Professor blasts e-books over unfulfilled promise

[Katsunami]

I have a feeling that the books will still be 1MB in size, with the multimedia linked into it from the servers of the publishers. Combine that with books that have a unique ID (based on the reader onto which they were first opened) and more of those nice things, and you have perfect DRM.

It also causes the books to be inconvertible, and unusable if the publisher decides not to support them any longer because their "old".

[Cyberman tM]

It's somewhat funny how most of the replies to these topics feel VERY similar to the discussions regarding pBook vs. eBook.
In both cases the term "book" is defined and defended and must not be deviated from, because a "book" is only a "book" when it is exactly as a "book" should be.

Heavens forbid someone try to improve upon it, then it would immediately cease to be a book and become somthing so entirely different that it must be dismissed immediately.


As with everything, it can and will be misused. But at the same time, it can greatly enhance the experience. As has been said, non-fiction books are prime examples - like in the OP, a BIOGRAPHY about a musician - no doubt, adding video and gods forbid music would instantly ruin the experience of reading the book...

Still, perhaps a fiction author wants to add something more than just text? What if an author has a character talk about a specific music - would it really be bad if the reader had the option to listen to it, so he could better understand what's going on?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Cyberman tM

Still, perhaps a fiction author wants to add something more than just text? What if an author has a character talk about a specific music - would it really be bad if the reader had the option to listen to it, so he could better understand what's going on?

I could accept that if it was the author's choice and intention. But I don't want multi-media retrofitted by a publisher or an editor. (Like adding pseudo-3D to a 2D movie. Ugh.)

[Jack Tingle]

Fantastic idea prof!

I suggest the following as the initial list of required hypertext linked enhancements. All books should be required to have them by the Book Police.

Title page
Colophon
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgment
Introduction
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Footnotes & references
Epilogue
Extro or Outro
Afterword
Conclusion
Postscript
Appendix or Addendum
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
Colophon

Oh, wait, you wanted like, videos and sound clips? Sorry, that's beyond current capabilities for many eBook readers. What, there's no Book Police? I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you to find economic minimalism in book publishing!

[Katsunami]

Woah.

That list makes me think of the stuff that had to be in my dissertation. The horror. That stuff was about 30% of the entire paper.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Cyberman tM

It's somewhat funny how most of the replies to these topics feel VERY similar to the discussions regarding pBook vs. eBook.
In both cases the term "book" is defined and defended and must not be deviated from, because a "book" is only a "book" when it is exactly as a "book" should be.

That my reaction also. I am very surprised since people here are so hostile to people that miss the feel and smell of paper books.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Do you think e-books need to be "enhanced" with multimedia features for a richer experience? Or do you prefer the single-dimensional aspect of text, where any kind of enhancement could potentially be intrusive and get in the way with the story?

Just no. Too much potential for abuse by big publishing houses that can afford multimedia to embed. It'd destroy the selfpub revolution we've been having.

[BeccaPrice]

I read maybe 90% fiction, and for fiction, I really prefer unenhanced books. Even when I listen to an audiobook, I don't like it when they add sound effects beyond the narrator doing voices for the various characters.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by tompe

That my reaction also. I am very surprised since people here are so hostile to people that miss the feel and smell of paper books.

I'm not surprised. An e-book doesn't significantly change the premise of a normal book: offer reading material / be read. If you're going to stick sound and video in it, it becomes a multimedia experience.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by teh603

Just no. Too much potential for abuse by big publishing houses that can afford multimedia to embed. It'd destroy the selfpub revolution we've been having.

Exactly.
If the book relies on the servers to be available it is useless without the online connection and becomes a webapp.

The issue here is usage patterns: ebooks and pbooks are used in very similar ways and both are used differently from websites and bookapps. He has his visions of what he thinks an ebook should be that are out of line with what the paying customers need and want. That is why I brought up the "television" analogy; to academics it literally is tele-vision--distant viewing--a one-way communication medium. To the masses and the market it is TV: an entertainment medium and purveyor of distractions, not education. No amount of moaning or speechifying has changed it in 70 years and its not going to change it now.

What the prof is bemoaning is that ebooks aren't used as websites-in-a-wrapper, which is in fact a fair description of epub3 which has so far even failed to materialize for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the market isn't exactly clamoring for all those fancy features.

He has his vision, but the market is its creature and has its own priorities.
Enhanced ebooks, via app or epub3, are about as significant to the ebook world as large format eink readers: academics clamor for them and they are truly useful... to a tiny niche that is not economically viable. Yes, ebooks could be many things. But what the market needs it to be *now* is a massless improvement upon paperbacks.

Bemoaning that the market serves the masses instead of his narrow vision is to be out of touch with reality. Economics has its own COLD EQUATIONS, too.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I'm not surprised. An e-book doesn't significantly change the premise of a normal book: offer reading material / be read. If you're going to stick sound and video in it, it becomes a multimedia experience.

Exactly.
And smell and touch are not essential parts of reading any more than dead tree pulp or publishers are.

[Pablo]

My disappointing experience offers a lesson for news organizations that are considering selling e-books because its shows how legacy media is still thinking like … legacy media. Book publishers still have an old-school mentality — like many newspaper editors.

Oh, yeah... this professor has read two ebooks and now has a lesson to offer...

And The Lesson Is... add multimedia content. Highly original.

[CommonReader]

First of all I would be satisfied if ebooks were just as "enhanced" as their pbook versions. Reading a lot of history non-fiction I have to find repeatedly that e.g. maps are completely useless in the ebook version - and I'm talking here about current books published by major publishers with prices to match.
Apart from that I do see quite a few possibilities for useful enhancement for non-fiction books but I definitively do not want any "enhanced" fiction.

BTW I'm not particularly impressed by the Professor's holiday reading list.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by Jack Tingle

Fantastic idea prof!

I suggest the following as the initial list of required hypertext linked enhancements. All books should be required to have them by the Book Police.

Title page
Colophon
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgment
Introduction
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Footnotes & references
Epilogue
Extro or Outro
Afterword
Conclusion
Postscript
Appendix or Addendum
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
Colophon

Oh, wait, you wanted like, videos and sound clips? Sorry, that's beyond current capabilities for many eBook readers. What, there's no Book Police? I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you to find economic minimalism in book publishing!

That sounds about right... ooops, no content... definitely right...

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by CommonReader

First of all I would be satisfied if ebooks were just as "enhanced" as their pbook versions. Reading a lot of history non-fiction I have to find repeatedly that e.g. maps are completely useless in the ebook version - and I'm talking here about current books published by major publishers with prices to match.
Apart from that I do see quite a few possibilities for useful enhancement for non-fiction books but I definitively do not want any "enhanced" fiction.

BTW I'm not particularly impressed by the Professor's holiday reading list.

Agreed, there are certainly situations where they could do a better job with maps and such in history books. I'm not sure if the issue is that publishers don't want to bother with hi-res map scans, or if the reader software doesn't do a good job of scaling hi-res graphics.

For the most part, I suspect the good professor is your standard academic/consultant. In a theoretical world, you could generate all these multimedia enhancements that everyone would just love. In the real world, that sort of thing has been tried and rejected by most consumers. In general, people who are readers don't want to be jarred out of the reading experience.