Q&A; with Developer Who Turns Ebooks into iPhone Applications

Mac Slocum
August 21, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (4) | Listen

Ebook files and e-reader software usually exist as separate entities, but Tom Peck of AppEngines merged the two to create individual ebook applications for the iPhone App Store. In the following Q&A;, Peck discusses his ebook software development process, consumer response to his apps, and future ebook projects.

Why did you opt to bundle individual ebooks as software applications rather than create a single e-reader program?

I have been reading ebooks (mostly from eReader.com) for many years. I wanted to make a book reader program for the iPhone that was as simple to use as possible. I feel that the way existing ebook solutions work is too complex for many users: they have to download the ebook software, then go to a separate Web site and create an account, enter credit card data, and then find and purchase content.

The iPhone App Store sales and distribution process makes it simpler and more convenient to have an ebook reader as part of an ebook itself. Developers can only distribute applications through the App Store; there is no way to distribute data files like ebooks. Therefore, it made sense to me that each book had to be a complete application.

Although this is more convenient for App Store customers to get a book, the process of making each book into an app takes more time for development. Each book becomes its own Xcode project, requires testing, and requires time to load all of the data (descriptions, screen shots, application file) to the App Store. I have developed tools and techniques that automate as much as possible, but each book takes several hours to complete, not counting the many hours spent writing the ebook reader itself.

Have you used any of the e-reader applications available through the App Store (e.g. Stanza, eReader, etc.)? If so, how do these compare to your own apps?

I have used the eReader software. I am a long-time eReader customer, having purchased dozens of their books and read them on my Treo. I have not used Stanza.

The biggest difference is that those products let the user download content from the Internet. Some let users create their own content and download it to the iPhone, which is nice. My reader is purely a book reader.

The eReader app supports a bookshelf list, showing all the ebooks. With my apps, each ebook appears as its own icon on the home screen.

My current reader program compares nicely to eReader. At the moment, I do not support landscape mode, which eReader does. Both offer text search and table of contents. I admit that the search function in my first batch of books was not very usable; newer books have a much better implementation, even better than eReader's. Both programs support different font sizes, images embedded within the text, layout options such as indenting and centering, and font styles.

One feature my reader has is instant repagination when the user changes font size. Using my reader, the user can increase or decrease font size using the "pinch" gesture, similar to zooming in and out of photos, and the results are immediate. I spent a lot of time to make this very, very fast. Changing the font size in eReader requires the program to repaginate in the background, a process that can take over 30 seconds for the entire book.

How many ebooks have you made available through the App Store?

Currently, about 140. More are in the pipeline; all newer, copyrighted works from other publishers and authors.

What has the response been like?

Response has been very good. My current download numbers for all books (not counting several free books) is almost 1,000 books a day. The numbers per book vary day by day, with some books having as many as 50 downloads a day. Most of the public domain titles have counts around five per day.

Most encouraging are that the newer works are selling just as well as the classic stuff. iPulp, a publisher of science-fiction and adventure short stories for young adults, has four works in the store right now with six more in review. These are priced at $0.99 and $1.99 and have sales of about 10 per day. The two Max Quick novels sell for $5.99 each. Currently they are selling about 13 copies per day and the numbers are increasing (they've been in the store for less than two weeks).

Are you selling ebooks or ebook applications through other platforms?

Right now, I am only working with the App Store. I am watching to see what other cell phone vendors and carriers do. As some of your blog postings have noted, the success of the App Store is making other carriers look at copying Apple.

I have spent time with Google's Android platform and have a version of the ebook software that runs on Android.

How much of your ebook content comes from Project Gutenberg?

My initial group of books, about 110, were all from Project Gutenberg. I constantly get requests from customers to add new books, so I have added more Project Gutenberg stuff. Now that I am working with publishers and authors to produce their works as ebooks, I will focus primarily on new works.

Can you list some of these publishers/authors? How did your relationships with these publishers and authors come together?

In the store now are a book on computer security by Neal Puff and a memoir by Teresa Wright. All relationships came about because of my presence in the App Store with the initial set of ebooks. I've been contacted by small publishers and individual authors to turn their works into ebooks for the iPhone. I work with them to get the content in an appropriate format, get the various graphic elements (cover art, icons, etc.), produce the ebook app, have them review the app, and put the app into the App Store.

Do publishers pay you a flat fee to prep App Store titles or is it a revenue share?

Revenue share.

Did you anticipate this type of publisher response?

I was a bit surprised at how quickly publishers contacted me. I thought I would have to market to them.

Are there other content sources or types you'd like to incorporate?

One publisher I am working with offers textbooks. That would be an interesting type of content. A textbook could take advantage of the ebook being a standalone app, offering more interactive content for quizzes that would appear within the book.

Some App Store reviewers complain that you're making money off of public domain content. How do you address these complaints?

The Project Gutenberg license clearly allows people to sell works based on the Gutenberg files. I am following the license, and I do send 20 percent of the revenue earned to the Project Gutenberg Foundation. Mobipocket, eReader and Amazon Kindle all sell public domain works for much more than $0.99.

Each book requires a lot of manual work. The Project Gutenberg text files are a good starting point, but I have to edit each one to add information about chapter starts, poems, songs, emphasized text, etc. Many files have extra data like page numbers that have to be cleaned up. I tried to automate this part, but there is so much variety in the files that only hand editing can get the correct results.

Since your ebooks are applications, and iPhone apps are stored on the device's docking screens, is there a concern about clutter? Do you have any organization tips for people who buy multiple ebook apps?

