eBooks - Bill McCoy
Publisher’s need scale. It’s the business of multiple
titles. Authors need scale and tools (InDesign, PDF, etc). Tools should be made
that then the publishers use to do their work. We need to think about design
and rich content, but this should be done by designers, not programmers. The
inmates should not run the asylum (see the book). Programmers should be used to
create tools with which designers create. You can only hire so many programmers,
it doesn’t scale. You can though have a few programmers create tools with which
to have a lot of designers create a lot of things. There is an importance to
have rich experience and consistency. The consumer wants a certain amount of
consistency and not to have to figure out every different thing they read. If
you need interactivity, use building blocks (widgets), don’t have it built from
scratch. Just look at the web where most pages are built with templates not
from scratch.
Aerbook.com allows creating digital books with motion and animation
with CSS.
Apps - Sanders
Kleinfeld
O’Reilly is now realizing all of their books in ePub3
format. So O’Reilly believes in ePub, however, web apps are the way of the
future. He looked at his book HTML5 for
Publishers in multiple browsers but most of the readers didn’t support the
ePub3 features built in. So they took the book and created Chimera, a web app
reading system for browsers that could display ePub3 in various browsers.
Being online and being social is offered by web apps. It
facilitates feedback about the text. URLs can easily be used to post links to
the content directly into a specific section of the book. The book can link out
to many other resources and in turn they can link into it.
If you want to do all of this interactivity now, you need a
web app because otherwise you’re waiting for Amazon, B&N, etc. to catch up
with you (notably Apple’s iBooks does fully support ePub3, but they’re the
exception).
O’Reilly puts out over 100 books a year. They can’t build an
app for every book, but they can build something like Chimera and have a bunch
of books published in it. Or for instance they have Atlas, which is an XML
editor for ePub. Atlas is able to export formats for Chimera. So they’ve built
a platform instead of building only a single book.
McCoy: It is important to use HTML5 where it makes sense for
your business before the eReaders catch up. But instead of developing tools you
should find other tools out there. Web apps are an option, but you need to pay
attention to standards, which get you things like accessibility (for the blind
for instance).
Kleinfeld: The impression that creating the web app is too
hard for publishers is wrong. The elephant in the room is that eBooks are
software. You are in the software business, do you want to give away that core
part of your business to someone else? O’Reilly did build Chimera, but it’s
built on tops of things like Rails so there are standards, dozens.
M: Dozens? Shouldn’t you instead as a publisher be using one
product?
K: There’s a sliding scale depending on what you need to do.
WordPress might be all you need and is a viable option. O’Reilly takes it a
little further. Bottom line either way you are online.
M: But if you’re creating a site how do you sell it? You
don’t have a product. Are you going to use a pay wall?
K: There are different models. We are not putting all our
eggs in one basket. We need to figure out how to monetize web apps, but even
with that unknown they are the way of the future. Wrapping up your content in
someone else’s DRM (Amazon) and giving them 30% is not the way to go.
M: Yes, walled gardens are not the way to go. We’re both
about open standards.
Audience: Pay walls vs. discoverability
M: Inkling has done a good job of figuring this out. Safari
and NYT has a somewhat good way of handling this.
K: Being on the web is critical and part of the business,
but you don’t need to hire a bunch of developers. The standards are out there,
like ePub3.
M: When is O’Reilly going to move away from PDF?
K: PDF is actually our most popular download from our site.
Maybe due to the audience.
M: PDF is the portable format, but ePub is as well. A web
app doesn’t give people the portability.
K: HTML5 application cache allows you to go offline with
your site.
Audience: What about eInk?
M: eInk is on the way out. Tablets are so much more compiling.
K: Agreed. Tablets vs. phones is a big question.
M: PDF is bad for the phone as it does not adapt well, which
is where ePub does better.
Audience: is this build vs. buy?
K: Realize your strengths. O’Reilly has the developer base
to scale up whereas other publishers might not be able to do this.
M: Tools for HTML5 should be part of your core competency.
You should try to buy, but if its not there go ahead an buy.
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