3 Ways Pottermore Could Change Book Publishing

[tubemonkey]

I'm bespeckled by all this speculation

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by stonetools

The average consumer doesn't give a damn about format or DRM. Believe that.
On the other hand, they will care if they can't read their Harry Potter on their Kindles come October 31.
Since the folks running Pottermore care about the average consumer and not at all about techie format zealots, we can be sure that the Potter books will be available in various formats on the appointed day.

We don't know what the Pottermore folks care about. Maybe they want to give a certain reading experience that's not possible with a Kindle (at the moment). The only format that would be used to give a reflowable reading experience similar to the paper books is ePub and maybe while they've thought about Mobipocket, maybe they've decided against it as it doesn't give the experience they are looking for.

We just don't know. Maybe Amazon is going to have to go ePub or not have any HP eBooks natively available for the Kindle. Maybe Amazon is going ePub. Maybe there will be Mobipocket eBooks. Who knows? This is all speculation at this point from snippets written by other people guessing as well.

[Rich_D]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

We don't know what the Pottermore folks care about. Maybe they want to give a certain reading experience that's not possible with a Kindle (at the moment). The only format that would be used to give a reflowable reading experience similar to the paper books is ePub and maybe while they've thought about Mobipocket, maybe they've decided against it as it doesn't give the experience they are looking for.

We just don't know. Maybe Amazon is going to have to go ePub or not have any HP eBooks natively available for the Kindle. Maybe Amazon is going ePub. Maybe there will be Mobipocket eBooks. Who knows? This is all speculation at this point from snippets written by other people guessing as well.

I'm willing to bet that the Pottermore folks want to sell as many ebooks as possible and will make sure their books can be read on as many devices as possible.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Rich_D

I'm willing to bet that the Pottermore folks want to sell as many ebooks as possible and will make sure their books can be read on as many devices as possible.

They do. Once again from the Pottermore CEO...

With the e-books' availability, Henwood said: "We want to make sure anyone who buys it, can read it on any device, we are talking to the Kindles, the Apples, the Googles, Barnes & Noble to make sure they are compatible. We set the pricing, we maintain the policy of making them available to as many readers as possible."

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/co...e-website.html

[Hellmark]

Well, that would give three options, in order of likeliness: They're releasing in multiple DRM free formats, Amazon is going to add ePub support, or Amazon is going to relent about their mobi restrictions and everyone else will be able to (and is going to) add mobi support.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

Well, that would give three options, in order of likeliness: They're releasing in multiple DRM free formats, Amazon is going to add ePub support, or Amazon is going to relent about their mobi restrictions and everyone else will be able to (and is going to) add mobi support.

Fourth, ElfWreck's theory: We're getting PDFs.

I see this as desirable to the Potter People -- same experience, standard image/font rendering -- and absolutely unacceptable to the fanbase. Weight those how you will.

[ST-One]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Fourth, ElfWreck's theory: We're getting PDFs.

It's more than unlikely that that is going to happen.

[Nahgem]

We have been assuming that the ebooks will need to incorporate various fonts and illustrations, but that may not be the case. Having pulled my UK editions of the novels off the shelf and thumbed through them again, they don't have any of those things, and the US editions might be in the minority in having them. I haven't been able to actually look at any non-English editions beyond the Greek/Latin ones, and I'm pretty sure they lacked illustrations and varied fonts as well. So, maybe the whole font/illustrations/page layout thing will be moot, and they'll just be basic text-only epub/mobi and all our format-wank has been for nothing.

That still leaves the trouble of what format to use for the three charity books, since they are heavily illustrated and don't really work in text-only format, but we don't even know whether or not those are being released electronically, and I imagine that less of the public is going to care about those than the actual novels.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Nahgem

We have been assuming that the ebooks will need to incorporate various fonts and illustrations, but that may not be the case. Having pulled my UK editions of the novels off the shelf and thumbed through them again, they don't have any of those things, and the US editions might be in the minority in having them.

1) They have fonts. If it's printed, it has at least one font. They have no notable, "special" font arrangements--but they have a font, and line spacing, and chapter headings. EPub can imitate these; mobi can't. No idea how important those are to Rowling/the publishers.

