with a cautiously chosen rich library that contains free or paid books at every taste. Hence the procedure of finding your preferred piece is highly assisted.

4. Enhanced Brand Loyalty

Brand loyalty improves when you develop an online book reading app that adopts the users’ style. Your client base will grow and customers will stay loyal to your application in case you keep enhancing the inner content and outer appearance of your application.

5. Extra Value for Clients

Your clients will get an additional way of interacting with your business and a more seamless way to purchase books through your application rather than browsing online.

6. Customizability

The paper books people are acquainted with cannot be changed. They will be the same forever after getting published. Nevertheless, the case is different with mobile services. You can select the background, font, and more. In short, you can personalize your book.

7. More Powerful Brand Awareness

An e-reading app creates an extra channel to boost your reach and helps you develop your brand both online and offline.

Must Have Features for Your Mobile Reading App

A mobile app that you want to develop must be user-friendly and must have a robust UI/UX design that is compatible with users of every group. You don’t need to redesign or rewire an app a lot otherwise it might become tough to connect with the consumers. Now, explore the features that a good e-reading app should have:

• Support for various eBook formats such as MOBI, ODF, AZW, LIT, TXT, PDF, and EPUB.
• An in-app eBook store alongside a user library handling system.
• Backgrounds and color themes for app personalization.
• The capacity of modifying text formatting (size and font) for making reading more feasible on every screen and to fulfill users’ requirements.
• The capability of looking for books, text, and categories so users can discover what they require.
• Cloud storage for books with the capacity of downloading them on-demand for saving storage place.
• Social media integration for a smooth registration and sharing quotes and notes from online books – or for sharing eBook files.
• A help center for ensuring users can get solutions to any problem.
• Notes, text highlighting, and bookmarks so users can highlight parts they find amazing or keep in mind where they left reading.

The aforesaid features when implemented to an e-reading app provide an additional edge in terms of alluring your clients.

Nevertheless, these features are certainly engaging to every eye to compete with current reading app giants like Google Books, Moon Reader, and Kindle, you must have something more.

Well, there is always room for enhancement and some more exclusive features to help your app remain different from its competitors.

How to Create a Best-Selling Reading App Using More Features

Fundamental features are good for testing your concept and create an MVP model of the app. Boosting your application with additional features will make it different from other competitors.

So, let’s check out how you can develop a best-selling e-reading app using some more killer features!

1. Make the App More Responsive

Include night mode while developing a mobile reading app as many people like to read books before going to bed. This concept is easy – while in night mode, the app’s UI will transform into darker colors for providing the eyes of your readers a break from a powerful light.

2. Make It More Personal

Many users want more than customized communication but tailored services. According to research by Deloitte, almost 36% of US clients choose customized products. And nearly 48% are prepared for waiting more and get customized services or products.

In terms of e-reading apps, you can let users select the content or topics via several welcome screens. Include a few questions for assessing what books and genres your users would prefer reading.

3. Make Your App More Educational

If you will support several languages, consider including an on-demand translation widget. For instance, users can select a word and see its explanation or translation.

4. Use a Stunning Design

You can’t develop an e-reading app without using a stunning interface design. Remember it and employ trained UI/UX readers.

5. Make the App More Accessible

Give your users the chance for reading books not just on a handheld gadget but on every gadget using any OS. For that, you need to create a web or cloud version of an application. Moreover, you can scale the application in case you develop a web version that is similar to more exclusive features and clients.

6. Provide Reading Statistics

Help your readers remain inspired and track their advancement with comprehensive graphs and reports. These reading stats tell users what books they are presently reading, how much time they have spent on reading, and how many pages or books they have covered already.

7. Make the App More Audible

Some users like to listen to books rather than reading them as they can listen to AudioBooks while running or driving. In case you don’t prefer the concept of AudioBooks, you can offer text-to-speech functionality so the users can listen to books when they can’t read.

8. Update Your App Constantly

You can’t update a paper book, but it is possible with a mobile app. So, never miss the scope for enhancing and maximizing your app’s performance.

9. Apply Offline Mode

Apply offline mode so users don’t require the internet connection for reading.

10. Make Your App More Social

Make a rating system and permit users for commenting on and liking books or writing reviews. This way, users can learn more regarding books and select one they have enjoyed.

11. Implement Gamification

You must not create a boring app. Hence, add a component of gamification for making the procedure of using your app more exciting.

Try award points and a bonus system allotted to particularly active users, arrange contests among readers, or explore more cool ideas.

12. Use Push Notifications

Push notifications keep users from missing new discounts, eBooks, recommendations, and special offers.

13. Add Automated Sorting

Let users streamline their offline content for fast search and access. The app can find and sort downloaded content automatically by format, author, genre, and series.

How to Monetize a Reading App

These days, maximum reading applications utilize the Freemium model, offering the application for free and enabling users to buy books from an in-built shop.

Furthermore, for their books’ promotion, these applications sometimes utilize advertisements and newsletters. Nevertheless, some users find ads a little annoying. So, here are some other great ways to monetize your reading app:

1. Sponsors & Partners

Getting partners with the same client base is a way to make money from your application. Just add partner ads to your application and ask the partners for placing your ads in their applications. Then, make an integrated experience and bring a third-party app’s features into your own.

2. Subscriptions

Rather than selling individual books to users, help them read as much as they need by buying a yearly or monthly subscription. You can make various kinds of subscriptions, offering additional features like getting audio content, journals, and special book editions with premium plans.

3. Additional Services for Authors

You can help authors enhance their books by offering marketing, cover design, and editing services. This will help you assure the best quality content, as you will control the eBooks’ quality.

Closure

While developing a mobile reading app, you should consider many things like a new product and new sales channels for driving more revenue. Try to create an application that will offer a robust reading experience to your users and as a result, it will help you form a powerful loyal users’ base for longer.

FAQs About Mobile Reading App