[Video] eBook Production in Two Minutes

This two minute video demystifies eBook production and highlights the five things publishers must get right to profit from eBooks. The video was created by digital publishing solutions provider, Aptara, a firm that helps publishers — and today, that’s basically every organization on earth — distribute content in any format, to any device or platform, including eBook readers like the iPad, Kindle and Sony eReader as well as on smart phones like the iPhone and Android.

The Making of a Mashup Compilation: Aurally Volume 1

By Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler, aka The Audio Wrangler What do you get when you cross Pink Floyd with Christina Aquilera? How about a little Elvis with your Public Enemy? Or some Cher on top of This Mortal Coil? Although it may sound a little frightening, pairing musical groups and vocalists together in unorthodox ways can yield some pretty incredible audio sensations. Known commonly as mashups (or bastards), these bootleg musical creations are user-generated derivative works created by blending two or more songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track …

[Interview] Joe Gollner: Defining Intelligent Content And Providing Some Real-World Examples

Interview with Joe Gollner by Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler The Content Wrangler: Joe, thanks for agreeing to chat with us today. Tell us a little about yourself and your experience in the content industry. Joe Gollner: I began tinkering with content, using open markup technologies, in 1987 while still a grad student at University of Oxford. The tinkering has never stopped. Tapping on another side of my background, the military side, I was deeply embroiled in the CALS initiative – where we applied open markup technologies to the most …

Valentine: The Digital, Device-Independent Comic Available Via Wireless In 14 Languages

By Alex de Campi Imagine a graphic novel series, released every month simultaneously in 14 languages and across all major wireless platforms (Kindle, EPUB, Android, iPhone), hopefully soon via the web and, eventually, in collected print editions. Every month, you pay 99 cents and get 70-75 screens of action, adventure and suspense. In its first fortnight after launch, in the difficult final weeks of December and with no marketing and without all our distributors yet on stream, the first episode had 5,000 downloads — of which English was in the …

From The Start We Were Different … An Amazing Video From Mark Logic

This video was used to open the Mark Logic 2009 User Conference. It’s an amazing presentation that tells the story of humans and the paradigm-shifting information explosion we find ourselves in today. When the video ended, the crowd went wild with applause. I’ll have to admit, I’ve never seen such response from an audience, not even to a great presentation delivered by a human opening keynote presenter. Watch the video and let us know what you think. And, consider attending the Mark Logic 2010 User Conference, May 4-6, 2010 in …

[Interview] Microsoft's Gabor Fari on Intelligent Content: Saving Lives By Helping New Drugs Get To Market Faster

Interview with Gabor Fari, Microsoft Life Sciences by Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler The Content Wrangler: Hello, Gabor. Tell us a little about yourself and your experience in the content industry. Gabor: I am a Chemical Engineer by training. I became fascinated with software a little over 10 years into my career, before I made the switch to the software industry. To me, building software solutions is still pretty much engineering, and my approach is to build solutions block by block. I have been working in the enterprise content management …

Translation: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Marking Up The Fab Four: Just Imagine What XML Could Do For Your Books

By Alan J. Porter [This post is the first in a planned series of articles that examine how the traditional book industry could benefit from adopting XML.] Yesterday I posted on Twitter a couple of figures from the Association of American Publishers report of November 2009 book sales. The good news was that sales overall had in fact increased by 10.9%, but what really stood out was that in November of last year the sales of eBooks exploded showing a 199.9% increase and that they now account for about 2.5% …

Reimagining the Book Publishing World With XML

By Dev Ganesan, President and CEO of Aptara Today’s content consumers are voracious digital omnivores, desiring to feed on all types of electronic content — from Twitter tweets to YouTube videos, from iPhone apps to Facebook updates, from mp3s to eBooks. Yet traditional publishers, particularly trade book publishers, are not prepared to serve digitally savvy audiences the variety of electronic products they demand. That’s because their production processes are traditionally rooted in outdated print publishing practices that are severely inadequate for tackling today’s publishing challenges. In order to profit – …