2) The hardcovers I've seen also have headers with little stars in them. Can't do that with ePub or Mobi. (I don't think it's necessary--but again, I dunno what's important to the publishers.)

3) The hardcovers I've seen have illustrations; are they missing from the UK editions?

4) The "extra" books--Quidditch Through the Ages, Monstrous whatever-it-was, and Tales of Beedle the Bard--are image-heavy. No news yet on whether ebook editions for those will exist. (I'd assume so, although they might do ePub for the others & PDF for the picture-heavy books.)

[JSWolf]

The US editions do have multiple fonts. There is the main body font. And the fonts used for the different letters such as Dumbledore's handwriting and Hagrid's handwriting. As well as a font for the headlines in the paper. So even if the UK editions don't have the multiple fonts like the US versions do, I don't see why they cannot give us the UK versions with the US formatting in ePub. The only thing we'd lose would be the running headers and that's not important.

[Ditchleyportrait]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The US editions do have multiple fonts. There is the main body font. And the fonts used for the different letters such as Dumbledore's handwriting and Hagrid's handwriting. As well as a font for the headlines in the paper. So even if the UK editions don't have the multiple fonts like the US versions do, I don't see why they cannot give us the UK versions with the US formatting in ePub. The only thing we'd lose would be the running headers and that's not important.

i'm not sure how that formatting couldn't be accomplished in mobi. i think i've read books where there was handwriting. they could probably scan those parts in. right?

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

4) The "extra" books--Quidditch Through the Ages, Monstrous whatever-it-was, and Tales of Beedle the Bard--are image-heavy. No news yet on whether ebook editions for those will exist. (I'd assume so, although they might do ePub for the others & PDF for the picture-heavy books.)

Fantastic Creatures and Where to Find Them.

It would be possible to do those books in epub still. I'm working on a book in epub now with images, and everything is just fine on my reader. For the most part, ePub is able to do things that you can do on any webpage.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Ditchleyportrait

i'm not sure how that formatting couldn't be accomplished in mobi. i think i've read books where there was handwriting. they could probably scan those parts in. right?

Sure they could use graphic images. But then they would not size properly for someone who needed a larger text size. It won't work as well in Mobipocket as it would in ePub.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

Fantastic Creatures and Where to Find Them.

It would be possible to do those books in epub still. I'm working on a book in epub now with images, and everything is just fine on my reader. For the most part, ePub is able to do things that you can do on any webpage.

Images are fine; it's the few pages that have text embedded in the images that concern me (an elaborate border with text inside), and the footnoting. And the Quidditch & Creatures books have handwritten margin notes, that are trouble to arrange in epub.

The issues with illustrations & formatting in the main books are all easy to deal with; for those, it's just a matter of convincing the marketing department that no, the ebooks don't need to look exactly like the originals. But for the three specials, the whole feel of the book would have to drastically change.

[Nahgem]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

1) They have fonts. If it's printed, it has at least one font. They have no notable, "special" font arrangements--but they have a font, and line spacing, and chapter headings. EPub can imitate these; mobi can't. No idea how important those are to Rowling/the publishers.

2) The hardcovers I've seen also have headers with little stars in them. Can't do that with ePub or Mobi. (I don't think it's necessary--but again, I dunno what's important to the publishers.)

3) The hardcovers I've seen have illustrations; are they missing from the UK editions?

4) The "extra" books--Quidditch Through the Ages, Monstrous whatever-it-was, and Tales of Beedle the Bard--are image-heavy. No news yet on whether ebook editions for those will exist. (I'd assume so, although they might do ePub for the others & PDF for the picture-heavy books.)

I suppose I was too vague. I know they've got a basic body/header font combination because, well, that's kind of obvious. What I meant was the UK novels don't have a separate individual handwriting font for each character signature, Dumbledore and Hagrid's notes to Harry, etc. They also don't have the stars around chapter headings and page numbers or any illustrations at all. My point was that since there already are English editions without all that extra formatting, it might not be something they'll need/want to try and accommodate in the ebooks, so the argument over which file formats can and can't properly replicate those effects might end up being irrelevant.

That still leaves Quidditch, Fantastic Beasts and Beedle to deal with, but the main novels don't have to be a big deal.