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Ebooks: November 2008
Q&A; With Co-Creator of Classics iPhone E-Reader
Mac Slocum
November 26, 2008
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We've covered iPhone-based e-readers in the past, but the Classics application offers a few twists: it's not free, and the app's book content is updated along with the software itself. Classics co-creator Phill Ryu discusses the application's design and development in the following Q&A.;
Why did you develop a book-centric application?
When we started comparing the iPhone to the Kindle, it was immediately clear to us that we could take advantage of the iPhone's brilliant color screen and touch capabilities to create a reading experience that would stand out from the crowd, so it began as a very, very tempting challenge almost, and eventually turned into a months-long passion project.
How many books do you offer?
We're currently offering a dozen books. They're handpicked favorites of ours, but we'll be adding more with free updates to the app.
Are these books all in the public domain?
Yeah, they are public domain. At the start, [co-creator Andrew] Kaz and I thought we could really do something radical in terms of the digital reading experience, but we couldn't start working with publishers based on the strength of some cool interface ideas, so we settled with the "Classics" name and created this as essentially the first prototype of our reading engine.
Did you consider releasing this application for free?
Yes, for a moment. Then someone knocked on my apartment door and slipped in a rent payment notice letter. The reality of the situation was, we had gone basically broke over the summer working on a pretty cool desktop app, and had to halt development on that until we could find some income. At that point, we came up with the brilliant plan to develop an iPhone app in a few weeks to generate some income, to continue the aforementioned desktop app. Classics of course ended up turning into a serious passion project lasting months of development time, and we went extra broke due to it, so going free was hardly an option. We're rather painfully aware that free apps tend to gather something like 25-50 times the downloads of similarly charting paid apps, and we'd like to reach that audience someday, but most likely it'll be with a spinoff app, and not with Classics.
Are you still developing the desktop app? Does this app also focus on books/content?
I really can't (and shouldn't) talk details, because the app might never fly depending on how talks with some content publishers go, but no, it's not book related.
You're using Apple's built-in software update process to load new books into the application. How did you come up with this idea?
For a variety of reasons. One thing that drove us toward this was gentle but insistent prodding from Apple throughout the dev process to stay away from selling books through our app. We'll be transitioning to server-hosted books later on though, once the collection has grown further.
Did Apple explicitly guide you away from selling books?
They guided us away from selling books directly through our app, which is against the terms for iPhone developers. We're hoping we can figure out an elegant workaround that they are fine with, but I want to stress that overall, they've been very supportive of this app, and have even been showing it off in the ongoing iPhone tech talks around the world.
How often will books be added?
I would expect to see several new books with each app update, the first of which should come later this month or so.
Will updates be free?
Yes. The app may become more expensive later on as it matures, but updates will remain free for all existing customers.
Since the books update along with the software, will users be able to keep/archive titles previously loaded into the application?
We have no plans to remove any books we release. Once the library size becomes prohibitive, we are planning to shift to server hosted books.
Apple requires applications to be under 10MB for download over cellular connections. Does this restriction limit the total number of books you can make available through Classics?
Not really, in that we are already pushing 20MB. We're hoping that we can eventually transition to server-hosted books while retaining the user experience though.
How many people were involved in the development of Classics?
Beyond Kaz and I, there were four designers who helped with various parts of the app (including the cover art, interface, and even processing illustrations for the books), as well as a friend and Web programmer who helped us create some in-house tools for correcting and formatting these books.
The Classics bookshelf interface has a unique look. How much effort went into this design?
Probably more than most people would think! The bookshelf interface for book management was inspired by Delicious Library's visual shelves (an app that Kaz worked on when he was 14). So starting from there, we worked with David Lanham on realizing our own flavor of bookshelf, and slowly refined the look over the next couple months, experimenting with various levels of decoration, tints, etc.
