Improve ebooks - fiction & non-fiction

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by richough3

I think an evolution of the Choose Your Own Adventure type of eBooks would be nice on an epic novel scale as I find the CYOA stories to be a bit short. You could have options like the choice to select to follow the story of one of multiple characters. And of course, you would still have the choice of certain paths and even change which character you follow at certain plot points. There would also be the potential choice of different endings or just have different paths to get to the same ending. For people who don't want to make choices and just want to read, they could chose a standard narrative so it's like a regular book.

I think the reason these sort of books are so short is because something like this takes a LOT of work to plot out and write. If you tried to do this on a wide scale with novels, you have to have something like a movie production team to accomplish it. And it would requires that novelists become game writers instead of novelists. I'm guessing most would not be interested in all this added work for a limited additional audience.

[darryl]

It's essentially a Zork type text adventure game, on a slightly bigger scale with less choices. It is basically an intricate game with text instead of actions. This sort of thing is far better implemented as a program or app. If you want it on e-ink an e-ink Android device would probably be best. Of course it can be implemented in an ebook format, even at novel length, if anyone can be bothered doing it. I must admit that I tried these "Choose your own Adventure" type books as a Kid and found them terrible even then. But I did enjoy playing Zork on a computer.

But another significant problem with all of these hybrid type formats is the cost of production, as rcentros points out. Once you add multimedia and gaming type content it essentially becomes a team production.

[David Munch]

Originally Posted by maddz

Why would you want to add bells and whistles to an ebook? Perhaps for a kiddies book (I am reminded of some Disney book & record combos I had in my childhood), but not for something that's being read for pleasure or education (unless you are thinking of embedded videos for manuals of one kind or another - but that's what Utube is for).

For natural science books, multilayered, interactive, moving figures would be an AMAZING thing to have, that would GREATLY enhance how information is delivered. Why you think this is only for kids books is quite beyond me.

To OP, look to the iTunes Store, and search for "Enhanced edition", that is likely more or less what you ask for.

[maddz]

Originally Posted by David Munch

For natural science books, multilayered, interactive, moving figures would be an AMAZING thing to have, that would GREATLY enhance how information is delivered. Why you think this is only for kids books is quite beyond me.

To OP, look to the iTunes Store, and search for "Enhanced edition", that is likely more or less what you ask for.

Thinking back to my textbooks (I'm a biochemist) I frankly don't see anything that can be enhanced by interaction. About the only thing I can think of would be something like demonstrating protein folding or receptor modelling, but textbooks are expensive enough already that adding enhanced content would price the book out of the market.

I personally would think that to an impovorished student 3 regular textbooks for the price of one enhanced textbook would be far preferable.

If you're talking about natural history, well, that's what Youtube is for.

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by maddz

Thinking back to my textbooks (I'm a biochemist) I frankly don't see anything that can be enhanced by interaction. About the only thing I can think of would be something like demonstrating protein folding or receptor modelling, but textbooks are expensive enough already that adding enhanced content would price the book out of the market.

I was just thinking about how yea, there's things to be added but we haven't gotten there technologically yet. For instance, I was thinking about g-code being embedded in books about CNC machining, I have a series of books from the 20s about engineering and it starts off with the axis of a screw and the different types of screws all the way to diesel locomotives. It would be awesome to have g-code embedded in an ebook so you could 3d print or CNC any or all examples found in the book.

To use your example, if we had desktop protein printers (not inconceivable!), that would be a handy meta-data type thing to include.

The issue would be having the technology to be able to do some of this stuff.

For instance, if I were reading a text about the Civil War, it would be very cool to fold the book open (like a centerfold) and have a recreation of the battle(s) there in front of you. I'm not talking videos or pictures, I mean like the 3d table in the Avengers, where the e-ink has 3D capabilities.

So, for now, e-books are perfectly fine, I mean, we have used it's predecessor for quite some time, we need to have several jumps in technology (hopefully in my lifetime) that would make doing much more cool things viable.

