MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Will Children's Literature Make The Jump Form Print To Ebook Format?

emellaich · 01-01-2012, 12:08 AM

I assume the question refers to picture books? IMO, books with text are different whether they are targeted at youth or adults. They work fine on ebooks and eventually will mostly be consumed that way. In regard to picture books, perhaps you have see the baby and the iPad?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXV-yaFmQNk

Arguably, poking at a touch screen is easier for a toddler than grabbing and turning pages.

For me, the issue is on the creation side. For example, I believe that picture books are as much about art as story. I'm not just talking about the art of the picture. Each page is designed as a complete thought. The text is carefully placed and aligned to balance the picture. Often, the page turn is a planned part of the story; either it provides transition, or suspense.

I believe that all of this could be achieved for a page designed for my kindle touch. However, it would need to be a custom design that recognizes the black and white nature of the screen and that Amazon forces certain minimum margins on its readers. And what happens if the reader tries to change font size? Now, let's say we have a new reader. It's a ten inch color screen, or a 4.5 inch smartphone. How do we scale? And, one of the special joys is comes from grandparents reading favorite books anew with the next generation. Can the mobi and ePub files that we read to our kids still be read when our grand kids come along? Even without DRM, it can be tough to read twenty-five year old computer files.

The result, I think will be a lot of orphaned works that are popular for a few years and that then fade from memory. Perhaps, each generation will have a handful of books that are kept up to date.

01-01-2012, 12:08 AM	#62
emellaich Wizard Posts: 1,101 Karma: 4388403 Join Date: Oct 2007 Device: Palm>Ebookman>IPaq>Axim>Cybook>Kndl2>IPAD>Kndl3SO>Voyager>Oasis	I assume the question refers to picture books? IMO, books with text are different whether they are targeted at youth or adults. They work fine on ebooks and eventually will mostly be consumed that way. In regard to picture books, perhaps you have see the baby and the iPad? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXV-yaFmQNk Arguably, poking at a touch screen is easier for a toddler than grabbing and turning pages. For me, the issue is on the creation side. For example, I believe that picture books are as much about art as story. I'm not just talking about the art of the picture. Each page is designed as a complete thought. The text is carefully placed and aligned to balance the picture. Often, the page turn is a planned part of the story; either it provides transition, or suspense. I believe that all of this could be achieved for a page designed for my kindle touch. However, it would need to be a custom design that recognizes the black and white nature of the screen and that Amazon forces certain minimum margins on its readers. And what happens if the reader tries to change font size? Now, let's say we have a new reader. It's a ten inch color screen, or a 4.5 inch smartphone. How do we scale? And, one of the special joys is comes from grandparents reading favorite books anew with the next generation. Can the mobi and ePub files that we read to our kids still be read when our grand kids come along? Even without DRM, it can be tough to read twenty-five year old computer files. The result, I think will be a lot of orphaned works that are popular for a few years and that then fade from memory. Perhaps, each generation will have a handful of books that are kept up to date.