Of course, the other half of the bookshelf view are the custom book covers. As I mentioned before, Classics ended up being a passion project for all of us, and the designers really went overboard with the covers. (In a good way.) We started with the idea of procedurally generating each leatherbound book cover with different colors, sizes and such, with a unique "cover image" for each book designed to look like they were embossed on this set of leatherbound novels. Unfortunately, this ended up looking extremely bland. So after literally weeks of going back and forth on this with Dan Goffin, who was drawing concept art for book covers from the start, we settled on a much more colorful, and less restrictive style of fully illustrated covers.
I think this is the point where it gets a bit crazy. At this point, the concept books were looking much nicer, but we began to feel that the slightly simplified style made them look more like icons than real books. They looked a little fake. So the designers ended up illustrating these in high res, as if they were real books. The user for now actually never sees the vast majority of the detailing, but I think this level of detail adds a really unique level of polish to the app.
Will you port Classics to other systems, such as Android?
We haven't even investigated Android at all yet, but it's certainly a possibility. For now though, this remains an app we just personally really wanted on our iPhones!
Have you used/seen some of the other book-based iPhone applications? What's your impression of these?
Yes. And I feel like you are leading me on a bit with this question, but I'll take the bait and bite. I've tried a bunch of the other book apps out there, and frankly, the overall quality of these apps (in particular the "one-offs") horrified us, and only further motivated us to go full out with Classics. The only other book app out there worth picking up is Stanza.
How many copies of Classics have you sold? Have book publishers or others approached you about including their material in the app?
We've sold over 20,000 copies so far, though there hasn't been so much in terms of profit yet due to our initial investment in the app. We're optimistic though, and we're hoping some leads work out with publishers. There are publishers who want to work with us and sell books on the store, but the main issue for now is that there aren't many viable options for them besides selling one-off book apps, which is not ideal. If there's a nice way to do this though, we'll find it.
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- Ebook to iPod to Hard Copy Purchase
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Random House Expands Ebook Offerings, Embraces EPUB
Peter Brantley
November 25, 2008
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Random House is pursing digital with a vengeance, recognizing a growth market. From the Huffington Post:
The publisher already has more than 8,000 books in the electronic format and will have a digital library of nearly 15,000. The new round of e-books is expected to be completed within months; excerpts can be viewed online through the publisher's Insight browsing service.
Also notable, Random will make all current and future ebooks available in EPUB format.
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Experimental O'Reilly Ebook iPhone Integration with Stanza
Andrew Savikas
November 25, 2008
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UPDATE: The Stanza integration is no longer experimental. All of O'Reilly's ebook bundles are now available for sale in the Stanza online catalog.
Back in August, I showed how to read O'Reilly EPUB ebooks on an iPhone (or iPod Touch) using the popular (and free) Stanza reader app. I'm pleased to announce that you can now directly download EPUB ebooks purchased from O'Reilly on your iPhone to Stanza. The integration is experimental for now, as we iron out some kinks and work to make our own site more iPhone-friendly.
These instructions assume that:
- You've purchased one or more O'Reilly ebook bundles from oreilly.com (as of this writing, there are 57 total titles available -- an updated list is available at oreilly.com/ebooks).
- You have an iPhone or iPod Touch with the Stanza App installed
To download one of your O'Reilly ebooks to Stanza, follow these instructions (if you're reading this post via RSS, you may need to click through to the original post to see the screenshots):
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On your iPhone (or iPod Touch) open Safari and go to https://members.oreilly.com
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After signing in, navigate to the Electronic Media tab.
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If you zoom in, you'll see that among the download options, there's now a "Stanza ePub" button. Press the button to begin downloading (to scroll the list of titles, use a two-fingered vertical drag -- again, this is experimental, and we are working on a better iPhone UI).
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Pressing that button will open Stanza and download the book.
This kind of integration was simple and straightforward in large part because many of the moving parts around Stanza are based on open standards, including EPUB and the Atom Publishing Protocol (both successful and important XML standards that publishers should be paying attention to -- find out more at January's StartWithXML forum in New York).
