Quote:
Originally Posted by fbrzvnrnd
Well, we are talking about two different things: you're talking about maintaining a system that keeps down the level of digital reading. From this point of view you are right, most e-readers still have not a decent EPUB3 support. We are forced to build obsolete ePub2.
I am instead talking about what a publisher has to do to to include in its workflow process works that are intimately digital literature. If the big readers only want to read book digitalised, we have to offer more mature alternatives for digital reading. Maybe we can also reach the goal of find new people that do not read book, but could have interest in interactive reading.
My last electronic poetry ebook sell more than other poetry ebook "static" we done in past. We are talking about small "print runs", but I think it is an interesting field to explore.
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I think that the difference in viewpoint is that many of us--and I include myself in this--think that a book and an "app" are not the same thing. A book, especially fiction, really has no innate need of videos, music, and so on. (One noteworthy thing--anyone remember the book that was the "big new format," the "Immersedition" of
The Survivors by Amanda Havard or Haward? Can't recall her name? And that went...where?
NOWHERE. It was going to be the big deal, was a huge splash at the 2012 Frankfurt Fair, I think it was, and
that website is deader'n Julius Caesar.)
I can easily see--as I've said before--that cookbooks and other "how to" books could use videos. Maybe. I'm an experienced cook, for example; I don't need videos of someone whisking a merinque. An inexperienced cook may need that, but I also tend to think that
most seekers of information will turn to Youtube, Vimeo, and the like, to find a variety of options.
I personally don't like having to suffer through book trailers. I have seen
one, in 8
years, that made me want to buy the book. The other challenge is, eBooks grow increasingly
cheaper, not more expensive, so who's going to want to spend the money to create these app-ier versions, with video, soundtracks and the like? I cannot tell you how many folks out there think that they shouldn't pay more than $25 to have an eBook created.
(This reminds me of all the "radio play" style eBooks and podcasts being produced out there, with developers madly convinced that the radio-play style was going to be huge, make a big comeback. <----------crickets--------->)
So, your take, fbrzvnrnd, is that a
true digital book will be an app, essentially. It will be multimedia. Many others, like Jon, think that an app is an app--not an eBook.
That's the issue. It's not that eBooks are being held
down; it's that Amazon (which we all have to agree, in terms of book consumption, is the bellwhether)
constantly tests its user base, to feel out what they
want. If and when they think that they've inherited the consumption-class of Apple users, they'll likely start serving that type of easily consumable and disposable content.
FWIW: we have a very high percentage base of Mac users, as clients, which sort of makes sense. All the creatives, right-brainers, right? Well, many of them were WILD to do videos in their iBooks-destined ePUBs, starting at least five years ago, maybe more. Wanna know how many still bother? Wild guess?
Not ONE. Not
one customer of ours, that used to, still bothers to put videos in their eBooks. They've found that the inclusion makes sweet FA difference in sales;
all it does is increase their expense. And they aren't talking about Amazon--they're talking about sales on iBooks, where the user base is already
accustomed to that type of consumable.
That's worth considering, certainly, before deciding to leap whole hog into multimedia content.
Me? I'll make whatever the marketplace tells me to make. As a consumer, though, unless I have a burning need for how-to, I'll take my books vanilla. Just the text, ma'am.
Hitch