ENTRIES TAGGED "ebook"
Where does the "book" stop and the "application" begin?
A book may no longer be a physical object, but its ordinary definition remains straightforward as a “written composition that is intended for publication”. Traditional or digital, we feel confident in our ability to recognise a book.
We barely remember today that early electronic platforms offered fewer visual options than the printed page, and encouraged the release of text-only editions from which even the original covers had been removed. Four short years after the launch of the original Kindle, LCD screens were becoming quite popular in mainstream readers. Today, they are almost everywhere, some of them brighter and sharper than their desktop counterparts.
Publishing needs to build new symbols for the digital age
Transitioning the publishing industry to digital technologies involves lifting the words out of printed pages, and pouring them into the amorphous containers we call ebooks. Books are no longer the tangible, brick-shaped presence they were: they must, instead, be stretched and poured into and onto any device fit for reading, from the laptop to the Kindle to the phone.
In fact, “the book” no longer designates the physical expression of the text, but the text itself, a self-contained bundle of information, whose structure and boundaries have been jointly defined by the author and the publisher. Picking up a book where you left it no longer involves picking up the same object, but rather the same text on whatever device happens to be at hand.
Society cannot afford to lose its distributed knowledge backup system
Knowledge cannot progress unless it is aware of its past: a knowledge-seeker must reference the works of previous generations. Literary scholars return to manuscripts, musicians to partitions, artists to museums…
The continued availability of reference works underpins our entire research system. It has become so ingrained in our methods that it barely registers on our list of values to uphold. Yet, that very availability has dissolved into a mirage, to surprisingly little protest.
Direct ebook sales require a fundamentally different approach
“Why would I need to know who buys my books?” — some publishers have asked (and still are asking) this question. “I have my distribution channels and am quite happy to give them my ebooks too.”
If this statement surprises you, you are most probably (at the least) contemplating a direct sales channel. Traditional publishers have been migrating to the digital retail world by following the same principles that were applicable to print book sales. As a result, not many of them have been successful. Direct digital book sales require some fundamentally and radically different approaches.
Until eBooks are redesigned exclusively for the screen, print and PDF will continue to provide a better user experience
A few weeks ago, I surprised myself. I had decided to learn a new code language, and O’Reilly of course has a great little book about this particular language, so I pulled up the eBook files, and almost without thinking, I loaded the PDF onto my iPad, rather than the EPUB. And my brow furrowed as I tried to figure out why I had made that choice, because as an eBook developer—as a CSS and web technology devotee—shouldn’t I also be a devoted EPUB user?
A good ebook sample can turn a browser into a buyer.
Joe Wikert: "My gut tells me the revenue missed by not converting samples into sales is a much larger figure than the revenue lost to piracy. And yet, the publishing industry spends a small fortune every year in DRM but treats samples as an afterthought."
Proprietary ebook formats and rights restrictions are holding consumers back.
The music industry has shown that you need to offer consumers a universal format and content without rights restrictions. So when will publishers pay attention?
The free "Best of TOC 2012" collection charts the digital evolution of publishing.
"Best of TOC 2012" explores the ideas that are shaping the content world, including: the adaptation of publishing, digital's legal issues, new tech and tools, and thoughts from the edge of publishing.