The Future of Electronic Publishing

[KatG]

There are still interoperability rough edges among all the ereaders, DRM begin the harshest. But every day they are smoothed more and more.

Yeah, which I've been saying for the last year. Actually more than that, the last three years ever since Amazon launched the Kindle and the fury started. It's the natural, slow development of the market as it standardized, built infrastructure and grew that most in publishing and some in tech expected. But oh no, publishers are stupid, Amazon is idiotic and if they don't do it right now, they'll die.

I am revising my prediction for 2011 slightly though. I said in 2010 it would take five years to get everything thoroughly up and running, but that was partly because it didn't look as if the tablet market would accelerate as fast as it now appears to be doing. So instead of four more years, it might be only three. But with the international issues, it might still be four, so three-four.

 

[Laer Carroll]

With ereader hardware and software compatibility issues pretty much ironed out, the question of the future now passes to peopleware issues. That is, the practices, processes, and standards people use to create and consume epublished content.

We’ve already seen some of this in the controversy surrounding the “agency model” of payment. There are many others – more, in fact than the hardware and software matters. Systems engineers have long recognized that peopleware issues are an order or more of magnitude more complex than the other two.

One that particularly interests me is the possibilities that surround the protean nature of electronic publications. In fact, I think I’ll start a new thread, this one having gotten so long, and the polymorphous nature of epub being so complex.

 

[Steven L Jordan]

With ereader hardware and software compatibility issues pretty much ironed out, the question of the future now passes to peopleware issues. That is, the practices, processes, and standards people use to create and consume epublished content.

True: This area has perhaps seen more flux that the hardware issues of the past 5 years, or at least, more resistance to trying new things and locking down a way to deliver and consume content.

 

[Hobbit]

OK: Here's a development. As a lifelong International subscriber of Locus Magazine, yesterday I received the means of collecting an electronic copy of the January edition (#600.)


I've downloaded a epub edition for my Sony Reader and a pdf for the computer.

This is about two weeks before I receive the print edition.

It is nice being able to read the edition at the same time as everyone else!

The pdf version is in colour, the ereader epub not; though this may be because I'm reading it on a black and white Sony Reader 505.

Miss the colour pictures on the Sony version; find the pdf off've a computer screen useful, but tiring for long periods. Might be worth a try on an ipad (but I haven't one of those.)

Locus have a habit of splitting their articles and after a page or so continuing later in the edition. Annoying but bearable in the print edition; VERY annoying in the electronic edition.

Will it replace my paper edition? No. I like to go back and leaf, meander aimlessly through old editions, much easier than with an electronic copy.
Is this the future? Possibly. But I wouldn't hold your breath.

Mark

 

[Steven L Jordan]

Print layouts aren't always optimum for digital presentation (and vice versa). As content producers switch to digital, layouts and presentation methods have to change to optimize the use of the medium.

That also means customers have to get used to new ways of using and viewing that digital media... "leafing" and other such methods will be replaced by "surfing" or "browsing", etc.

This is the nature of change. It should be a good change... Sometimes, it's not clearly better than the old method. But usually, getting used to it is just a matter of being willing to try.

 

[KatG]

Nice interview here from The Globe and Mail with a slightly clueless interviewer and Margaret Atwood:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...thors-atwood-reminds-us/article1943785/page1/

My favorite part was this from Atwood:

Sure, people sit there putting words on the page, and some of them make a lot of money for their publishers and others create huge losses because the publishers placed their bets wrong. When people say publishing is a business – actually it’s not quite a business. It’s part gambling and part arts and crafts, with a business component. It’s not like any other business, and that’s why when standard businessmen go into publishing and think, “Right, I’m going to clean this up, rationalize it and make it work like a real business,” two years later you find they’re bald because they’ve torn out all their hair. And then you say to them, “It’s not like selling beer. It’s not like selling a case of this and a case of that and doing a campaign that works for all of the beer.” You’re selling one book – not even one author any more. Those days are gone, when you sold, let’s say, “Graham Greene” almost like a brand. You’re selling one book, and each copy of that book has to be bought by one reader and each reading of that book is by one unique individual. It’s very specific.