App-books to "steamroll over e-books"?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Sorry.. Even on my iPad, I just want to read. Not have an experience. Certainly there will be enhanced ebooks and they will have their followers, but Steamroll over ebooks? Ain't gonna happen..

This. I don't want multimedia in my books. If I want to watch a video or listen to music, I will. If I want to read, I want to read.

[SolRaven]

In a perfect world, everyone will get to choose how they want to view and receive their books. There is no reason to only have one or the other; there is plenty of room for both.

[elizilla]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Now there's something I'd like: a car repair manual that would let me see the parts I'm working on, move them around in 3D space, and figure out how they fit together without struggling with some half-invisible, crud-coated, and of course broken part before I actually tried to get it out of there.

Me too!

There are guys on the forums who make videos of some procedures, and when they're well done they are the only thing that comes close. But an interactive shop manual? I would adore that. I can't tell you how many times I have run aground on uncertainty about whether the reason I can't get this bolt to move, is because it is stuck, or because it's not supposed to come out until something else is done first.

Unfortunately I fear this runs into economy problems. Even if the structural framework to create it already available, it would cost a lot to create the content, and if the app-book cost enough that that investment could be recouped from the small number of buyers, it would be prohibitively expensive, which means it will sell even fewer copies.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by SolRaven

In a perfect world, everyone will get to choose how they want to view and receive their books. There is no reason to only have one or the other; there is plenty of room for both.

Perfect world? Like THAT'S going to happen.

[spellbanisher]

In a perfect world there would be no people.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

In a perfect world there would be no people.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by HistoryWes

These app-books are the digital equivalent of the coffee table books that have pull-out maps and toys or pop-up sections. They are interesting novelties, but nobody has a library full of them. They're just not that good for reading.

That kind of sums up how I feel. I enjoyed H.G. Wells' interactive War of the Worlds on my iPad, and I'll probably buy a few similar books in the future, but I wouldn't want a steady diet of such books.

[SolRaven]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

That kind of sums up how I feel. I enjoyed H.G. Wells' interactive War of the Worlds on my iPad, and I'll probably buy a few similar books in the future, but I wouldn't want a steady diet of such books.

That actually looks pretty cool. I'd definitely revisit a few classics, but I doubt it would be a mainstay in my diet of fiction.

[wyndslash]

i certainly hope those type of books won't be like some video games that are full of great graphics but little substantial storyline

[ChrisHoward]

Originally Posted by starrigger

A friend of mine who's a writer/artist/software geek created an iThing app for one of his novels. I thought it was pretty cool: it could launch the book normally, but also had access to sketches and full-color art, side notes about the book and its world, and I forget what all. Maybe he'll weigh in here. (You there, Chris?)

Thanks, Jeff.

I agree with just about everything already said about the "app book" and reading, or it being the next gen ebook. It won't. Like most others here, I will always prefer to read in a reader app or on a device--Kindle, iPad, nook.

But I have been doing quite a bit of exploration in developing an iPad/iPhone/Android app as an author or artist platform for promotion--combining free content, games, and other activities, some more useful than others.

My evolving "Seaborn" app (for my first novel Seaborn (Juno Books), link below), which is up to version 2 in the iTunes app store, is basically a free bunch of art, notes, stories, audio, chapters, character list, graphic novel sampler, and links to buying books at Amazon, B&N, iBooks, etc. It has full usage stats built in, so I can see that most users select the Saltwater Witch menu item first, that app users spend the most time in the Seaborn book section, that the app's been installed on iPads in 56 countries by over 3000 users, and all kinds of other cool stuff.

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/M...393798398&mt=8

I completely agree that one app per book doesn't make a bit of sense, or that most readers don't want to see video, audio. On the other hand, a free app that installs with one-click on several platforms and gets twenty readers who have never heard of me to my blog, with links to my books, or to follow my Twitter stream...can't be a bad thing.

I think the right app with some decent content can get readers into your world.

I write science fiction and fantasy, and as a reader of both, it seems to me that the hard part of getting new readers is getting them to invest any amount of time in your world--or making it easy for readers who already like your books to recommend them to others. Once there, and with a bit of time spent looking around, new readers ar emore than likely to continue reading--and buy more of your books.

I could just be crazy, and this could easily go nowhere, but I do think it's worth some effort to explore the book promotion opportunities these portable/mobile devices bring to the world.

I'm also looking at games and other ways to bring readers in--not necessarily to read, but to have a bit of fun, get more information on your characters, maps, content, and find out where to get more.

Here are a couple of my posts on what I think "enhanced books" are:

http://the0phrastus.typepad.com/the0...kgame-app.html

Book Promotionware:
http://the0phrastus.typepad.com/the0...-workflow.html


Cheers!

Chris Howard
web: http://www.saltwaterwitch.com
blog: http://theophrast.us

[Xiaopangzi]

App-books...? 1990′s Here We Come … Again!

http://interfacelab.com/is-this-real...st-use-html-5/

[Giggleton]

I'd just like a more intuitive table of contents or something like that.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by SolRaven

That actually looks pretty cool. I'd definitely revisit a few classics, but I doubt it would be a mainstay in my diet of fiction.

It was fun to use my finger to shoot folks with alien heat rays and wipe the mist off windows to see what's approaching from outside, but yeah, I wouldn't want every book I read to be like that. It's kind of nice as an occasional break from the norm, though.

[Barty]

You can always count on MR for knee jerk reactions. Just because a book CAN have interactive elements doesn't mean every book HAS to have it.

We need a better format for textbooks than PDF. Also, children's books and instructional books, as other mentioned. And we need some kind of platform to make putting out these types of books not an expensive, time consuming, one-off production.

Really, you don't think we're going to be stuck with mobi forever do you? That's like saying the web should look just like it did at CERN.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by Barty

You can always count on MR for knee jerk reactions. Just because a book CAN have interactive elements doesn't mean every book HAS to have it.

Knee Jerk? Nobody said that interactive elements won't work their way into *some* books. The OP posted an article that basically said interactive books were the future. *Some* of us on MR don't see that happening. Readers just want to read. Not watch videos. Not be taken to an offsite webpage. Not have an audio commentary.