Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
Update: I've reviewed a chunk of the book. There's nothing here that we haven't already done. It's just not that complicated.
I would expect that the index would be problematic, and putting in the faux-real page numbers (embedded, I mean) so that a classroom could discuss "item X on page Y," without all the Kindle users getting confused. But that's "just" a page-map. A lot of work, yes--but not undoable.
I just don't see anything else that honestly, even gives me pause. There are tables, lists, fonts...the usual for a firm accustomed to dealing with more-complex books.
FWIW.
Hitch
|
I knew I had come across real experts! OK, everyone has identified many problems, and Hitch, it shows you have some potential solutions.
All the textbook companies use Adobe products (as do I) and there are a finite number of book designers that work for them. Occasionally, they do hire out. Wiley does so more than the others.
I know the editors and publishers at a lot of these - for this particular book, I know the main actual editor (Sylvan Barnet).
It is my belief that Amazon doesn't "get" or understand the kind of volume they could do or the entry points for their devices and "content" that is possible by having actual textbooks be easily downloaded and used. We are talking massive volume - multiple editions per-quarter or semester -
Probably the device/platform where the biggest entry points are present is Apple. We work with them and I have to say in our experience, for books that are right in iBooks, their numbers are correct. They will sell in a 1:2 ratio vs. Kindle (1 iBook for every 2 Kindle books sold).
For the actual volume numbers - all books - not just e-books - I derived the WalMart vs. Amazon numbers off their quarterly reports and Hoovers. WalMart reports total by-department sales once a year. So the book department is accounted for on its own. No additional calculations required. I called them and they confirmed that their e-commerce and in-store sales are combined together. For Amazon, I had a major confusion with their financial statements for a long time. It turns out that "media" sales reported in their statements includes *everything*. This is like all downloads, magazines, everything that's delivered for a price across their platforms and devices. It did *not* include the cloud services, which are under "other." Bottom line, their total of all that is less than WalMart's total of its games/software and book sales. It is almost impossible to break out the book-only totals for Amazon. However, I think it is about $6.5 billion - that's just cracking it off their total reported worldwide "Media" sales of $22.5 billion.
The overall book publishing and sales market worldwide is about $160 billion right now (as per the European Book Publishers Association). So at about $6.5 billion, Amazon's total book sales are about 5% of the total world book publishing market. Yet from all the heat, light and everything else, one would think it is 100% of book sales, everyone is reading e-books on Kindle only ...
Peter Hildick-Smith has been saying for a long time that e-books are going to top out at no more than 25% of the TRADE book market (what is being formatted/what consists of the Kindle sales - trade fiction & nonfiction). Peter is right. There is no evidence that's growing and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. There is only so much that the current group of device users and consumers can "consume" of the type of product that the devices can deliver.
Another type of product that could be consumed, and in fact - there is a tremendous hunger and need for - is what we have been discussing. Textbooks. I have students also buying/needing "other" books that fit in the trade sector.
That "topped out" figure would change a lot, and fast, I think, if the books that are needed for many reasons (technical, educational, work-related, skill related) could be delivered well via e-reading devices. And, there are other, entertainment or enjoyment purposes as well.
The original Amazon Kindle build engineer (his patent was just made public - now everybody wants him) is our "CTO". He swore to me up and down this device was supposed to do everything - the hardware was built to reproduce a book that could include color photos, audio, video, you name it. But that's not the reality. The reality is I just saw discussions where the "converter" is stripping fonts out of books! I could comment about the way the e-device displays leading and handles a lot of things. Because there's been many years between Chris' original work and the original team's work and what is there today.
And the NY Times just reported how Amazon treats employees (Chris was hospitalized at the end of his project after too many 'calls from Jeff'). I can't even get the dude on the phone who volunteered to help me put my short fiction on the early Kindle sales stuff - if he's survived over 10 years with them, that explains, maybe he can't even use a phone any more!
Be that as it may. Heck yes there is a market for good electronic versions of textbooks that can be read on devices in class with page maps etc.