To everyone who insists that the future of e-book will be multifunction devices ruled by the ePub standard, I have but one word.
Balderdash!
But, you say, look at the popularity of the iPhone and other multipurpose devices. Haven’t they fueled the rapid rise of e-books? Aren’t people clamoring for a single format standard?
I think most e-book prophets have succumbed to the same shortsightedness that has doomed innumerable technology forecasts in the past. Maybe too many of them are too young to have watched forecast after forecast fail miserably. Real technological progress is not an easily graphed growth function.
And that’s the trouble with trying to forecast its growth. Throughout my 60+ years, technology in every field has shown the same pattern of progress (maybe I should call it change since it’s not always progress) — the technology (1) slowly gains momentum, (2) then accelerates (sometimes at heady rates), and (3) finally either makes an large, unforeseen leap forward or, even more commonly, is bypassed by a completely new technology that nobody saw coming.
Unfortunately for the forecasters, they usually make their forecasts in the second phase. History is littered with their failed projections. In addition, not all “old” technology withers away never to be seen again. Some people even still prefer 1960s muscle cars and vinyl records.
Does this mean we shouldn’t try to see into the future so we can attempt to plan for it? Of course not. Just don’t become so focused on one vision of the future that you don’t see the express lane pop up in the your peripheral vision with a whole new concept.
So what does this all mean for e-books?
I think there will continue to be a significant market for e-books in formats compatible with multipurpose devices (like the iPhone, iPod Touch et al). But I also see a major segment of e-book sales going to dedicated reading devices and even PC-based reading software. What you find an amazing capability I may find just an annoyance.
For example, there is no way I want to read any book on any kind of phone. The idea just doesn’t work for me. Of course, I am not married to a cell phone. For me, a phone is just a tool for communication, something I certainly don’t use for anything else when away from home. Of course, I don’t travel much, nor do I have any interest in traveling any longer (got it all out of my system years ago). I do all of my reading in my living room or home office.
I own a Kindle and find it useful for many reading tasks. I also have a half-dozen desktop e-book readers installed on my PCs, and all I have to do is double-click an e-book. The appropriate reader loads and opens the file (except for Amazon’s DRM books, but that’s about to change, too). Do I care which reader opens – Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Digital Editions, B&N Reader, Microsoft Reader, Mobipocket Reader, Sony E-book Library, etc? Not really. Not as long as the book opens and I can read it.
Do I care if people prefer the Sony Reader to the Amazon Kindle…or the new Cool-er Reader to both? No, even if it does complicate my publishing efforts.
But, surely, e-books must eventually zero in on one standard software format, right? Maybe, but maybe not.
Many forecasters insist that the IDPF’s ePub will become the standard format for all e-books. I’m not so sure. I’ve done quite a bit of e-book formatting over the past 18 months or so — in a variety of formats including the Kindle, ePub, and, of course, PDF.
I see two major flaws with the ePub format.
First, it is far more complicated and a much fussier format that the HTML-subset used by Kindle. When you make what should be minor changes, you often have to make changes in other portions of the zipped file (yes, kids, ePub is really just a collection of content, navigation, and style file gathered into a ZIP file). And a minor keying error can turn the entire (or at least a large portion of) the book unreadable — the same minor error in an HTML-based format usually affects only a portion of the displayed book. And there is no easy way to insert a new section of text, anywhere except at the end of the book, if you want it to show up in the displayed ToC — you have to redo the ToC.
Second, not all readers display a valid ePub file the same way. In fact, some features don’t work at all and others display differently. Sometimes, the reading device won’t open the file at all.
So much for a “standard” format.
Another problem we’ve encountered many times is that very few print book designers have any idea of how to create an Adobe InDesign file (the most common book layout software among pros these days) so that it can be converted easily to either ePub or Kindle formats. As a result, we often have to explain to our clients that their nicely formatted print book will cost at least an eye and a hand to convert.
Sure, you can use one of the many automated tools to convert a book into ePub or Kindle format from a Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF file. The results may display on the intended devices…but those results are almost always ugly with bloated code. If you book is straight text with little need for special formatting, it might be acceptable. The use of these tools by the uninformed is the primary cause of the rising tide of reader gripes about lousy formatting and typographical errors in e-books.
What’s my forecast?
You think I’m going to crawl out on the precarious limb? Sure. Why not?
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). But we will soon see somebody release a desktop reader that can open just about any e-book format and display it properly (unlike the desktop Stanza app that will open most of them but often makes them look like crap).
Most people today still read e-books on the PC screen (OK, also on Mac screens). I see little to change that. Netbooks might make inroads, but they’re basically PCs. Tablet devices might suck up some of that market…but they’re also more-or-less PCs, too.
