E-Publishing Demand and Delivery
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This was a presentation prepared for the Learnthings Africa in 2011 in which I was asked to speak about Digital Publishing at the time to small group of educational publishers. While time has passed, much of e-publishing has remained stagnant, and some of the premises are still relevant.
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E-Publishing Demand and Delivery
- 1. E-PUBLISHING TODAY Are we looking for an easy way out?
- 2. Some readers are looking for digital content Premise no 1 We need to find the best way to deliver it
- 3. Publishers’ function Service providers Packagers Editors Producers Content aggregators
- 4. What’s fuelling demand Increased access to digital products We’re getting used to computer-aided functionality. A.k.a. “Let’s Google it!” Integration In the reading experience In the publishing process
- 5. Implications of digital demand Publishers should consider investing in supplementary content External information sources QR codes / Web-addresses
- 6. Implications of digital demand
- 7. Implications of digital demand Publishers should consider investing in supplementary content External information sources Web-addresses / QR codes Multimedia content Internal sources Quizzes, case studies, extra practice material Supervising protocols Give the reader an excuse to be constructive with their bandwidth
- 8. Satisfying digital demand “Non-linear app ‘reading’ is perhaps more analogous to how we really learn than reading a straight narrative.” – Edward Nawotka (2011) Digital rights Can’t just be e-books Software representations
- 9. Satisfying digital demand The technology available should be used Cell-phones provide a gateway Social media provides a media and communication platform By integrating the reading/teaching experience with the technology, we stimulate unified interaction, and reap the benefits of multi- source learning, and fulfill our roles as content aggregators.
- 10. What if the publisher came to the foreground and offered its materials and service through one integrated platform? A publisher’s app?
- 11. Publishers need content and multimedia partners Premise no. 2
- 12. Collaborating Integrated classroom facilities require a user interface These are increasingly web-based for easy maintenance and control. Using an e-book standard requires a knowledge of web-languages Utilising hardware (such as accelerometers) requires scripting expertise.
- 13. Choosing a platform Every platform will require its own form according to its function and the intended audience Publications should be tailored to that platform
- 14. Choosing a platform Requirements: Readability immersion Options: E-Ink LCD (multimedia) Requirements : Search-ability Imagery Interactivity Options Media tablet computer Leisure reading Reference Requirements: Readability Search-ability Cross-referencing Options: E-Ink LCD Academic
- 15. Choosing a platform Most complicated area: Teachers Learners Publishers DoE Requires a large degree of involvement and supervision Educationa l All have to work together
- 16. Choosing a platform Module-based content Ideal for digital Self-standing modules can be developed and accessed independently Use-ability is key Educationa l
- 17. Reaping the benefits Digital books allow for a non-linear experience Elimination of unnecessary paging allowing for: Instant assessment of quizzes Calling up of diagrams Educationa l
- 18. Choosing the platform E-publications need to be in a form that is accessible for their intended usage. Computer-based: Multitasking Controlled teaching environment Tablet-based: More portable Interface can allow for greater immersion Phone-based: Good supplementary content for another system
- 19. Current options for South Africa Cell-phones can be integrated to work with the curriculum If the process is interactive enough it can work Computer labs are being used already and provide an established classroom for teaching Here material should assist the teacher with supervision Assist the learners through a well developed platform Dedicated e-readers allow a good way around making the current books more portable, and possible treated more preciously.
