Interesting to see a literary agent getting into the ebooks game, justified on the basis that publishers aren’t offering enough money to authors (or the agent?) and that digital rights weren’t negotiated for OOP titles. I wonder though whether the publisher should still get a cut based on the original editing, setting, marketing and popularising of the book that the agent and author could now profit from?

Another post I made to the discussion forum for the Whitireia Diploma in Publishing.

On Comparing workflows (XML-first or last)

I’m an XML believer. There, I said it. But I’m not so sure about the workflow, and the fact that publishers have been arguing over XML wokflows for at least a decade if not more shows it’s not a clear-cut issue.

Clearly there’s a need to maintain a good process around authors, editors etc working off the same file. I think Anne posted to clarify that there’d be some kind of sequencing involved. I’m unconvinced that authors will take to xml authoring; some editors will, and in larger publishing houses overseas there are dedicated technical editors doing just that. (And getting paid a little better than text editors.)

OpenOffice was mentioned briefly. Used well it will produce a clean document and good XML so a process of an author creating in their beloved Word and a technical editor converting that to OpenOffice and then to XML sounds simple. Note though the point about how even now we don’t use Word properly. A well-formatted document is fairly easy to work with and convert into other formats. OK, not that easy, but if the headings and body text are at least styled with the inbuilt styles it’s a good start, and typesetters have been working with styles for a few decades at least.

Typesetters are one of the sources of technical editors; XML is just another form of mark-up that they’ve learnt on top of various typesetting packages. And any publishing process as you know involves cleaning up what the author submits. The round-trip gets more complicated however if the author wants to make changes at final proof stage. Where to make the changes in a way that fully exploits the single-source XML file but avoids the the designer having to reset the XML?

OUP were struggling with this and the solutions weren’t going to be simple. For them it was worth the effort as they weren’t just talking about final proof changes but about round-tripping editions. At the time they were planning to do do the first edition as XML-last then generate a Word document for the author to amend for the second edition. Then a keying agency compares the document before and after the author amendments, identifies the changes and enters them into the XML file. Cheap it isn’t.

So who’s going to pay for it? Obvious question, and as you all note, for smaller publishers, probably no one. They’ll either muddle along and manage somehow or just not bother with XML. I think it’s possibly too easy for fiction and poetry publishers to say they don’t really need XML and excuse themselves the pain of an XML workflow and expense of XML editors. True, there’s more need in other types of publishing, but over time XML can pay off even for fiction – it’s easier to share and licence, reprint, store, archive etc, and is far more likely to work with future technology than a document from today’s version of Word. (But that’s an argument for XML rather than an XML workflow.)

One of the key decisions I think a publisher needs to make is whether they’re creating a book or a collection of data. If it’s the former (and for most local publishers this is the case), then an XML-last workflow will work well. Get the book written, edited, set, finalised and printed, then create an XML file as the source for any future renditions. If however a book is only one of the editions you’re planning, then XML-first (or XML-early) is going to offer a lot of benefits for single-source publishing all the formats.

Either way, an editor who understands markup and good formatting, and especially XML, may not be highly paid but will be highly valued.

Another post I made to the discussion forum for the Whitireia Diploma in Publishing.

On Books or websites

I hate to say it but I’m at a loss as to what to add to this discussion given your very thoughtful and sound responses. Seems there are two streams to the conversation, that aren’t entirely in opposition: one, that there really isn’t a difference in the two formats and that it comes down to how a reader wants to interact with content, and the other that it’s not the formats that matter so much as the content: web does well with short, pithy content, while books/ebooks do better with long-form reading.

The temptation here is to fall into the old argument (is it an old argument yet?) about whether it’s possible to read long-form online or in any electronic form at all. It’s a bit of a moot point as it’s obvious there will be readers who can and will; and there’ll be publishers happy to deliver the ebooks. Whether long-form reading is possible at a desktop is debatable; I can’t do it, though I often want to dip into a novel or similar to remind myself of what happened. A website might be better for that, but if on dipping in I decide I need to read the book again then I want easy access to another format.

Many of you have noted the similar functionality available (or possible) between eReaders and websites – both can do video, both can include added-value content (even if it’s what Booksquare might scathingly refer to as “some marketing person’s notion of value”), both can link to further sources, definitions, social media, etc. Are there any important differences left?

Permanence and impermanence is one that springs to mind. A traditional novel needs to be permanent; it’s an author’s construct and they construct it carefully and with thought as to how the reader will advance through the story, learning or losing the plot as the author wants. A scientific paper on the other hand can do well to use a bit of impermanence, especially in draft form. Releasing findings early and getting feedback from peers has been talked about off and on for years (no solid examples sorry – send in some if you have any), and the pace at which research can change suggests changes even after publication. Is the former better suited to format that I can download and have as an ebook while the latter needs to live on a database-driven website.