As for the expense, meh. Let the product come out and prices will fall and there would always be a secondary market.

Until, you know, they prove Stallman right yet again.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by sealbeater

As for the expense, meh. Let the product come out and prices will fall and there would always be a secondary market.

The problem is this is overkill for most eBooks. And there's not just the matter of expense, but of getting together a production team to produce something like this. As is, one person can write a novel and self-publish it (I realize you're not talking about novels, but I think most eBook sales are for novels). What you're talking about would require a team, kind of like a movie or game production. I don't see any of this ever being incorporated into a "standard" eBook. As I stated above, it's overkill.

[darryl]

And these types of content, at least those available with current technology, exist now. But they are not called books.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by tomfyhr

Do you have any suggestions for how e-books can be made more interactive and enganging, to possibly encourage people to read fictional och non-fictional literature? Nowadays e-books are usually only digital conversions of physical books.

Thank you in advance for the answer!

Why make ebooks more interactive? I for one like having to imagine the setting, characters, etc. using only the words on the page. No videos, no musical interludes, just me and the text.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by crich70

Why make ebooks more interactive? I for one like having to imagine the setting, characters, etc. using only the words on the page. No videos, no musical interludes, just me and the text.

I think this is why people often find movies based on books disappointing. People use their imagination when reading but are subject to someone else's imagination when watching a movie.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I think this is why people often find movies based on books disappointing. People use their imagination when reading but are subject to someone else's imagination when watching a movie.

It's probably why OTR (Old Time Radio) was so popular back in the day too, and why the old stories still work so well. They give you dialogue, sound effects and some narrative and you build the rest of the story world in your own mind.

[Hitch]

Hooo, boy.

Well, for those of you that haven't been heavily involved in the "eBook industry" over the last decade, let me introduce you to "The Immersedition." http://immersedition.com/

The Immersedition broke onto the scene in 2013, with the book "The Survivors" by Amanda Hayward. (I have this enhanced media tome, on my iPad.)

This had every bell and whistle that you could imagine. Inside this, you could:

• Click for Character Bios;
• Click to see adverts for shoes, handbags, men's clothing, you name it;
• click to hear music played, from bands like Coldplay, and,
• with a click, BUY IT!
• Other disguised adverts also existed.
• You could see maps,
• illustrations,
• and so on.

I never did find out what it cost (reliably) to produce, but I was told that it was in the $300-$500K range. And heck, this didn't even have commercial illos and the like, or animated movies, yadda. This was just a book that put the hammy "product placement" of TV and movies to downright shame, mixed in with some legit additional content.

And...what happened with this newest, latest and greatest "evolution" of the book? As far as I know, it fell flat on its ass. Why? For the same reason that this thread shows about as much enthusiasm for "enhanced" eBooks--readers have pretty much zip interest in making "movies" out of their books, or adding this or that gizmo, etc. We're readers, not short-attention-span-theater seat-fidgeters that can't focus on something for 5 minutes.

AND, to me, that's the bigger issue that people instinctively react to, without even analyzing it--what's being discussed here is creating reading environments that create even more opportunites for children and other readers to learn how to NOT focus and pay attention to more-involved or more-detailed thought processes, like those found in a deep book. We already have an entire generation or two, it seems, of young people who have the attention span of a two-year-old. They've learned how NOT to read.

Spoiler:

(I was just recently involved in a nasty piece of business on another forum, in which a gaggle of women attacked and bullied another, for the CRIME of posting longer posts, and telling posters who wanted more detailed information to PM her. Nothing against forum rules; she didn't do anything heinous, she wasn't self-promoting, she wasn't giving them links, etc.--she just used more long-form posting, and they attacked her like piranha in the water with a bleeding calf. For posting longer posts. I wish I was making this up. Bullies who probably PRIDE themselves on telling the people around them how they despise bullying. But my relevant point here is--they couldn't adjust to reading longer posts, oh, the HORROR!)

