Posts tagged ‘e-reader’
The next step in e-book evolution (final part)
There’s no denying that e-books and e-readers are shaking up the publishing world. But some books might never be popular in a digital format. When technology doesn’t work for a book is something that publishers will have to weigh carefully.
“Does Anna Karenina work better as an app?” asks Jason Rekulak, an editor at Quirk Books. “Do you really want to sit and scroll through 900 screens?”
Another Leo Tolstoy classic, War and Peace, clocks in at 1,000-plus pages. These long novels might be difficult for people to handle on a screen, although it is entirely subjective. In Rekulak’s case, “long-form narrative reading is still superior in the form of a book.”
Another sect of books probably safe is children’s books. Rekulak has seen children’s books on the iPad that are less like books and more like computer games. “I’m not going to sit down with my child and an $800 screen and let him play himself to sleep,” he says. This reluctance is something he believes many parents feel, but not all. This video shows a two-year-old grabbing the iPad and going to town. She immediately starts playing and her father encourages her to use the apps. In fact, you can tell that he purposely bought apps that she could use. This is one instance where a parent believes a child should be comfortable around technology at a young age, regardless of how expensive it is.
“There would have to be a huge cultural shift,” Rekulak says. Today, it is more common for parents “to steer their kids” to books and away from video games. In the future, that sentiment might change. “Maybe you’ll sit kids down with their own baby screens. That’s a scary vision of the future for me.”
The next step in e-book evolution (part 1)
E-book sales posted a triple-digit percentage growth last year so publishers know they’re more than a fad or a niche. Now, they just have to figure out a way to make people start paying more by giving them reasons to want to pay more. In other words, the e-book has to become something more than it already is.
The way it stands now, publishers rip the text from a book and slap it onto a digital screen. Voila! Now pay. What they’re finding out is that readers don’t want to pay the same amount for an e-book as a hard-copy book. The reason being is that people believe it doesn’t cost as much to put together an e-book. There’s no actual publishing involved.
What they’ve come to realize is that the shape (digitally speaking) of books needs to change.
Right now the e-book is a boring reproduction of a hard-copy book.
Companies like Vook, Open Road and Enhanced Editions are betting on publishing consultant Michael Shatzkin’s prediction of multimedia books. According to the CEO and founder of Idea Logic, books will be more than just a story printed on the digital pages of a device, they’ll also include audio and video.
Right now, hard copy books still constitute the lion’s share of total book revenue. According to the Association of American Publishers, e-books make up less than 4 percent of the book business. Many in the industry aren’t thinking about them quite as seriously as they should, says Shatzkin. In two or three years, publishers should be thinking about e-books first and finding a better format.
One thing publishers can do is go all out with the technology offered to them. Tablets mean that you don’t just have an e-reader in your hands, you have all sorts of access to different software.
As Elizabeth Bennett enters Netherfield Hall for the ball at the beginning of Pride and Prejudice, the music of a waltz can drift over the reader. J.R.R Tolkien’s vision of Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings is so complete that interactive maps and timelines can untangle the history and interconnected genealogies of the characters – the reader can then easily see that Aragorn was a direct descendant from his wife Arwen’s uncle.
Many current companies that enhance books like to place author interviews at the front or end of a chapter, but what if the page of an e-book was more evolved than that. Chapters could be akin to insulated Web pages. A small bar on the far left or right could show when accompanying media is available. Readers have the choice to either ignore it and come back or interrupt the story to see what depths are uncovered.
However, there are few multimedia books currently available and so no one knows how much of a success or a failure they would be. There is no guaranteed market for a book that is accompanied by video and audio. Former HarperCollins publisher Marion Maneker believes enhanced editions would be so expensive that it wouldn’t be cost effective to produce them. But he’s not sure.
“It’s what you try and what works and what you try after that,” Maneker says. “[Publishers] try to make the best of the good stuff and minimize the bad stuff. The smart people know it’s guesswork: it’s an art, not a science,” he says. “People will know more when people start doing more.”
His own version of future e-books is more of a glimpse to the past.
Another vision of e-books will be discussed in “the next step in e-book evolution (part 2).”
What slipped between the cracks, 4/5 to 4/11
Now that the month is halfway through, maybe the iPad fervor will die down a little for some news that isn’t related to Apple’s tablet. Of course the iPad wasn’t mentioned in all of the posts here this week (though it wasn’t always the main focus). And there’s still something to mull over:
Rumors were circulating that Apple will make a mini iPad. The size of the pint-sized tablet would only be slightly larger than an iPhone, which would make it… and iPhone that can’t call. Gizmodo doesn’t believe the Digitimes report.
There’s a video for iPad competitor HP Slate. HP believes that the real gem of its tablet, and what will give it an edge over the iPad, is the ability to Skype and take pictures to upload.
Something I never thought about before is what to do when taking your tablet or e-reader along on vacation, but you apparently don’t have to worry about anything smaller than a laptop. And that includes small netbooks.
Think the iPad is going to herald the future of technology? So does Gartner. The IT research group expects that by 2015 more than half of the computers bought for kids under 15 years of age will have touchscreens. This means that people will buy touchscreen computers not for themselves but for the younger generation, probably because they realize the technology is something people will be using for years.