- 20. Formats
- 21. PDF ’Ol faithful Print-like and print-ready Scalable Portable Securable Enhanceable Easy Fixed layout Required to render larger on screen for readability
- 22. PDF Solutions? We put up with print-size Design the PDF for the device Screen size range: 6 ~ 10” Great for archives Great for short texts Limited for mobile
- 23. AZW (Kindle) Based on .mobi Securable Access to popular market place Renders texts and simple layouts very well. With E-Ink, the best experience for novels
- 24. ePub Widely supported Based on existing standards HTML, XML, CSS, XSLT Sophisticated Variable and inherent book structure HTML 5 media support Font-embedding Secureable Wide support base
- 25. The App Maximum degree of interactivity Nearly limitless form Requires: Novelty Ingenuity Can be disastrous if not made in balance
- 26. An e-book requires as much attention and craft as a print book Premise no. 3
- 27. Adjusting the workflow MS is edited MS is marked up for layout MS is marked up for encoding MS is edited MS is marked up in XML Global and variable styling is applied. Parallel Processing Single Source Publishing
- 28. Adjusting the workflow – Single Source Publishing Authors, editors, typesetters can be involved in an integrated stream-lined process Authors Make use of a template Editors Edit within the template and supply additional mark-up where required Typesetters Develop styles for different outputs
- 29. Publishers should be aware of alternate distribution models Premise no. 4
- 30. Consider libraries It is worthwhile to submit to library services and POD vendors Overdrive Bookshare Paperight
- 31. Consider DRM Tech-deprived environments can benefit from printing allowance Files should be protected but not restrictive Books are not music. You can’t read in the background. Piracy is a way around unnecessary costs, with competitive pricing, the justification is lessened. Piracy also shows unmet demand, and an affordable middle-ground between publishers and consumers must be met. Lending is a fundamental right of readers
- 32. Social media integration Feedback Discussions New marketing channels
- 33. E-PUBLISHING TODAY Are we looking for an easy way out?
Editor's Notes
- Your speaker: Liam Borgstrom, I lecture in the publishing studies programme at the University of Pretoria where I focus on physical and digital reproduction of publications. If you’re looking to be kept in the loop with e-publishing goings on I’d suggest following my colleague and mentor Kosie Eloff on Twitter, where his frequently posting up interesting links (twitter.com/kosieeloff) E-publishing is being under-taken largely as a result of industry peer-pressure, and in South Africa when shouldn’t be getting too far ahead. Nigeria is a different case with their culture heavily forming around the smartphone and internet café. We still have many infrastructural issues to deal with, but in a multi-level and highly split society like ours, it is still worth investigating the new opportunities that digital publishing technologies can create.
- In a way we’re all of these, but in an increasingly digital age, we need to become content aggregators to a greater degree. Our products are found or commissioned, but we make them accessible, readable, and functional. It’s interesting that magazine publishers are starting to extend their brand by supplying supplementary content through apps. To help give this an educational slant, considering we’re at Learn Things, if we’re looking towards giving digital content, the key point is that digital is starting to mean interconnected, and we need to provide content in a variety of forms.
- This can be potentially distracting, but it also widens our field of view. By functioning as content aggregators we can facilitate this exploration by providing and commissioning the supplementary content, or at least acting as curators to existing sources. Integration: our textbook, our sources, our calculator, our notepad, and our sextant (even) can all be controlled through one device. So what does this imply?
- Problem with 1st point is that you need to use a short url. With QR, we assume the learner has access to a smartphone. Furthermore, this moves away from integration, requires separate devices. Initial attempt.
- Everything that’s true for internal sources applies to external. The consequences: External requires a data connection, and the site or the ISP can be down, but allows for tracking, and updating easily. Internal sources means bigger file sizes, and everything should fit in within one comfortable UI. Supervision, brought up by Bill Gates: it’s not enough to have a digital textbook, what you need is a textbook that explains to the learner where he/she went wrong, provides answers and helps the learner to identify problem areas, and the type of questions associated with them. We’ve done all of this before, especially with foreign language books which come with cds.
- An argument for the modern age is that while books may still be good and popular, they have to compete with much more. Digital reading platform such as the Kindle work fantastically for avid leisure readers as they allow them to repeat their physical book experience, but where reading is done compulsorily (as in school) it can help to provide an immersive experience. One of the arguments for enhanced e-textbooks is that hypertext better represents our natural learning functions (go here go there). So where we’re not looking at trade, it may help to think of how we can create the experience rather than the material.
- As more advanced cell-phones become more ubiquitous, as tools for obtaining supplementary information they become quite useful in getting learners talking to each other and providing publisher and teacher feedback. Even if teachers were encouraged not to post on group boards, could we use it to encourage better spelling? Integrate the updates and have it work in-class? When we’re dealing with digital publishing, we’re addressing various levels of literacy, and while we may have been doing that before, modern information literacy is added. To return to the idea of integration, we could be entering the age where the publisher’s brand may be coming out. Publishing is a strange industry in that it is desperately trying to hold onto its traditional forms, but being a media industry, it’s about as fluid as car manufacturing. (which doesn’t change much either).
