September 6, 2010

iBooks vs Kindle for iPad

Most of the discussion about eBook reading on the iPad vs. the Kindle centers around the devices themselves.

Now that I’ve had my iPad for six months and my new Kindle 3 for 10 days (I’ve had a Kindle 1 since they first came out), I can say that I would prefer to read most books on the Kindle 3. If the book has a lot of graphics or photos, particularly color ones, the iPad naturally wins. But the screen glare gets annoying rather quickly for any long-form reading.

iPad

I love the iPad for web browsing, quick information look-ups, weather and news apps, and a few other things while seated comfortably in my easy chair in the evening.

Besides Apple’s own iBooks app, I also have the Kindle for iPad, Nook, Kobo, and Stanza apps on my iPad.

If I do decide to read a book on the iPad, I am most likely to use the Kindle for iPad app (even color graphics and photos look great on the Kindle for iPad app).

Why?

The Kindle for iPad is a far superior application.

The iBooks app looks nice but the browsing, searching, and buying functions are awkward and not very functional (especially the browse and search functions).

The Nook app switches to the Safari browser to find and buy an eBook and does not automatically return me to the Nook app and download the book. Lousy design. I have also had several instances where I cannot get the book to download to the Nook app.

The Kobo app is not much better, and I don’t care much for the functionality of the its reading interface.

The Kindle app, on the other hand, brings all of Amazon’s content (far more than iBooks) and its excellent browse and search capabilities (which are both better and much faster) to the iPad. On top the that, Amazon’s great one-click buying experience works perfectly on the iPad. Of course, it does switch to the Safari browser but, when you’ve bought the book, you just click to send it the Kindle for iPad and it takes you right back to the reading app. The book immediately downloads and you can read it right away.

Like iBooks, some Kindle books now have audio and video clips embedded. Those look just as good on the Kindle for iPad as on iBooks.

Some fancy typography and layout “stuff” can only be done in ePub and, thus, won’t display as prettily in a Kindle book. But if the designer took care to accommodate the Kindle platform’s limitations (while capitalizing on the additional display capabilities when read on the iPad), those Kindle books can provide just as pleasant a reading experience as anything available from iBooks.

And you’re far more likely to find the book you were looking for on Amazon than on iBooks.

And if you decide to read the book on your Kindle 3, the text will be just a crisp and the photos and graphics will look great, albeit in B&W, as anything you can read on the iPad.

Kindle 3

And that leads to one other factor that I like when reading Kindle books — I can read the same book on the Kindle today and the iPad tomorrow (or my iPhone, Blackberry, or Mac if I had one) and both will automatically sync to the last page I read, wherever I read it.

So, despite all the naysayers who insist that the iPad will be the death of the Kindle, I have no doubt that the Kindle will be around for a long time and will be continually updated. Including a color Kindle (maybe even with touch screen) and probably a Kindle that can read both Kindle and ePub format (possibly even alternately from the same downloaded file).

In my book, and on my e-bookshelf, the Kindle wins hands-down.

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August 30, 2010

Kindle 3 First Impressions

My new Kindle 3 Wi-Fi graphite arrived on Friday as advertised. After extracting it from the packaging (no hard-shell plastic nonsense — thank you, Amazon!), the first thing I noticed is that it is lighter, thinner, and maybe a touch shorter than my old Kindle 1.

Of course, I immediately turned it on, and it quickly connected to our Wi-Fi network. I selected “Archive Items” from the home screen and quickly downloaded a few of the books that I had previously bought. Amazon had already registered the new device and transferred the “last page read” data to the new one.

NOTE: Click on the images to view a high-resolution version rather than the shrunken versions necessary to fit in this blog’s template.

Home Screen
I then opened one of the books, our own The Evolution Conspiracy, Vol 1, and jumped to a page with a photo. The first two things I noticed were those touted by Amazon — much faster page refresh speed (even for pages with graphics) and better contrast (no way to determine if it is, in fact, 50% better but it is much improved).

Photo Page

Then I selected the photo and clicked the select button to zoom in on it. The photo enlarged to fill the screen in landscape mode.

Zoomed-in Photo

While on that page, I clicked on the Menu button to see what options were presented.