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.
So, what’s your forecast?
12 Comments
October 26, 2009 at 9:49 am
[...] E-Books – Formats and Future « View From the Publishing Trenches waltshiel.com/2009/10/26/e-books-formats-future – view page – cached To everyone who insists that the future of e-book will be multifunction devices ruled by the ePub standard, I have but one word. — From the page [...]
October 26, 2009 at 11:35 am
Just so long as Kindle isn’t the last one standing!
I like just simple, pdf files I can read on my computer. No special reader required outside of Adobe. All of my books are offered in this format, and only one on Amazon for Kindle.
BTW – my husband has an I-Touch he says he will NEVER read a book on that thing! (However he does watch movies in that fashion.)
October 26, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I don’t think there will be a “last one standing.” I think the market can support multiple types of readers and even multiple options within the types.
I really don’t see the market zeroing in on a single format or platform. People’s reading preferences are just too varied.
October 26, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Interesting post, Walt. We’ve got three of our books out on the Kindle but haven’t gone to other readers due to copy protection concerns. At your suggestion, we filled out the Sony Reader form for small publishers but after several months, nothing back from them. Do you have any suggestions on how we can increase our exposure, while maintaining copy protected content?
October 26, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Gordon,
You do realize that “copy protection” for an e-book is primarily illusion, right? Marketing an e-book is not really a separate thing from marketing the print edition. In fact, they should be marketed in parallel by presenting them as options for the same content.
We don’t worry about DRM (copy protection) with our e-books. Even our Kindle books have no DRM on them. The people who are determined to steal your content will do it whether you use DRM or not and even if you only offer printed books. But those thieves and the thieves who piggyback on their larceny weren’t about to purchase a copy anyway, so I see nothing lost.
Enough people will play the game by the rules that I just can’t see losing sleep over the others. The books most vulnerable to such thievery are the big national bestsellers by the big name authors.
October 26, 2009 at 7:26 pm
If we don’t look for a common standard, publishers will have to keep producing new formats of the same book every time a new eBook reader comes out. The right way, I suggest, is to set a standard so that the publisher creates the content only once, and any reader “renders” that in its own way. ePub is the only open specification that can hold any content in a properly structured way, including complex maths. It is not really a format, but a way of tagging different elements of the data.
The fact that some eBook readers cannot show all elements of ePub cannot be blamed on ePub, but on the engine showing the ePub.
That is my 2 cents’ worth.
October 27, 2009 at 8:13 am
Kaveh,
Yes, ePub is a solution…but I hope not the best solution we can come up with. As I said in the post, I think it is an unnecessarily complex and fussy format, particularly for more complex books.
I’d much prefer a standard based on HTML but allowing for use of all the HTML capabilities and with CSS required. HTML is much simpler and less prone to serious failure due to minor coding errors.
October 26, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Walt,
Can you suggest ways in which we can partner with Barnes & Noble and Sony for our ebooks? As a publisher, we would like to submit books directly, without employing a distributor.
October 27, 2009 at 8:48 am
Try contacting Jennifer Hopkins at B&N (
jhopkins (at) book (dot) com) about getting a publisher account for their new ebookstore for the Nook.As for Sony, the only direct avenue I’ve seen is that online form.
Another possibility is Smashwords, which has agreements with both B&N and Sony to get their books listed on their e-book stores. However, we won’t use Smashwords because of the automated tool they use to generate the various formats (which might be OK for simple, all-text books – I’ve never seen an automated tool that can handle anything else well).
October 27, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Many thanks Walt!
October 27, 2009 at 4:09 pm
I do think that one thing that has to change is the presence of DRM. Like music, I want to be able to take my e-book to any device I own. Sure you don’t want to read a book on your phone, but maybe I do. I should be able to carry the same book from device to device with no problems. That can only happen effectively when the DRM is gone.
Also, I think whatever formats come out on top have to support complex layouts for newspapers and magazines.
October 27, 2009 at 5:14 pm
What determines the platform (software or device) on which you can read an e-book? It’s more a function of its format and the formats supported by the platform you want to use than by DRM.
We sell all our Kindle books on Amazon’s Kindle Store with no DRM, but that doesn’t mean you can read it a Sony Reader. The formats are incompatible.
I think newspaper and magazine layouts need to change rather than expecting an e-book reader to mimic the printed page. If you want print fidelity with complex layouts, we have a perfectly good format for that already — it’s called PDF. Netbooks and the Kindle DX can display PDF right now, as can your desktop or laptop PC.
Some other e-readers can also display PDF, but the screens are too small to make it viable for complex layouts.