Thanks to Marc Prud'hommeaux at Lexcycle for working with us on the integration, and to our own Nick Pilon for connecting the plumbing on our end. Marc will be talking about Stanza and about reading on the iPhone at February's TOC Conference.
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Point-Counterpoint: Digital Book DRM, the Least Worst Solution
Bill McCoy
November 24, 2008
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Last week my friend and International Digital Publishing Forum board colleague Peter Brantley, Executive Director for the Digital Library Federation, published a thoughtful article on TOC arguing that "digital book DRM is bad bad bad."
I rashly volunteered to offer a counterpoint. Now, let me say up front that I don't think ebook DRM is "good good good" any more than I think that of taxation, standing armies, or the proliferation of nuclear technology. But although one may dislike taxation, one may dislike even more the likely consequences of eliminating taxes (diminished schools, roads, law enforcement, ...). Peter's post focused on negative attributes of DRM in isolation. But to me, the important thing is to look at likely outcomes given various scenarios, and to consider what these outcomes would mean for the principal actors involved (authors, publishers, and readers). Not whether something is good or bad but whether it's better or worse than the likely alternative.
To me, it's pretty clear that the establishment by the industry of a broadly adopted cross-platform ebook DRM system should lead to a significantly better outcome for all concerned than if no such platform ends up getting established. "DRM" is a somewhat loaded term: to clarify, by "ebook DRM" I mean a relatively lightweight means of limiting and/or discouraging copying and use beyond publisher-permitted limits, intended more to "keep honest people honest" than to totally prevent copying. After all, a book can be scanned and digitized, or even re-keyed, with only a middling level of difficulty -- so aiming for "ironclad" DRM is not warranted, even if it were feasible.
Read more…Point-Counterpoint: On Digital Book DRM
Peter Brantley
November 20, 2008
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There is increased interest among trade publishers in pursuing some sort of "interoperable digital rights management" (DRM) for digital ebooks. There are many unlikely allies, who think that achieving a little DRM encourages publishers to move into digital spheres, and gives them breathing room. I think this is a really bad idea, and I wanted to publicly detail a few reasons.
What I've compiled is largely a list of counter-arguments; there are many affirmative defenses for unencumbered content that could be promoted. I've also numbered these paragraphs; on re-reading, they more often than not meld and intertwine as a potlatch of thoughts, and have not taken to my weak organization very well.
In a separate post, my friend and colleague Bill McCoy from Adobe will attempt to establish his own conclusions about whether an ebook DRM standard is a useful compromise, or a fool's errand. (Note 11/24/08: Bill's post is now available here.)
Read more…Ebook to iPod to Hard Copy Purchase
Peter Brantley
November 18, 2008
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Hugh McGuire is loving Stanza, the free ereader app for the iPhone/iPod Touch. From the Book Oven Blog:
40,000 ebook dowloads-a-day. I've got 35 of them sitting on my iPod. If you are a publisher, think long and hard about that number.
The reason I have 35 books downloaded onto my Stanza is: a) it is easy, b) it is free.
What does this mean for your business model? I don't know, but I assure you that when I finish War & Peace, I'll be buying a hard copy. And I also assure you: I love reading on that little thing.
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Android Barcode App Connects to Google Book Search
Peter Brantley
November 12, 2008
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Google has released a nifty Android app that permits the scanning of a book's barcode, enabling the linkage with the corresponding work in Google Book Search. From E-Reads:
"Google has announced a book-text search tool called the Barcode Scanner that works with an Android-powered cellphone. According to Google Book Search engineer Jeff Breidenbach, when you download the software into your Android and point your phone camera at a book's barcode, "it will automatically zoom, focus and scan the ISBN - without you even needing to click the shutter...You'll then have the option to search the full text of the book on Google Book Search right away"
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Change Always Leaves Someone Behind
Mac Slocum
November 11, 2008
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Seth Godin discusses the realities of digital change and free distribution in an interview with HarperStudio's The 26th Story:
... the market and the internet don't care if you make money. That's important to say. You have no right to make money from every development in media, and the humility that comes from approaching the market that way matters. It's not "how can the market make me money" it's "how can I do things for this market." Because generally, when you do something for an audience, they repay you. The Grateful Dead made plenty of money. Tom Peters makes many millions of dollars a year giving speeches, while books are a tiny fraction of that. Barack Obama used ideas to get elected, book royalties are just a nice side effect. There are doctors and consultants who profit from spreading ideas. Novelists and musicians can make money with bespoke work and appearances and interactions. And you know what? It's entirely likely that many people in the chain WON'T make any money. That's okay. That's the way change works.