I would say that this is a general problem with the iPhone Home Screen user interface. iPhone blog sites describe users with 100 apps or more on their devices, and finding a specific app can become a problem.

iTunes does allow users to selectively install apps on individual devices. This is probably the best way to deal with lots of apps: for users to only install the apps they need, and keep the rest on their desktop machine. Personally, I tend to read about two books at a time, then I remove them from the device when finished.

What near-term features or products are you planning?

I am working on a new version of the reader software that adds many new features: bookmarks, notes, landscape mode, etc. Once completed, I will re-release all existing books with the new features. Customers will get the updates for free.

I also am working on several non-ebook iPhone apps.

Related Stories:

• iPhone Apps Developer "Shell Shocked" by Outsized Payday
• Books Fail to Crack Top 100 in iTunes App Store
• Treating Ebooks Like Software
• Survey of Book Industry Reaction to New iPhone and App Store
• Open Question: Should Publishers Develop Software Apps?
• Commentary: Apple Could Own the Ebook Category

Reinventing the Book and Killing It are Separate Things

Mac Slocum
August 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Richard Cohen has a bone to pick with Amazon, the Kindle, digital books, and anyone who threatens the welfare of bookstores, children and unknown literature. From Cohen's Washington Post column:

... over at Amazon they are inadvertently thinking of ways to make the world worse for children and for the grown-ups who love them to pieces. What Jeffrey P. Bezos, Amazon's founder, wants more than anything is to do away with the book as we know it. "Jeff once said that he couldn't imagine anything more important than reinventing the book," said Steven Kessel, one of Bezos's top guys. Kessel is in charge of digitizing everything in sight.

Nothing more important than reinventing the book? Not ending world hunger? Not taking Rush Limbaugh off the air? None of these? What's wrong with the book? I understand that it's bulky and expensive to ship and that it entails the consumption of paper, which is probably not green, but then what is? The book has been around for a very long time (Google the exact number of years, please), and I love it so.

Cohen's column adheres to the "book lover overreaction" we've discussed previously. Market forces and changing consumer tastes may indeed signal the end of traditional bookstores, and that's something to lament and fight against. But this idea that digital books have been set loose by entrepreneurial masterminds -- diabolical sorts intent on destroying the print universe -- is overwrought. "Reinventing" the book is not synonymous with "killing the print book." Digital books are nothing more than alternative delivery mechanisms for content. Their intent (if ebooks can have intent) is to expand choice, not eradicate the printed volume.

I can't tell if Cohen is saying goodbye to print books or bookstores or some combination of the two. His column is clearly a cathartic exercise, not a market analysis, but the association he seems to make between a downturn in bookstores and the rise of digital books is incorrect. Bookstores are in decline partly because consumers are purchasing their core product -- print books -- through online retailers like Amazon. Ebooks may eventually achieve widespread adoption and, by extension, lead to the shuttering of traditional bookstores, but that's not currently the case.

(Via Shelf Awareness)

Related Stories:

• Joe Wikert: "No, Amazon Doesn't Want to "Do Away with the Book as We Know It"
• Ebooks and Print Books are Not Mutually Exclusive
• Buy Where You Shop
• What if Ebooks Were the Dominant Platform?
• Open Question: When Will Digital Books Overtake Print Books?

Web Community Management Tips

Mac Slocum
August 4, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3) | Listen

Whether intentional or not, Bob Garfield from NPR's "On the Media" reopened an old wound when he questioned the need for user comments on newspaper Web sites.

The "comments issue" is polarizing. Die-hard community advocates believe comments are an integral part of the online experience. Detractors draw a straight line between user comments and the apocalypse. It's a contentious topic with very little middle ground.

For our purposes, there's no point in looking at all the arguments and counter-arguments. The comments debate has been going on for at least 10 years (much longer, if you count Usenet), and it will persist as long as trolls continue to lower the conversational bar. That's just the way it is.

However, this latest flare up offers an opportunity to redirect the focus to some of the time-tested best practices for managing Web communities. Derek Powazek (whom we recently interviewed for an unrelated piece) offers an excellent starting point with "10 Ways Newspapers Can Improve Comments," and Cory Doctorow's "How To Keep Hostile Jerks From Taking Over Your Online Community" is also recommended reading.

I've also picked up a few bits of wisdom from my own experiences as a community manager:

1. Nurture the Good -- The majority of people want to do the right thing. They want to engage in fruitful and fulfilling conversations. They want to build and protect special communities. These are the people you focus on.
2. Push Trolls to the Margins -- All popular communities will eventually suffer through a troll infestation. The trick is the minimize a troll's impact by not taking the bait. Moderators should never engage in a public argument, and key community members should be encouraged via private messages and back channels to ignore troll attacks. A marginalized troll is a useless troll, and they know it.
3. Share Ownership -- I focused on inclusiveness in my first community because I was unsure about my own voice and opinions. In a serendipitous twist, the "we're all equal and we're all in this together" perspective led to a shared sense of ownership. It took a while for folks to buy what I was selling, but a consistent focus on collaboration and equality eventually led to individual responsibility and effective self-policing. I've used this same technique on subsequent communities and the results have always been positive.
4. Calm by Example -- Experienced community managers know that the Web is a fickle place; today's egregious opinion often evaporates within a matter of days. A measured community manager allows fiery debates to run their course without spilling out of control, and on those rare occasions when guidance is required, a calm force is far more powerful.

What community tips do you have? Please share your thoughts in the comments area (unless you're a troll).

Related Stories:

• BuzzMachine: "Open Letter to Bob Garfield"
• Gawker: "Why Newspapers Shouldn't Allow Comments"
• New York Times: "Malwebolence"
• Techdirt: "You Don't Build Communities, You Enable Them"
• Readers Already Picking Up the Interactive Slack