Forums like TVWOP have disappeared into the mists of time, the stated reason being that people weren't interested in "long-form" posting any longer--seriously.

So, we're seriously sitting here discussing creating apps/books/whatever that will encourage even less of a requirement to read and focus for an uninterrupted period of time? Because we're going to SQUIRREL try to attract their attention SQUIRREL with more bright shiny things?

Count me out, brother. I want my books to BE BOOKS. If I want to see someone else's idea of what that book should look like, fine, I'll go see the Movie or the made-for-TV miniseries or whatever. I don't need character bios, I don't need the history of place, and so on. If I'm reading a book and I want to find out the history of Lower Slobbovia, I can look that up online, or, gasp, in a BOOK at my home.

I fully understand how some folks might want character bios, or whatever, but the comments that have been made about what it takes to do that, in a non-spoiler way, are quite real. We've been involved with trying to make CYOA game-books, and man, what a bloody headache that is. And they are, by their nature, (in eBook environs) limited. You also can't really "hide" the other paths and choices from them, either. That means, in order for these bios, etc., to be useful, and to not ruin a book for the person using them, they have to be "staged" so as to not give away the character's future actions. "Progressive" bios, as it were, along with maps, illos, so on and so forth.

Anyway...as far as I know, the Hayward book was the sole Immersedition that was ever made. I've never heard of another. I had a woman, at the time, that got completely wrapped up in the idea of Immerseditions, and decided that this was going to be the future of ebooks, and put her entire career into trying to get schools to pay for these types of eBooks, and last I heard, she was looking for a gig for minimum wage. Not a good choice, as it turned out.

While I wouldn't wish the Immersedition people ill, I'm glad it didn't catch. If books were all like that today, I'd be a pretty unhappy camper, unless the feature existed to turn it ALL off.

And as stated, I don't think that either encouraging people to have even less of an attention span, or catering to those that already prefer NOT to think deeply, is a great idea. Schools are already making reading the classics a thing of the past, eliminating the reading books that take that type of in-depth, detailed focus and thought from the curricula--to the detriment of those students (and their future employers), might add. Why make it worse?

What's next? A "serial" book, sent out in 144-character tweets, ffs, with movies, videos, games and other fun surprises, inbetween? God help me, NO.

My $.02, FWIW.

HItch

[4691mls]

Plenty of regular ebooks have a map (sometimes but not always clear on e-ink). I once read an early book in a series that had a character bio at the end, which I read and it had a couple of spoilers for things that happened in the character's life in later books. After that experience, I won't read another character bio unless it were to state that it includes only events through the time of the current book.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Hooo, boy.

Well, for those of you that haven't been heavily involved in the "eBook industry" over the last decade, let me introduce you to "The Immersedition." http://immersedition.com/

The Immersedition broke onto the scene in 2013, with the book "The Survivors" by Amanda Hayward. (I have this enhanced media tome, on my iPad.)...

Thank you for that post. I read most of it, but it was awfully long

The Immersedition sounds like what became the Enhanced Edition ebooks and those don't seem to be taking the world by storm either.

I think your post and the rest of this thread do a pretty good job of explaining why.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by crich70

Why make ebooks more interactive? I for one like having to imagine the setting, characters, etc. using only the words on the page. No videos, no musical interludes, just me and the text.

This is exactly it for me as well. To me, an ebook reader simply replaces a paper book, and that is all I need and want it to do while giving me the ability to change font size and/or style to make reading more comfortable for my crappy eyesight.

I don't want to see any interactive content or videos or songs (and what comes along next with all that of course is ads up the wazzoo). I'd use my computer or at least a tablet if I wanted something like that, and it wouldn't be for reading books. It would be more towards activities like researching travel locations, or something instructional.

Let me read in peace away from all that hype on my plain ereader as it's meant to do.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Thank you for that post. I read most of it, but it was awfully long

Perfect. ;-)

Hitch