Main Menu

If you click on the “Book Description” option, you are taken to the book’s Amazon sales page with the option to buy it (handy if you’re looking at a free sample). Selecting the “Go to…” option takes you to a sub-menu where you can enter a location number or select the standard navigation options: Cover, Beginning, or Table of Contents. Burying the ToC in a submenu seems like a dumb idea and much less efficient than having those options available with a single click on the Main Menu.

You also click on the “AA” button to access the many text and display options.

Text Menu

There you can select options from:

  • Eight different font sizes
  • Regular, condensed or sans-serif fonts (if you select sans-serif for text that the designer specified as monospaced, that text will not change to sans-serif)
  • Three line spacing alternatives (at the default font size, the screen showed 19, 22, and 24 lines of text at the large, medium and small settings, respectively)
  • Three words-per-line settings (which is achieved merely by changing the indentation on the left and right, not sure why I would want to do that)
  • Text to Speech on or off
  • Four screen rotation settings (no accelerometer so you have to do this manually)

Here’s what the sans-serif font looks like:

Sans-Serif font

And here’s what happens when you select “fewer” words per line:

Fewer Words displayed per line

If you change the screen rotation to landscape, the text expands to fill the screen width and the five-way controller works properly in the new rotation.

Text in landscape orientation

One thing I have also noticed is that the Kindle 3′s connection to our Wi-Fi network is rock stable and fast, something that I cannot say about the iPad’s Wi-Fi connection. And, like its predecessor, the K-3 does not have the problems with reflections inherent in the iPad’s display. My clip-on light solves the problem of reading in the dark or dim light.

Overall, the Kindle 3 is a major improvement over previous versions, while making me wonder how soon color will come to the Kindle. A year, perhaps.

Also, I’m still trying to find a way to control the use of the condensed and sans-serif fonts from within a Kindle book’s design. So far, no luck…but I haven’t given up yet. I’ve only had time for one short test, which failed unfortunately.

One thing I found particularly interesting is the Kindle 3′s ability to display PDF files, particularly in the landscape orientation (the text of most PDFs becomes too small to be usable in portrait orientation). You can also zoom in on the PDF, and the black lines that show the actual page boundaries help keep you oriented to the full page size.

I have some more observations about the K-3, but those will have to wait for another post.

The Kindle 3 corrects many of the shortcomings of previous versions, shortcomings that had cause me to all but stop using it.

This new Kindle may very well get me Kindle-reading once again.

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August 25, 2010

Be Kind to Your Book Designer

In this post, I am including the complete design, layout and typesetting process under the single heading of Book Designer. Why? Because, today, the entire process is usually carried out by one person (at least in the realm of small design shops like our Five Rainbows Services and other freelance book designers).

When I suggest that you should be kind to your designer I’m not talking about sending gifts, chocolate chip cookies, or bonuses (not that that wouldn’t be nice, too). I’m talking about doing everything you can to ensure the source files you provide are really, truly, honestly FINAL. As in no more editorial changes to follow.

Typically, we read enough of a book to understand the content, audience, and tone. Then we come up with two or three alternate designs with appropriate fonts and typeset a draft of each (usually no more than the first chapter).

This is your chance to voice your preferences — what you like and don’t like. We’re usually quite willing to combine different elements from any of the draft layouts (within reason, as some really don’t combine well…so trust your designer’s recommendations on that score).

Once we’re agreed on a design and layout, please — no matter what you find in your manuscript — don’t start sending “one more little change” to be incorporated. Your one little change just might ripple forward and require rework of many subsequent pages.

Honest. I’m not making that up.

Also, sending your designer a sequence of changes of any magnitude is increasing the risk that editorial errors will creep in.

You might think that, since we flowed your Microsoft Word masterpiece into our Adobe InDesign software, it should be a simple matter of just doing that again to pick up the changes. If it were that simple and automated, you really wouldn’t need a book designer.

Once the text has been flowed into the InDesign template we created for your book, changes have to be input into that software one by one. And your MS Word page numbers will not match the typeset page numbers.

Once you receive the proof of your book’s pages (usually delivered as a PDF), you can ask for changes. However, don’t expect your designer to do that for free. We quote a price based on receiving the final manuscript with all editing completed.