Even some e-reader owners regret getting an e-reader
Thank you ChangeWave Research’s e-reader study. According to a survey 27 percent of e-reader owners wish they had just waited for the iPad (which in a few months could probably be any tablet) and 30 percent don’t know (they’ll probably want to see the tablet in action for themselves). The rest would have purchased the e-reader they have.
Another survey shows that of people planning to buy an e-reader, 40 percent will get the iPad. Then the Kindle has 28 percent with the Nook and Sony Reader trailing.
Unfortunately, I like to gloat. I didn’t think e-readers had a very long life. Judith Regan said it best in Adam Penenberg’s article when she questioned “‘how many people want another thing to carry? Kindle, plus iPod, plus iPhone, plus laptop, plus BlackBerry, plus wallet, hairbrush, and lipstick — and my shoulder is sore.’”
The iPad, and other tablets fix this problem. You can get away with the tablet and your phone. And Amazon is no dummy. The company is slowly making the Kindle into a tablet.
Now all consumers need is a genius to make the tablet a phone that syncs with a bluetooth earpiece. Then anytime you get a call, you press a button on the earpiece to pick it up and you don’t have to take the computer out of your case if you’re walking. Figure out how to dial a number without pulling out the tablet and I think you’ve just created the ultimate device.
Texting can cause health issues
Getting headaches? Neck pain? You may not be surprised to learn that if you spend too much time texting or on a handheld device you may acquire these symptoms. After all, if you spend a lot of time, head bowed down, staring at a small electronic screen, you’re bound to feel the effects. They are also slight disturbances for some people. Pop an Advil and you’ll feel better.
But what about loss of lung capacity? Spine degeneration? These issues are a little more serious. And they are entirely possible side effects to too much time spent on your smartphone or e-reader or whatever small device you use. According to CBS 2 News, they’re calling it “text neck” but I think it’s easy to realize that texting is not the only thing that might cause these problems.
We all love mobile technology, or else, why are you here? But the fact remains that right now it’s hurting us. I don’t mean financially. I mean physically.
Using mobile technology is hurting people's posture and their health
“I personally feel this is going to be the epidemic because everyone young and old is using some kind of hand-held,” said Dr. Dean Fishman, a chiropractor in Plantation, Fla., to CBS 2 News.
An epidemic. That sounds awfully ominous. Or it could be evolution. There was talk that all the texting we do will cause our thumbs to evolve. Maybe our bodies will evolve to make using technology more comfortable. Maybe thousands of years in the future we’ll be more hunch backed. It’s not pretty, but if it helps us do things easier, better and faster, well, isn’t that what evolution is all about?
At this rate, Kindle will be a tablet too
Apple may have stepped on Amazon’s turf when Steve Jobs announced the iBookstore for the iPad, but Amazon was immediately, and pre-emptively, on the offensive. In response, Amazon announced that the Kindle will be open for apps. Sure, the idea has been in development for a while, but the timing of the announcement (the official press release went out just a week before the iPad was unveiled) was what made it important.
Now Amazon has taken it further by purchasing Touchco, a company that makes flexible touchscreens. With this touchscreen, expect to see color, because Amazon will make sure that, with the iPad shipping in March and April, the Kindle is ready to do combat.
However, all these changes raise a point I’ve made before: E-readers are becoming obsolete. The way they are now e-readers won’t be able to compete with the iPad. These changes Amazon is making to the Kindle, the touchscreen, the apps and who knows what’s next (MP3 player?) are making the device less an e-reader and more a tablet. Soon there will be no such thing as a device used solely for reading e-books. And why should there be? That’s a one-trick pony in an industry that values gadgets with multiple functions.
Another shake up for Amazon following the iPad’s announcement has been the price of e-books. Publishers, now that Jobs announced books around $12.99-$14.99, are clamoring for Amazon to also increase prices. MacMillan was the first to successfully get book prices increased and Rupert Murdoch with HarperCollins followed suit. Two days ago, Hachette Book Group entered the fray. With two publishing companies left, Penguin and Simon & Schuster, it is looking more likely that Amazon will have to match Apple’s prices.
Saving trees, cutting publishers
Just as people are turning away from hard copies of newspapers in favor of going online, electronic books have been growing in popularity, according to CNN. Whether you have a Mac or a PC, a Sony Reader or an Amazon Kindle, people are opting to forgo an actual book and instead are turning to the thinner e-book reader, which can hold multiple books instead of just one.
According to the International Digital Publishing Forum, wholesale ebook sales jumped a huge amount in the second quarter of 2009, approximately $10 million more than the quarter before. That is only counting the revenue from the U.S. It seems that for a lot of people, ebooks are convenient.
However, along with the success there should be some equal concern. The Kindle DX, the newest version at a retail price of $489, has not been ideal for some readers. The new font was fuzzy and gave readers headaches, causing them to downgrade to the Kindle 1, according to Wired.com. Staring at a screen for extended periods of time is going to have some sort of damage on the eyes.
Right now, the price tags and the discomfort of ebook devices are a little too high for the average person. Even though sales have gone up and will probably continue to climb, they will eventually plateau if the price of Kindle and the Sony Reader go down. At their current prices you might as well get an iPhone and enjoy all the cool free apps in addition to the ebook app.
