Why We’ll Never Have Innovative E-Books

[JSWolf]

That app would make me want to slit Steve Job's throat for releasing the iPad.

[anamardoll]

I would also like the ability to store multiple translations in a single book and switch back and forth between translations as easily as you can, say, switch the font. I was looking through Arabian Nights / Thousand and One Nights translations the other day and that meant 4 books in my library (Payne, Burton, Mathers, and Al-Musawi) and four open-book, close-book processes to go through in order to compare the different translations of a single passage. That's just crying out for innovation, imho.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

As a genre reader I would LOVE to have interactive maps, access to songs (M. Lackey was a great example!)

Some are pretty decent musically.

Actually, I encountered C.J. Cherryh in a filk room long before I ever read any of her books.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by Phogg

Some are pretty decent musically.

Actually, I encountered C.J. Cherryh in a filk room long before I ever read any of her books.

That's pretty cool. I've always read the songs but had no access to the music. I knew the Mercedes Lackey sold some of her stuff but as a young student I didn't have the money for such niceties. I have always wondered what Sun and Shadow sounded like.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

That's pretty cool. I've always read the songs but had no access to the music. I knew the Mercedes Lackey sold some of her stuff but as a young student I didn't not have the money for such niceties. I have always wondered what Sun and Shadow sounded like.

Some of the Mercedes Lacky music is available on Amazon as MP3s now. Almost all the songs are available on YouTube for listening.

[MrsJoseph]

Thanks! I'll have to check that out! (at home...for some reason I don't think I could get away with it at work )

[applepie]

Originally Posted by Nancy Fulda

IM I do wish it had a clock, though.

Nook has it.

[applepie]

Originally Posted by DuskyRose

The first video was the editor talking. Killed that quickly as I just wasn't interested.

.

We buy books TO READ! Editor talk is absolutely unnecessary. I'd kill it too!

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by Ditchleyportrait

to all the people that don't want innovation, i'd bet you'd like something like this, though:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/vi...and-apps-video

No, I wouldn't.

Not as a "book" anyway. I open books because I like to read. The further the experience moves from reading the less I like it in a book. Innovation should be used to enhance the reading experience, not turn it into something completely different.

[allinhi/]

I envision a future where the publishers role is to add the features people have mentioned. Background music, maps, footnotes linking the reader to artwork or a photo of a location used etc. Otherwise authors, especially those with an estabished reader base will just contract for copy editing services and keep more than the customary 12% common now. This assumes the majority of books are distributed digitally, who know how long that will take?

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by allinhi/

I envision a future where the publishers role is to add the features people have mentioned. Background music, maps, footnotes linking the reader to artwork or a photo of a location used etc. Otherwise authors, especially those with an estabished reader base will just contract for copy editing services and keep more than the customary 12% common now. This assumes the majority of books are distributed digitally, who know how long that will take?

Publishers start messing with the authors' ideas... now that is a guarantee that that publisher will be avoided like the plague... if you want ebooks plus then go rent a DVD... I don't need a third party to provide pictures and sound for me... that's what an "imagination" is for in conjunction with the "words" It's called reading for a reason...

Now provide a teaching text book with videos etc and that's another matter but you can already get stuff like that... take a look at Rosetta and Linda products for example but they don't claim to be ebooks either and their are many computer books that come with extra digital material on an included CD/DVD (which often includes the book as PDF or html)... nothing new there either...

[Ebook Head]

Innovative ebooks would be a great idea i think. And I think the iPad is one of the best e-readers. For now...

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Umm.. Do we really *need* innovative ebooks? I think you would find that most of us here just want to read. I really don't need more distractions.

This! If you want webpages, browse.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Ebook Head

Innovative ebooks would be a great idea i think. And I think the iPad is one of the best e-readers. For now...

The iPad is one of the worst devices for use in reading. It's awful. Way too many distractions to keep one from reading. That's why a reader that's just a reader is better.

[stonetools]

The problem here is one of definition. What exactly is an "e-book". What are "innovations?".

The assumption throughout this thread has been that ebook=novel and that innovation=music or video accompaniment.

Now if you start with assumption "ebook= novel" , you are on firm footing in insisting that plain text is enough. After all, the novel is a form made for several hours of immersive reading. However, move away from the "ebook=Novel" paradigm and the case for non-innovation starts to crumble.

What about poetry? Poetry originally began as an art form meant to be HEARD, not READ. Indeed, I would argue that the default method for experiencing poetry should be AUDIO, with an on/off switch for accompanying text. As it happens, there's an app that may be a model for enjoying poetry- the "Wasteland App. (there's an app for just about anything in the App Store). From the makers:

The Waste Land includes

- A powerful filmed performance of the entire poem by Fiona Shaw, synchronised to the text
- Complete audio readings of the poem, also synchronised to the text, by T. S. Eliot himself, Alec Guinness, Ted Hughes, and Viggo Mortensen
- Comprehensive interactive notes to guide the user through the poem's many references
- Over 35 expert video perspectives on the poem, filmed in partnership with BBC Arena, including contributions from Seamus Heaney and Jeanette Winterson
- Original manuscript pages revealing how the poem took shape under Ezra Pound's editing

TOUCH PRESS

Just about everyone praises the app as THE way to appreciate Mr. Elliot's masterpiece. One reviewer:

You can watch Shaw read for a while, then switch back to the text to check a reference or translation, then go on reading the lines to the accompaniment of Ted Hughes' very different vocal interpretation; the app keeps track of your place as you go. Eliot's friend Ezra Pound played a crucial role in shaping "The Waste Land"; and the inclusion of the original manuscript with Pound's handwritten edits offers a glimpse of that process. These various ways of approaching the text are enticements to the multiple readings that make a full appreciation of the poem possible.

Spending a day poring over "The Waste Land" app made me look at my old Norton critical editions with a new gleam in my eye. Instead of leafing through tissue-paper-thin pages of "Paradise Lost," squinting at the tiny footnotes, it would be so pleasant to scroll through Milton's epic (maybe with Gustave Dore's engravings?), tapping on the lines that cry out for elucidation while listening to a professional narrator vault the poet's enjambments far better than I ever could myself. How about "The Canterbury Tales," with an audio track in Middle English to juxtapose against a modern English translation? I would indeed pay for these, and the enthusiastic reception for "The Waste Land" app suggests that I am not alone.

SALON

How about plays? Again, it seems to me that the default should be video, with an off/on switch for the accompanying text.

How about:

Children's books
Textbooks
Manuals
Graphic novels
Nonfiction

Seems to me there's a strong case for innovation in each of those categories.- and indeed innovation of various kinds is ongoing in every one of those categories-just search the App Store or B&N's Children's NOOKBOOKS.
Free your mind from a cramped definition of "ebook" and ideas for innovation will follow.