Are Programmers Ruining Ebooks?

[Iphinome]

A popup window is a useful thing, for footnotes. Can't think of any other reason why I'd want one in a book.

[kennyc]

Today's Goodreads Quote applies here:

After all, reading is arguably a far more creative and imaginative process than writing; when the reader creates emotion in their head, or the colors of the sky during the setting sun, or the smell of a warm summer's breeze on their face, they should reserve as much praise for themselves as they do for the writer - perhaps more.
- Jasper Fforde
The author of The Eyre Affair was born on this day in 1961.

[HarryT]

This is a very silly argument. Multimedia apps don't "threaten" books any more than TV or radio does. It's a different medium, that's all.

[hansl]

Well said, but I can't think of a bigger threat for books than TV and Radio for us kids of the 60ies and 70ies. At least that's what my parents feared.
Today I also feel symptoms of getting harder into immersed reading as most of my reading is short bits of hyperlinked information. So there is competition between media for slices of our time and extensive use of one may degrade our wish of using another.
But one medium may also promote another one. Some of you may remember the beautiful illustrated text adventure "Wonderland" by Magnetic Scrolls which is another type of interactive Alice which took a lot of my time while I had not read the book yet and which highly motivated me to do so.
So I think that programmers will probably kill mass market paper books but not ebooks.

Greetings, Hansl

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

You're forgetting the worst part: you need to imagine what things and people look like!

God - I'd forgotten that bit - see how complicated it is

".. knowing that some film or TV director's likely to come along later and ruin even that for you! Graham "

Sadly mostly true !

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This is a very silly argument. Multimedia apps don't "threaten" books any more than TV or radio does. It's a different medium, that's all.

Agreed. In addition, the number of books compared to the time to create an app like this for each of them... There will be no threat for a long, long time.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This is a very silly argument. Multimedia apps don't "threaten" books any more than TV or radio does. It's a different medium, that's all.

+1

This.

There has always been a small (but vibrant) niche of very graphics oriented paper books - like the "Griffin and Sabine" books from the early 90's, with removable postcards, etc. These books couldn't be converted to mass-market paperbacks, but were able to coexist beside them and appealed to the same group of readers.

AppBooks (for lack of a better word) are similar. They're not competition to traditional books (e-books or otherwise) because they don't really overlap much. "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore," is an interesting AppBook, and has been fairly successful. But it isn't a threat to existing books.

Movies and TV are a much greater threat to existing books.

[bigtext]

Originally Posted by Ankh

Agreed. In addition, the number of books compared to the time to create an app like this for each of them... There will be no threat for a long, long time.

I don't know why a separate app has to be created at all. EPUB3 was designed with multimedia books in mind. So instead of having everyone write multimedia book apps from scratch they can simply write to an open standard that uses technologies like html5, css, canvas, and javascript. These are universal and accessible technologies with a lot of tool support. There is no need to learn a whole other skill set like objective C or Java in order to create an app to handle content like this. The only useful purpose of such apps is to maybe allow for some level of customization that can't be handled by EPUB3 which is hard to imagine. More likely they are just another lock you in to my walled garden strategy so more of your money ends up in their pockets.

[HarryT]

OK, so you create your ePub3-compliant multimedia book. Now what are you going to play it with? There is no - not one - ePub3 reader available.

If you want to take advantage of today's market, you have to target the real world, which, realistically speaking, means an iPad app.

[bigtext]

That's a fair point HarryT, but how many years away do you think we are? It a relatively new spec, but there is no reason to think its not in the process of being implemented by various readers out there. Just as HTM5 is slowly coming up to speed in the major browsers EPUB3 will probably be here before we know it. I don't think we are a "long, long" way off which was the context in which I was replying.

All it takes is for someone in the competitive space like a Cool Reader to implement and a lot of their competitors will feel the pressure to get their implementation going.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Iphinome

A popup window is a useful thing, for footnotes. Can't think of any other reason why I'd want one in a book.

Ooh, I would like that so much. Sometimes footnotes don't have built in "back" links, and sometimes when I'm dumped on the footnote page, it's tricky to tell WHICH footnote I'm looking for. (Numbers lost in conversion or never included in the first place, I guess.)

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by bigtext

That's a fair point HarryT, but how many years away do you think we are? It a relatively new spec, but there is no reason to think its not in the process of being implemented by various readers out there. Just as HTM5 is slowly coming up to speed in the major browsers EPUB3 will probably be here before we know it. I don't think we are a "long, long" way off which was the context in which I was replying.

All it takes is for someone in the competitive space like a Cool Reader to implement and a lot of their competitors will feel the pressure to get their implementation going.