I’m less sure about reference works. Conventional wisdom is that dictionaries and encyclopedia should be up-to-date. It’s the basic Wikipedia model, a model that’s been accepted by dictionary publishers like OUP and Collins et al (though perhaps not adopted, given the institutional lethargy they tend to face).

But what about reference works as a snap-shot in time? What does something like the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand (published unmodified in Te Ara) tell us that an updated version doesn’t about how New Zealand saw itself in the 1960s? The constant updating is almost like saying that the present isn’t going to become history so we don’t need to leave a record. I think in that sense websites compared to books (whether e or p) are problematic regardless of what the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine or the National Library’s web harvest hope to achieve.

So that ends on a bit of a down note – apologies, but it’s worth thinking about how to maintain permanent content while layering updated and current content over the top and how both flexibility and solidity can be included in all formats.

Another post I made to the discussion forum for the Whitireia Diploma in Publishing.

eReader devices

I’m sitting at home typing this on a Tuesday evening but in all likelihood you won’t see it until Wednersday morning at the earliest. Our modem’s broken so I’m offline. Maybe you’ve had the experience and maybe you haven’t, but it’s ironic given the topic and how it touches on growing reliance on connectivity.

So the topic (from memory) is eBook readers. One of the selling points is being able to share books with your friends. You could do that with a print book, though now you can do it with your friends no matter where they are, and from the comfort of your own living room. As long as you’re both online. And what if you want to quote something to them – maybe it’s on page 243. Or is it? Are they reading in a larger font or a different reader or device and viewing different pagination? It’s a problem that’s vexing me: we’re making online equivalents for real world objects, but slowly they’re turning into online objects with no real world equivalent. So long as the network keeps working we’re sweet; when it fails, what then?

But that’s a naysayer’s diversion. (And my partner’s just fixed the modem by turning it off and on again – how fickle!) Plenty of recurring themes emerge and I won’t attempt to respond to all of them but worth noting them. Price and functionality came up plenty, and they seem almost in oppostion. Add a preference for slick design and the iPad looks like a winner. Page turning was a common complaint about eReaders; less common but significant were the technical limitations like processing power and battery life. Colour display and touch-screen with swipe functionality were both popular.

Like many of you I was surprised by the number of devices out there and felt somewhat overwhlemed. I couldn’t help but agree with those of you who cautioned against being the early adopters, wanting instead to see how the market settles down. Like many of you I tend to agree with the suggestion that half a dozen eReaders will emerge as winners.

The point about page-turning v. scrolling reminded me of some pretty stuff I’ve seen online recently – a website that uses a horizontal page that’s far wider than your browser window. It explains its choice by referring back to the original form of the scroll: Horizontalism and Readability (accessed 29 June 2010). I’ve seen a similar approach to horizontal navigation with vertical scrolling on some iPad magazine readers, as well as on this simple rendition of the Guardian news API. I think they’re nice approaches, combining movement in both directions with a clear sense of progression across a title and down through its stories.

The question of how much or how little a device should have is also interesting. For cheapness’ sake, little functionality keeps the price down but what do we get? A relatively poor electronic reproduction of a loved print experience. The more you pay the better quality the functionality and the more of it’s available; it’s Reading+. But plus what exactly? Take the enTourage eDGe as perhaps an extreme example – part reader and part “netbook, notepad, and audio/video recorder and player in one” to quote their marketing (accesed 29 June 2010). It’s got a clear college student market in mind, but are those students really doing anything particularly well? It’s probably great for a learning experience that combines all that functioanlity to read texts, take notes, and record lectures, but immersive reading it isn’t. (Said like a true old man, I know.)

I guess the question is what are we (publishers, technologists, etc) trying to design or create? A replacement for a book or all that and more besides? Leads me to one last diversion: archetypes. Deyan Sudjic, in The Language of Things (Penguin, 2008), talks about design archetypes and devotes a whole chapter to them. His argument is simple: that certain objects perform such a clear function that their design has taken on a level of cultural significance. It’s the angle poise lamp, the old fashioned Bakelite rotary dial telephone, an SLR camera, the Land Rover and VW Golf. I’d add the book to that list; an object with the sole purpose of collecting and imparting a set of information to a reader.