- Maybe: Starting with magazine publishers. It seems to me that our move towards app-based working (whether through a tablet or browser) is the perfect vehicle for publishes to get their e-commerce working. Classics shown here as a an easy competing ground. If we’re looking to integrate content why not present our own version of it? Provide the books through e-store’s but also allow it to be purchased (maybe for discount) through the publisher’s app, an app which allows supplementary content to run, while also giving access to the next book in the series, and marketing the publisher as providing this sort of book. Right now the people leading the innovation are not the publishers, it’s the multimedia developers. We don’t get the Dr Suess appsbooks from Random House, but Ocean House. That’s the brand perception and it makes me wonder. The digital age could be a new opportunity for publishers to establish their brands.
- Additional content can be produced outside, and multimedia expertise are necessary for creating well-rounded, functional, and impressive e-materials, just as we look for a good information designer.
- How we make material here will depend largely on the medium. A dedicated e-reader allows for recreation of the traditional form while also allowing for maximum portability. Using tablets or PCs, computer literacy is taught along with the subject. Allows for adequate tracking and progress. Using module-based content, we can also provide content separately, providing chapters when necessary. Improving custom navigation and avoiding lengthy download sessions of the whole book.
- A computer lab environment allows a lot, it is a fixed workstation where we can literally get down and dirty. Using tablets, as they come down in price can be the future for e-textbooks as they suit the type of content. And whatever size they may be, they are able to facilitate non-linear reading. http://www.mpasa.net/website_news_content/218/ E-ink will assist in some way, but overall to clunky for interactive reading. With the phone, the main issue is the size, research into magazine apps has shown that phone apps are good for quick bits of content, but the tablet is what you’ll sit down and comfortably read and browse with.
- This requires a good platform though, SMS and mXit are too expensive, a low cost Java app for 2G phones may be the best answer. Tablets are still a luxury item.
- Can work for text books. Integrating with supp. Content can be clucky if outside, hard for dynamic web integration
- Being the best option, because we can use one platform have it customised for different readers, and with one format address multiple possibilities. Hard to control rendering between devices
- Does not need to be tablet based. Browsers are starting to work on the app model (especially chrome)
- With PP the issue comes to managing separate processes the whole time. XML is a good standard for its versatility. Single source requires more structure and can limited artistic freedom, but for highly formatted books it leads to a quicker an cheaper process.
- Editors should be looking to see what material is viable for enhancement.
- This can help us get to previously unreaced markets, and in some cases maybe even save some costs.
- Over-done DRM restricts functionality and portability. http://www.teleread.com/drm/drm-turns-e-book-experience-into-confusing-maze-of-incompatibility-and-missing-features/ Some DRM is understandably needed. Limit the copy and edit ability, but still make it open so that the users don’t feel the effects. It should only visible to someone trying to break it. The e-book file should be easy to use, and not hamper the reading experience in any way. Lending: I keep wanting to get my mother a Kindle, but I haven’t because I know that as long as she has a book club, she doesn’t need one. We may be afraid of new ventures, but there’s nothing worse than limitations, especially on a product we’re actually quite familiar with. So as much as possible we should be making features open. Use “Search Inside”
- Youtube works great. With enough quirkiness, it can reach an audience. Social networking works where the user is interested and involved, if it is integrated into the content which we aggregate we can control it. Get Classroom mathematics, and meet with a tutor every Wednesday night at 19:00 via the “group page”.
- EBW does great work, though offline at the moment Pressbooks offers a multi-format publishing tool (in beta currently) Single source publishing takes work but is an answer (we are using Arbortext) -Nice thing about XML-based publishing is, for books in a series, you only have to design the series once. There is no easy way out. The easy way is to provide books in multiple formats and see what happens. But, the logical way, is to take advantage of the technology around us, and create books that perform as modern day information products. Things don’t have to be presented on an iPad, we don’t even need a computer lab. We can still make books, give the teacher a computer and a projector, and help to make the classroom as exciting and as invigorating as possible. Much of ideas behind making e-books aren’t new. They’re the same publishing practices we’ve been doing for years, but while upfront investment in digital technology is high, the long-term benefits (especially obtainable with stream-lined workflows) can be worthwhile.