In our shop, we’re not going to nickle and dime you by charging $5 for each minor typo that needs changing. After all, we’re authors too and know that, no matter how hard we try, we’ll almost never produce an error-free manuscript. So, if you find a half-dozen small typos that need correcting in the proof, we’ll usually do it without charge. If you send so many changes that we have to devote an hour or more to them…well, expect to be charged extra.

In fact, we always include the following condition in all our design contracts:

We will provide a typeset PDF proof via email for your review and approval. At this final stage, any design, layout, or editorial changes may incur additional charges at our standard hourly rate (at our option) unless they clearly are required due to errors made by us.

We think that’s more than fair, since we always bid on a per-project basis.

So, like I said at the start — be kind to your book designer. After all, it may very well save you some money!

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July 30, 2010

What Is a Book, Really?

As discussions among the publishing community drift from printed books to eBooks to audio books to “enhanced” eBooks to whatever-else-there-might-be books, I keep asking myself that one basic question:

What is a book…really?

Seems like a simple question that should have a simple answer. Twenty or more years ago, that question did have a fairly simple answer. Not so today.

Of has what makes a book a book really changed?

I don’t think so. Merriam-Webster still defines a book as:

A set of written, printed, or blank sheets bound together into a volume

But, you might ask, what about an eBook? Is that not a book?

Some would argue that it is as much a “real” book as any other delivery format. But is it?

The content may be the same. You can read it…but only if you have something else on which to read it. It is not a standalone, physical object.

An eBook can inform and/or entertain just as much as a (physical) book, but it has no physical form. M-W defines an eBook (which they insist on hyphenating into e-book) as:

A book composed in or converted to digital format for display on a computer screen or handheld device

(Seems to me they are contradicting themselves. If a book is a bound volume of sheets of paper, it cannot be composed digitally for digital display. Audio books? Well, I can hold a CD or tape in my hands…but what about an MP3 edition?)

If we embed audio and video in an eBook…what do we have? Some hybrid creation that is no longer truly a book. It’s more of an educational and/or entertainment product, much like a DVD or dowloaded/streamed movie or TV show.

If, as an author or publisher, I offer to sell you a BOOK…what am I going to deliver once you pay for it? A hardcover edition, paperback edition, CD with a PDF on it, a URL where you can download something?

Does it matter?

Ultimately, yes it does.

If I sell you a book for $5.99 and you expect to get a paperback book, how satisfied will you be when I just email you a link to download the ePub version?

Much discussion of late has centered around how we, as publishers, assign ISBNs to digital versions of our “books.” The usual answer is that every different format (hardcover, paperback, Kindle, ePub, PDF, audio, ad infinitum) must have its own unique ISBN. How much will that help somebody who is browsing online looking for a book to buy?

You cannot tell just by looking at the ISBN in which format that particular edition will be delivered. If you are browsing on a site that extracts the relevant metatdata about the book in question, you should be presented with a specific format.

The more I ponder this issue and, particularly, as other digital formats evolve for the textual and graphic content of a book, I keep coming back to one real need that remains to be addressed: We really need some kind of unique coding that will make it clear to any browser exactly what formats are available and on what devices they can be viewed.

I just don’t believe that ISBN is the complete answer. There are just too many possible digital formats, and an ISBN cannot be related to a specific format just be looking at it — you must have more data, data that may not always be readily available.

Suppose, for example, you saw a list of book options like this:

978-1-934631-51-5PB
978-1-934631-51-5HC
978-1-934631-51-5EPUB
978-1-934631-51-5AUD
978-1-934631-51-5MMEPUB

The leading 13 digits are just the ISBN for the book, while the trailing letters represent specific formats where PB equals paperback, HC equals hardcover, EPUB equals ePub, AUD equals audiobook, MMEPUB equals multimedia ePub.

I realize that there are folks who are so steeped in metadata and numbering schemes that they would cringe at this. They want each of those formats to have its own ISBN, even if there is no rhyme or reason to them (the assigned ISBNs may not be sequential and, on their own, tell you nothing about the format). This is certainly not the ideal manifestation of such a new identification system, just something I pulled off the top of my often fevered brain.