Today’s convergence of functionality into portable devices confounds the idea of archetype: even a simple cellphone does more than make calls – it tells time, does calculations, sends texts, takes photos. Are we trying to create an archetype that encapsulates everything, including eReading? Or is everything being rendered down to its base form of digits and information and the challenge for Apple and Sony and Amazon and whoever else can keep up is to make an archetype that makes sense of it all?

And if that’s the choice, I’m picking something pretty like an iPhone for my pocket (soon as I can afford one that is…).

I was recently asked to do some online tutoring for the Whitireia Diploma in Publishing, in the electronic publishing course modules.

Back in the day this was a certificate course, which I did in 1995. My job’s not hard but it is challenging: the students have a topic to discuss then I’m supposed to come in at the end of the week and sum up their excellent thoughts and dispence pearls of wisdom. In the absence of any pearls I’ve been treating myself to some diversions on publishing.

Here’s the first and others may follow.

The march of technology

I’m sorry to be late to reply but I’ve really enjoyed reading your posts and it’s got me having to think hard. This isn’t so much a round-up of what you’ve been posting as some responses and a few more avenues to explore.

First up I though the definitions you all found were a great mix. Interesting to see a number focussed on the delivery mechanism that got the content to the human reader. Made me wonder whether electronic publishing is about the entire process and the product, or if it’s a mix and match? Some of the definitions suggest the end result of epublishing must be electronic, but what about print-on-demand? It’s an electronic process that generates a print book. Or a system that delivers electronic summaries with links to buy a print book? It’s part e and part p!

The quote from Digital Publishing is pretty much on the money where it talks about a variety of things that epublishing can be, and even Unesco keeps the definition pretty open. But saying it can be anything makes things pretty hard for your old-fashioned publisher trying to get their head around it.

The book is a concept that publishers understand; it can be unitised and monetised easily. Readers like books too; they’re familiar and understandable, you know what you’ve bought, you can see it. Publishers can deliver that. But readers like other things too; magazines, television, games, news, answers, opinions; these are things that are harder for publishers to package and sell.

Publishers have the content and they have the expertise to create great content, but often that expertise is around creating books, a finite and complete ‘thing’. Electronic information doesn’t quite behave like that; it’s not contained or shaped to fit a package; it spills out of packets and into other websites, it links evrywhere, it can’t contain the reader. And the reader likes that, they want to look up a word, get distracted, wander off, remember where they were, and dip back in again. That’s not to say they won’t do that with a book, but that’s book behaviour. Does book behaviour translate to media that are designed for wandering from source to source? Or does the content need to fit different shapes, shapes that might change from day to day and reader to reader?

I feel the need to defend the old school of publishers a little. (I’m half-way between young and old and a libran to boot so can see both sides.) Krozier ends by encouraging publishers to invest in R&D. Great idea, but even for large and seemingly profitable multinationals, publishing is a marginal business. There’s not much to be made from book publishing. Finding money to invest in electronic publishing once the print book’s been produced is tricky even for big publishers; smaller publishers just won’t do it if it threatens margins and editorial, production and marketing costs. And it might even argue for some publishers to stick with print books if that’s what they’re really good at.

Eveyone picked up on the other side of that equation in the blog: technology companies are challenging publishers in their traditional sphere. So publishers have two threats: their own lack of R&D and the size of technology companies’ R&D budgets. Maybe publishers need to go the other way and partner with technology compaines; publishers have the content, techs have the mechanisms. (Some publishers used to run their own printing presses and got out of that business; why not let someone else do the technology this time round?)

Someone touched on sustainability, and the economics of buying eReaders. Public libraries have existed for decades to give access to books to those who can’t afford them; it’s a valuable public service. How will that change as books go online? And is there an environmental sustainability issue? People assume the saving in paper manufacturing easily offsets electronic delivery, but huge resources are now going into running server farms and manufacturing disposable computers, cellphones, eReaders, not to mention the batteries and power to run them. (Watch this film if you’re interested in a ‘beautiful’ illustration of what’s happening in China to support tech booms: Manufactured Landscapes.)

The point that the blog was short on specifics is worth noting. Copyright and DRM aren’t discussed in detail and yet are two of the issues that publishers and the creators they represent are really going to have to address. How isn’t easy, but holding onto traditional forms of copyright protection and territorial sales channels is going to require investment that could be going into creating new types of publishing.

The conceptual change from publishing a book as a unit, where an idea is developed over the course of the book, to publishing information that can be treated as data and be re-used in smaller chunks, that can interact with other bits of information, is a huge conceptual leap for a lot of publishers. And it’s maybe one that many can’t make. But the ones that can make the jumpe can start repackaging the information they already posses, partner with tech providers to develop and deliver content in new ways, and then apply the lessons of redeployed content to generating new forms of content.