Uhm, we might be close to the time when it will be possible to create rich media publications, using standard tools.

Do you believe that, once such a standard-based infrastructure is in place, that we will witness almost instantaneous conversion of all printed material to rich media publications? I still believe that it takes a lot of effort and time to create such content, even if it is all standard based and does not require arcane programming skills to create an app (as opposed to an epub3 rich media publication).

[bigtext]

Do you believe that, once such a standard-based infrastructure is in place, that we will witness almost instantaneous conversion of all printed material to rich media publications?

No, but I'm not suggesting that. And maybe I misread some of your original context, but ultimately the point of my posts is that EPUB3, when it arrives, eliminates the need for a separate app to be created for each book. An author is not going to need to go out and hire a Java or Objective C programmer to get their content out there. They are going to be able to use an open standard that they are probably already familiar with if they've worked with EPUB. HTML and CSS are easy to get. HTML5 makes adding video and audio links a piece of cake. Javascript and canvas pieces are a bit more complicated. Sure someone has to create the media content, but I see an incentive for publishers to keep authors from going independent by providing easy access to people who can help animate and create voices for their books.

I'm sure the publisher is involved with the process of hooking up the author for books on tape. If animated books can create more demand and more sales for the publisher and help keep authors from going independent then there is a strong incentive for them to support this technology. I think this is most likely in the area of children's books and textbooks. I'm not sure what will happen with novels.

Here is a possibility. Let's say Stephen King released his book 11/22/1963 in 2016 instead of last year. So EPUB3 is in place. If Stephen King likes this technology, he could suggest that video clips be added of some of the significant events around the JFK assassination. Then he could provide links to newspaper articles. Now you can buy the hard back version of King's new JFK book or you can buy the more expensive, and justifiably so they would so, media rich ebook.

All these could be put up on the publisher's website and has the added benefit of allowing the publisher to collect more data on the number of reader's and such. It's also a way to track pirating and get a better handle on how their ebooks are being used. Do I expect this to happen to every book. Most definitely not. We do not have books-on-tape versions of all books and I expect rich media books to be an even smaller percentage of books than those converted to audio. Especially since many novels aren't going to work with this format.

As we can see with the web things change very fast. Of course it depends on what one means by fast. I continue to be amazed at how different the web looks and acts since I first started using it in the mid 90s. Its not hard for me to imagine a changed landscape in books in ten years. Hopefully not the kind of books I read.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by bigtext

That's a fair point HarryT, but how many years away do you think we are? It a relatively new spec, but there is no reason to think its not in the process of being implemented by various readers out there.

I agree. What I was disagreeing with were your comments that:

I don't know why a separate app has to be created at all.

and:

The only useful purpose of such apps is to maybe allow for some level of customization that can't be handled by EPUB3 which is hard to imagine. More likely they are just another lock you in to my walled garden strategy so more of your money ends up in their pockets.

The reason that an app has to be created is that this is what you have to do if you want to sell multimedia books NOW. Most authors aren't interested in what's going to be on the market in 2 or 3 years time; they want to sell their product this year. It's a fact that it would be a complete waste of time and effort to create an ePub 3 book at the present time.

[kennyc]

and from today:

Amazon: Time to start programming your e-books
Stephen Shankland
by Stephen Shankland January 12, 2012 1:38 AM PST

Kindle Format 8, or KF8, uses Web technologies such as HTML and CSS to show much more elaborate e-book layouts.

Kindle Format 8, or KF8, uses Web technologies such as HTML and CSS to show much more elaborate e-book layouts.
(Credit: Amazon)

The dividing line between writing books and writing programs just got a big step blurrier.

That's because Amazon has now released tools for creating books using Web technologies. Those tools include Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), used to describe Web pages, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), used for formatting.

"Through the use of HTML5 and CSS3, KF8 allows publishers to create great-looking books in all categories, particularly those that require rich formatting and design, such as technical & engineering books and cookbooks," Amazon announced. Other features are well suited to graphic novels, comics, and kids' books, Amazon said.

The move reflects the gradual expansion of e-book abilities. Pure text is fine for many books, and it's well suited to the constraints of apps to read on small mobile-phone screens, but graphics are crucial for many markets.

Using Web technology means Amazon gets to capitalize on widely used standards and piggyback on industry efforts for improvements such as hardware-accelerated rendering in browsers.

The first readers able to read the new books are Kindle Fire tablets, the Android-based devices that Amazon began selling last year. Amazon announced KF8 e-book format in October as it released the Kindle Fire.
....

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57...-your-e-books/