Most of our blog posts have been about Creative Byline, but we see ourselves as just one example of many technological shifts that have had–and will continue to have–a dramatic impact on book publishing. Here are a few thoughts on one of those shifts:
Over the past month I’ve had a few “aha” moments regarding technology and books (or perhaps “content” is the right term):
- Reading books on handheld devices is here to stay. Besides the popular (and upcoming 2.o release) of the Amazon Kindle, Sony has announced that they will make their Reader Digital Book compatible with the e-pub standard. Then Apple launched their iTunes App Store for the new 3G phone and the iTouch. One of the most popular free apps (from Fictionwise, Inc.) is a reader that allows eReader-compatible books to be read on the go. Also, PlasticLogic has recently announced a 8½” x 11” screen reader, directed towards the business user. These devices–at least the Kindle and the iPhone—are filled with powerful technologies (internet access, speakers, video and photo storage), but, whichever of the plethora of readers you use, you get nothing but digitized of ink and paper. Ho hum.
- Multimedia properties (book/web/mobile/chat/ring-tone/downloadable/IM) seem to be getting some attention; the biggest I’ve seen recently was the launch of Scholastic’s The 39 Clues. Another example is a series of made-for-mobile-phone video episodes adapted from a story in Stephen King’s forthcoming collection. Add to this the formation of 4th Story Media by Lisa Holton (former president of Scholastic’s Trade Publishing and Book Fairs), and I expect to see more multimedia storytelling (and not just children’s books). I spoke with a couple of Creative Byline’s publisher clients; they concur that we will see more multimedia, but these projects are complex and costly.
So, on one hand you have powerful electronic devices that simply mimic static pages of a book, and on the other hand very complex (and expensive) multi-media sites developed by programmers and content experts.
Here’s my question: Does anyone know of good examples of book/content between these two extremes? Perhaps content of a book that has been developed to take advantage of the technology power of a sophisticated hand-held device? A book created with snippets of imbedded video, audio, links; or perhaps pages that slowly erase the text, like words written in sand at the beach as the waves slowly roll over them.
You get the picture.
What’s out there right now? And what will authoring look like in the future to take full advantage of the power of handheld devices?
–Brad
5 Comments
http://blogs.nature.com/wp/nascent/2008/09/the_future_is_a_foreign_countr.html
Just found this article at Nature.com’s blog (Nascent) that provides a pretty cogent analysis of where exactly global communication networks are taking publishing and how publishers are responding (and should respond) to it. In the transcript of his lecture, Timo Hannay mentions the Kindle in particular, but also briefly examines the evolution of written language (specifically text-messaging) and other interesting trends.
He talks about Tokyo for about half the article, but it informs the rest so do read it.
Here’s a brief response from James Long at Pan-Macmillan’s The Digitalist: http://thedigitalist.net/?p=259#respond
One new publisher attempting to anticipate/shape the future of publishing is Marcher Lord Press, for the Christian Speculative Fiction niche market. Their publishing model is very interesting, see http://www.marcherlordpress.com/MLP_Publishing_Model.htm
Their first books launch this month, so it will be interesting to see how this model works out in practice.
Ruby Yeh has developed aliveebooks.com that combines traditional ebooks with audio and video segments imbedded in the format. Her site ‘hosts’ the multi-media format, with readers able to ’sample’ a chapter, e-purchase the book or a PDF format (missing the audio/video content). It’s expensive, but it’s a more inter-active way to communicate with the reader.
Thanks for sharing this link. Very cool. I looked at the credits page on one of the e-books and noted that they were produced by a team of people, not just an author, which makes sense. I wonder if these type of works will provide a new way for people to collaborate online?
So have you heard about http://www.vook.tv? Just read about it on NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/business/05stream.html?_r=2&ref=business.
That’s something I’m really looking forward to – but nothing alike in Germany, yet.