(Via Differences & Repetitions and Jose Alonso Furtado's Twitter Stream.)
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Election Interest Signals Print's High-End Future
Peter Brantley
November 10, 2008
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Following the sell-out of post-election newspapers, Ed Nawotka looks at the collectable future of print. From Beyond Hall 8:
One immediate consequence of Obama's victory was the boost in sales for newspapers. So now we have confirmation that print is not dead -- at least as far as collectors are concerned.
This merely reinforces my belief that the long-term future of books lies in bifurcated markets: Half in cheap or reasonably priced e-books and the other half in high cost collectable volumes (be it what it may - art, photography, or even leather bound volumes of fiction).
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Google Responds to Some Book Search Questions
Mac Slocum
November 6, 2008
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Shortly after last week's Google Book Search announcement, Siva Vaidhyanathan posed a number of questions about the agreement's impact on publishers, libraries and consumers.
Google responded, and today Vaidhyanathan offers paraphrased answers and additional analysis:
The agreements with and about publishers, libraries, and the registry were all non-exclusive, as is the habit and tradition of Google's approach to competition in the Web business. The registry will be started with Google funds, but it will be an idependent non-profit that may deal with the Open Content Alliance and other services without restriction from Google. Generally, Google's lawyers don't see this service as presenting a "typical anti-trust" problem. There are so many segments to the book market in the world, including real bookstores, online stores such as Amazon.com, and used-book outlets that no one may set prices for books (even out-of-print books) effectively. There is always a competing source - including libraries themselves.
There's additional coverage in Vaidhyanathan's post.
(Via Jose Alonso Furtado's Twitter stream.)
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Vanishing Paper in Higher Education
Peter Brantley
November 3, 2008
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Christopher Conway has a thoughtful essay at Inside Higher Ed on the seemingly inevitable trend towards digital text consumption:
It is becoming increasingly easier to put together affordable 'readers' or anthologies culled from existing print material without bypassing rights and fees and without overloading students with unnecessary expense. If this wave of the future takes hold and becomes the new standard in textbook publishing, I think it will be good for all parties involved. But what about the paper-and-binding book? Say you are teaching David Copperfield by Charles Dickens and you had a choice between an excellent paper-and-binding edition by a major academic press, with useful footnotes and front matter, and an electronic edition that students could download to their handy e-book readers, along with selected secondary articles you have selected for them to read? What if their e-book readers had a stylus and/or a network that enabled the class to annotate those assigned texts, and share them over the class network? I don't think anyone's nostalgia for paper-and-binding can replace the pedagogical value of my not-so-fanciful or far-fetched e-book scenario."
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EFF's Concerns About the Google Book Search Settlement
Peter Brantley
November 3, 2008
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) notes that the Google Book Search settlement accomplishes a degree of access that litigation might have taken years to develop, but it also observes areas of concern: fair use, innovation, competition, access, public domain and privacy.
Innovation: It seems likely that the "nondisplay uses" of Google's scanned corpus of text will end up being far more important than anything else in the agreement. Imagine the kinds of things that data mining all the world's books might let Google's engineers build: automated translation, optical character recognition, voice recognition algorithms. And those are just the things we can think of today. Under the agreement, Google has unrestricted, royalty-free access to this corpus. The agreement gives libraries their own copy of the corpus, and allows them to make it available to "certified" researchers for "nonconsumptive" research, but will that be enough?
Full analysis available at EFF.org
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