But consider a scenario: I’m searching for Once a Knight by that ever-popular writer extraordinaire Walt Shiel. I find 978-1-934631-51-5, which I see looks like a paperback edition. However, I wanted an ePub with embedded video and/or audio but don’t know if it exists. What if I could just search for 978-1-934631-51-5MMEPUB to see if there is one?

Wouldn’t that be easier?

Would that multimedia ePub product be a “real” book? Fair question, but do I care any longer? If I find 978-1-934631-51-5MMEPUB, I will know it likely has the kind of content I was looking for.

There is, undoubtedly, a better scheme. I can only hope there is something better than the scheme the industry seems to be driving towards presently. The only outfit to make money off a proliferation of ISBNs is R.R. Bowker.

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July 28, 2010

Revisiting My eBook Predictions

Over the past year or so, I’ve offered a few predictions on the future of the eBook market — usually based more on my gut reactions than a detailed analysis.

So, was I even in the ballpark?

Back on October 20, 2009, I said:

Having monitored the genesis and the recent explosion of e-book readers and sales, I can’t help but wonder whether such explosive growth is, in any way, sustainable.

Hmmm…

On January 1, 2010, I stepped a bit farther out on that limb:

My only forecast for the future of books and publishing is that this year will likely see a continuation of last year’s overall trends. I don’t think the slope of the e-book sales curve will continue to increase…and it might very well decrease (the rate of increase, not overall sales). I think that e-book sales will, sooner or later, hit a peak.

Then, on April 7, 2010, I suggested:

The really big question is how long can e-book sales sustain this kind of explosive growth? Another year? Two? Eventually, there will have to be (1) a leveling off of the growth rate and then (2) a settling down of the market to a more sustainable long-term growth rate.

In retrospect, was my crystal ball crystal clear?

Here are the actual eBook sales growth numbers as released by the AAP over the past seven months (the percentages represent the GROWTH of eBook revenues compared to the same month one year earlier):

November 2009: +200%
December 2009: +120%
January 2010: +261%
February 2010: +339%
March 2010: +185%
April 2010: +127%
May 10: +163%

What does it all mean? Your guess is as good as mine (maybe better), but what I see is a big jump in January and February of this year that could have been fueled by people who received new eReaders for Christmas. What I don’t see is a big jump fueled by the release of the March release of Apple’s iPad.

The growth rate is still up there in the stratosphere but just might be showing signs of settling down to a more sustainable rate.

Were my predictions right? It’s probably too early to say, but I stand by them. Just may have to wait a bit longer to decide on their validity.

One Note of Caution: These statistics are only indicators since they represent data from a small subset of publishers who are members of AAP and who report their sales numbers.

Back on October 26, 2009, I also offered my guesstimate of the future of dedicated eReaders and the ePub format:

I think we will see several classes of reading devices continue for the foreseeable future. We’ll have dedicated devices that do little more than display e-books for those who want nothing else. We’ll see the market for multipurpose devices continue to grow, albeit soon at a much slower rate (once the newness and cool factor wears off, they’ll have peaked).

Is ePub here to stay? Not without a lot of changes. If the IDPF community resists, something will come along to bypass them and meet the nascent demand for something better.

I still think that the market for dedicate eReaders (Kindle, Nook, Sony, Kobo et al) will remain relatively small. People will likely migrate more towards apps that let them read their books on their PC, Mac, smart phone, tablet, or whatever else comes along rather than buying more and more dedicated eReaders.

As for the future of the ePub format, I still think it will either have to adopt some major changes in the standard or be left behind. I often worry that the IDPF (the keeper of the ePub standard) may have grown too large too fast to be able to adapt quickly to a changing market. Development of anything by committee is all too often painfully slow.

Apple recently announced that its iBooks app will accept embedded audio and video using the HTML5 standard (which has yet to be released formally). The odd thing about that announcement is that Apple also will only accept ePub formatted documents into the iBookstore IF AND ONLY IF they pass the epubcheck v1.0.5, which will not allow HTML5 embedded audio and video to validate. (You can create an HTML5 ePub and load it directly into iBooks via your iTunes software, but you can’t upload it to Apple for selling in their iBookstore.)

Apple, I guess, has instituted its own Catch-22.

Maybe, just maybe, Apple will post some guidelines on the what and how of implementing HTML5 in an ePub targeted at iBooks. That would be much appreciated.

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