Month: November 2009

Children’s books & digital

~ Eoin Purcell ~ 8 Comments

I have to say, when I read this news from EA Games last month I was not TOO blown away:

Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announces the development of FLIPS, an innovative new book range created for the Nintendo DS. FLIPS has been designed to give children of all ages a fun new way to read their favorite books. EA has worked with some of the UK`s leading publishers of children’s books and magazines, including Egmont and Penguin Publishing, to bring modern classic titles from critically acclaimed authors such as Cathy Cassidy, Eoin Colfer, Enid Blyton, and the various writers from the popular boys series, `Too Ghoul for School` to the DS. Each FLIPS title features multiple books and the first four titles will be released exclusively on Nintendo DS in the UK on 4th December 2009.

But then I saw one (the Artemis Fowl-Eoin Colfer collection) in action at the CBI Digital Developments Seminar on Saturday 28 November in Tallaght Library. I’m still not blown away but I am more impressed than I thought I would be. The device is the same as any DS but the program is actually fairly clever and offers a range of extras that kids might just find enjoyable, though to a certain extent it remains in essence a book on screen. I don’t think this will be converting non-readers into readers. Still, interesting move.

One of the discussions that I tumbled into on Saturday was whether digital products opens a new market for books and will deliver new readers. I’m not sure that it will in any real sense. It may make it easier for people who have always read to read digitally, or enable people who have wanted to read but couldn’t to read with great ease, but NEW readers, people who simply didn’t read out of choice deciding to read on screen, seems unlikely, especially not book length pieces.

Still, one interesting development I spotted [in Publishers Weekly] today is that ScrollMotion are launching a series of releases for their Iceberg ereader which will be heavily child focused with:

animations, audio content, interactivity. Picture books in the Iceberg Kids format are more than books—they’re activities. The app has a sleek and entertaining aesthetic and navigational system (though all e-books will be sold as separate apps for the moment, they all share the same design and navigation system), featuring five buttons—”Read,” “Bookmark,” “Index,” “Record,” Settings,” “Help”—that make musical sounds when tapped.

To accommodate full-page illustrations in the iPhone’s small format, the application automatically pans around the illustration while the child or parent advances through the text on that page. By pinching the screen, one can move around the entire illustration at will. The text can be made larger or smaller, and automatically moves to accommodate the art.

I remain unconvinced by the need for these type of applications when they could be as easily hosted on a decent website, that had a mobile access mode, but still, it is good to see development on the area one way or the other.
Eoin

Why not direct? WOT Ebooks From Tor

~ Eoin Purcell ~ 1 Comment

The covers are incredible

Notable news
Tor.com have announced the launch of the ebook of the second book of the epic (though perhaps a new word should be created to describe the scale) series, Robert Jordan’s, Wheel of Time, The Great Hunt:

We’re happy to announce that The Great Hunt, volume two in Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time, is now available as an eBook from the Sony eBook Store and other online retailers. This edition sports a new cover and has been re-typeset especially for ebook production.

But riddle me this?
Why do they not just sell it direct? The multi-publisher bookstore provides just the platform, they have created an incredible audience and the property is a very, very good one. I cannot understand this decision. Sure the rest of Macmillan also avoids ebook sales listing instead other sellers on their site bit surely teh selling of a digital download is not THAT difficult? Is it?

Eoin
PS: The covers are quite frankly fantastic for the ebook series, savvy to redesign them!

Book Depository Free Ebooks

~ Eoin Purcell ~ 1 Comment


The wonderful people over at The Book Depository have rolled out a free ebook program. Kieron Smith, Managing Director of The Book Depository, said [in their press release]:

We wanted to give our customers a really wonderful present this Christmas. We’re continually working to increase the number of books that we have available on our website – 2.4 million at present, which is an unparalled number. Ebooks are much talked about at the moment but difficult for people to try, this gives people a chance to experiment, read something new and try ebooks all at no risk and free of charge.
We’ve not launched ebooks for sale as yet, but will do soon, this promotion is a great way for us to start talking to our customers about what they want from the format.

Quite wonderfully in my opinion, the program uses PDF. After all most people who don’t know anything about ebooks, know about PDF and feel confident in downloading them. I think the ebook program is nicely executed. It is smooth, fits into the rest of the site where you would expect it and offers something very interesting to readers.

I’m hoping this also drives print sales for The Book Depository’s Dodo Press. I’ve downloaded these two (1,2) for free, what will you get?

Lots to enjoy here,
Eoin

Amazon Encore: Again, Again, Again

~ Eoin Purcell ~ 4 Comments

You have to wonder just how many books Amazon Encore has to publish before we consider it a fully fledged book publisher? I wrote a long post about the implications of Amazon Encore here some time ago. In it I said:

Sure this can be extended and it is clearly being set up to do so. Amazon is in a great place to carry out their program to almost any conceivable scale. That in itself should indicate that they intend to extend. If you don’t believe it look at what Barnes & Noble have done in Classics and Rediscovered titles and you will get the idea.

But add to it the previously mentioned POD set up, they wouldn’t even need to expend extra capital on print runs, they’d be able to deliver books on demand so even if a huge proportion of the titles failed, their costs would be lower than the major publishers and the bookstore publishers too. That competitive advantage would be added to the fact that they wouldn’t have to pay a retailers discount unless they were selling to the retailers themselves. In effect, aside from what the author and their agents can grab from the chain, Amazon with Encore has successfully placed itself in control of the entire value chain of which I wrote some more about last week but didn’t quite count this in.

And now, quelle surprise, Amazon has expanded the encore program by 300%! I’ll admit from 1 to 3 is not a huge leap, but if every season (twice a year say) they leap 300% by the end of 2012 they would be publishing over 2000 titles. Of course that is an exaggeration I doubt that Amazon will expand the division at that speed but even at a lesser pace they could easily be publishing 100, 200, 300 titles a season.

Are we ready for that? I don’t think we are.
Eoin

Children’s Books Ireland: Digital Developments Seminar

~ Eoin Purcell ~ 5 Comments
kindle_etch02
With thanks to Flickr user adafruit used under CC Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic Licence

I’m working with the wonderful people at Children’s Books Ireland to make a Digital Developments Seminar happen in Tallaght Library on 28 November 2009. I’m really rather looking forward to it:

Digital Developments will focus on where digital changes have taken publishing so far and what further changes can be expected in the future. The seminar will also offer practical tools and strategies to authors, booksellers, and publishers alike, on how to take the next step into the world of digital and social media.

The half-day event will feature a keynote address from me and a panel discussion featuring Ivan O’Brien, Susan Carleton and Vanessa Robertson. It is going to be wonderful.

For more information visit the event page over at CBI.

I’m hoping that it will be practical, useful and focused on the real application of technology for authors, publishers and booksellers.
Eoin