Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
Turtle, you know damned well that exceedingly few eReading devices can handle animation or multimedia. With regard to the HP 'book,' there's no way of distinguishing the why there. It's HP, so it likely would have sold successfully, regardless. That same exact eBook is available on KIM (Kindle in Motion) on KDP. There's no way to tell, BTW, how the specific edition itself is selling, as it's mixed in with illustrated version reviews and sales. Ditto on Apple. So, it could be selling gangbusters--the animated version--or it could be dying on the vine. We have NO way of knowing.
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Sorry - I didn't mean to imply that particular version (with animation) of the book was selling better or worse than others - just that that book (with or without animation) was selling very well... so it is still a
book regardless of the animation level. The coding in the book is such that it is ignored on devices that don't support it, and the user can turn it off by disabling JS if they don't want to see it on devices that do support it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
If @fbrzvnrnd wants to make eBooks-cum-apps, that's his or her choice. {shrug}. Personally, I remember being all psyched for the whole "Immersedition" eBook, which was going to be the Big New Thing and it turned out to be the book version of product placement, and not readable, it was SO distracting.
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Totally agree, that's why I said:
IF the format supports it, and IF the targeted device supports it...
My issue with the idea of making people build an app, is the longevity of the device the app will run on. Text lasts forever and in an open format - such as epub - it is very easy to update the coding to current standards/devices IF you want to...a little more difficult to update an exe/msi/app.
'Licensing' arguments aside, I pay for a book, I want to be able to use that book on any of my devices/apps until
I decide to permanently delete it. I actually think the foundation of my house dropped a couple inches on the side that has all my pBooks
. They have been around for ... more than a few years ... and not a single one of them has spontaneously combusted or otherwise deleted itself because Amazon changed their feelings, or the company went out of business and closed its servers, or was bought out and allowed to rot. I can even let me family and friends borrow them if I want to
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
For me, I'll keep books as text or text with some images. I don't WANT to hear the poet reading his poetry to me, or the author reading me his book, or some video trailer version of the book, or, or or. I also don't need illustrations to populate the book's environs or characters for me, either; I'd rather imagine my own. I do not suffer from such a paucity of imagination that I need some illustrator or animator's view and interpretation. But, that's just me.
Hitch
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Again, absolutely agree with your right to have your opinion. Personally, I think there
is a time/place for the animation/script/video etc and we should be supporting the
ability to incorporate it into
books without trying to shame publishers into forgoing it because 'it's not a book'. There are natural consequences (lack of sales) if the publisher does it improperly (either over the top animation or implemented incorrectly), but when it is done properly, in the right circumstances, it can be a huge + to the
book. Also, as I mentioned above with the HP book, having the ability for the user to disable it if they wish is very important.
...and
IF the developer/author wants it, then go ahead and put it in.
[rant]
My only wish is that the ePub consortium (whoever and whatever that is) would get off their duff and fix the mess that ePub 3 has become... 'letting' amazon, apple, and kobo develop their own implementations obviates the idea of a '
standard, open format'. [/rant]