Are Apps the Future of Book Publishing

[VaporPunk]

Originally Posted by stonetools

The Atavist is a nice IOS app that features nonfiction works with audio playbacks and links to images and video/ audio clips.
I can see an ehanced LOTR with interactive maps. All fantasy book readers seem to want maps!

Triple for this idea. Somebody please get on this right away!

Maybe
Has anybody tried any of the interactive fiction novels for the kindle? I used to play the old infocom games back in the day. Loved them though I rarely finished them, at least not without help.

[5thWiggle]

Originally Posted by stonetools

The Atavist is a nice IOS app that features nonfiction works with audio playbacks and links to images and video/ audio clips.
I can see an ehanced LOTR with interactive maps. All fantasy book readers seem to want maps!

Ooooh! Make the map track your progress in the book and add "Google StreetView for Middle Earth"®! Maybe some clickable icons that show excerpts from Gandalf's Diary along the way!

Feb 17th (apparently), 3019

Another, somewhat longer gap in my diary entries this time, although I think I have a decent excuse in that I was dead for most of it. Although it seems that I was not susceptible to rotting, unless anything fell off without me noticing when Gwaihir was dangling me from his talons. That would have been a shock for the Beornings.

I’m currently lying on a rather comfortable bed in Lothlorien going over the events of the last month in my mind. I remember throwing down the Balrog atop zirak-zigil, and then wandered outside thought and time on roads I will not tell. But I will write them down.

The world was spinning quite strangely, last thing I remembered, taking me back somewhat to the time when Radagast and I first investigated the different properties of Olvar, and what they did if you burned them. One experiment in particular left us wandering aimlessly for a few hours after inhaling the fumes, during which time Curunir and Sauron took the opportunity to use the sap of another species to sculpt my hair into a bewildering array of spikes, something I have yet to pay them back for (although the time is coming, believe me...). I neglected to join Raddy again after that instructive day, but he’s been on the stuff non-stop ever since.

Many have speculated what happens when you die, but nothing prepared me for what I encountered. Halfway in the back of my mind was the thought that I might meet Eru again. You know, loyal servant greeted by his master after doing all he could to stop the spread of EVIL. But no.I get to meet the head of Eru’s Insurance Department, a particularly anally-retentive Ainu called Melvin.

Melvin, it turns out, wants to know what’s happened to my body. I explain that it’s taken some serious abuse, including, but not limited to; strenuous exertion over prolonged periods, producing fire to ward off wargs, experiencing a Level 1 counterspell, falling several thousand feet with a powerful enemy, underwater combat with said powerful enemy, chasing said enemy up several thousand stairs, and final combat including summoning unseasonal lightning with said enemy on top of a mountain, followed by exposure and hypothermia.

Melvin claims that this constitutes neglect by the owner, I argue that given my job description it counts as acceptable wear and tear. Melvin claims I’m only covered for Third Party, Fire and Theft, I point out that the Third Party that robbed me of my life was on Fire, which confuses him somewhat. Melvin comes out with ‘Well, this is all very irregular,’ which as we all know means that you have a case and they know you have a case, but are still determined to shaft you somehow. Finally the intercom buzzed and a call came through from On High, apparently commanding me to present myself before Eru.

So, I went and did Twenty Questions with The One. Turned out he was happy with my work, accepted that I had taken reasonable risks in my efforts to perform my given task and approved of my sacrifice to the greater cause by keeping the Balrog from getting to Frodo. In short order he contacted Accounting and Resources and told me I was going back with a promotion and at a higher wage with early retirement options. Finally, he also required that I continue with my diary in order for him to get a good idea of the goings-on. When I pointed out that he sees and knows everything anyway he replied that it’s essential to get the first-person perspective in order to give the story “that public interest feel“. So that’s why the book mysteriously survived that fight.

So I have been sent back for a short while, until my task is done. The words “until your task is done” give me hope that the task might actually get done, as there was no mention of “until your task is done or you and all your allies die horribly”. However, Melvin did get his revenge after all.

The little swine sent me back naked.

[VaporPunk]

Originally Posted by 5thWiggle

Ooooh! Make the map track your progress in the book and add "Google StreetView for Middle Earth"®! Maybe some clickable icons that show excerpts from Gandalf's Diary along the way!

Google StreetView for Middle Earth® I wants!

[wodin]

If by "apps" they mean that the reader software is built into the book, and contains features that are tailored to the particular book, then I'm all for it.

As it stands now I have to select a reader, or reader app for my phone/tablet. Then I need to know what eBook format that it supports, and go find the bookseller who provides that format, then the reading experience is limited to that reader/format combination, then since it has DRM I need to use it only on...

Just say that the whole process is either mind boggling or limiting or both. Individual booksellers sometimes will try to make the process somewhat painless, as long as you get all your books from them, but if you want to switch readers or formats, then it again becomes cumbersome at best and impossible at worst.

With the advent of virtually unlimited amounts of storage on the most popular brands of tablet/smartphone computers, redundancy of the reader code (one set for each book) becomes less of an issue, but the lack of an integrated bookshelf becomes more; but there could be an app for that.

Then there is the question of DRM; how dey gon’ implement dat?

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by conroy

Apps are necessary to read eBooks and today its demands are increasing. So the future of book publishing is in the hands of apps.

Not true... I read all the time and never use an App, I use an eReader...

[QuantumIguana]

Reader software being part of the book is woefully inefficient. It's like having Microsoft Excel embedded in every spreadsheet. It is much more efficient to have one installation of Excel and use that to load each spreadsheet. E-books are glorified text files. The more you complicate them, the more can go wrong.