There’s More to eBooks Than Words
“It’s all about the content.”
Alan J. Porter
I came to the realization that most of us are missing one vital component of this new opportunity. It seems that no matter how much we talk about the changes in process from print to eBooks, we still aren’t giving enough consideration to ways to add value to the content itself. Even when we create and repurpose content, using either traditional serial, or modern modular approaches, we are still, for the most part, delivering content that is not really taking advantage of the fact that the delivery platform (be it Kindle, iPad, or who knows what in the future) is digital.
For all the talk, we are still mainly focused on delivering text.
We are still delivering content that is not taking advantage of the fact that the delivery platform is digital
Because we are still thinking in terms of pages and layout, when we should be thinking in terms of bandwidth and a true multimedia experience.
A few days ago I introduced my youngest daughter to the second Star Trek movie “The Wrath of Khan”. There’s a scene in that movie that I think applies to this discussion. In the climatic battle, Kirk and his crew beat the bad-guy, because, as Spock points out, he is still thinking in two-dimensional terms. In other words the villainous Khan, for all his power and intellect, isn’t used to working in space. He forgets that in space you can move up and down as well as left and right; and forwards and backwards. He isn’t as comfortable in, or aware of the possibilities of, the medium in which he finds himself.
And so it appears to be in publishing today, as many of us suddenly find ourselves in a medium in which we aren’t comfortable, nor know how to fully exploit.
These new digital platforms give us the opportunity to once gain fully embrace, images, animation, video and intelligent content to produce a unique immersive experience that can’t be replicated elsewhere.
But, just like the so-called digital publishing revolution, providing rich multi-media information products is nothing new. Sitting in the CD rack in my office storage closet is a copy of the 1995 edition of Microsoft’s Encarta encyclopedia. A product that started as a print bound book (Collier’s Encyclopedia) and was transformed into a fully-enhanced digital product through the addition of 25,000 pictures and illustrations, over 300 videos and animations, sound, and more than 1.8 million zoomable maps. Encarta also featured hyperlinks to associated articles, often displaying essays with alternative view points alongside articles.
Encarta included approximately 50,000 articles and other multimedia content, such as 25,000 pictures and illustrations, over 300 videos and animations, and an interactive atlas with 1.8 million locations.
So shouldn’t eBooks be the same? There are about delivering information on a digital platform after all.
Developing a multi-media approach to creating what are now being termed as “enhanced eBooks” can offer many opportunities to publishers:
- As a way to differentiate between eBooks and print books, and possibly justify a higher price point for enhanced eBooks with added value.
- As a potential revenue share model – imagine an eBook about a singer with links to his song catalog on iTunes where the publishers gets a percentage of the royalties for each song downloaded; or a book about a TV show or motion picture that links to DVD or on-demand viewing and rewards the publisher with a percentage of the sale price.
- Opening new markets, like education, where captivating, interactive eBook experiences are needed to engage digitally-savvy students and provide high value alternatives to traditional print media.
Over the last few months I have had numerous conversations with educational publishers, as well as developers of eLearning systems, and they all tell me the same thing; that the biggest challenge they face is engaging students and keeping their interest.
Students today have so many things competing for their attention, along with multiple ways to communicate and engage in active discussions, that the way they access, assemble, and process information is radically changing. [A subject I will be presenting on at The LavaCon Conference on Digital Media and Content Strategies September 29 - October 2, 2010 in San Diego,.] They now live in a multi-media, visually driven digital world, and with that comes a level of expectation that all types of information will deliver the same, or at least a similar, experience.
Electronic books that are nothing more than digital renditions of print media will be quickly forgotten. An early experiment with supplying college students with Kindle devices was a failure as the eReaders were unanimously rejected in favor of traditional hardcopy books. Most students today, take laptops into class, as my daughter heads off to college this fall she will be taking an iPad with her to use in class, and I’m sure she won’t be alone. The way that people consume content is changing, and we as content developers and publishers, need to adapt to meet those needs.
One interesting new area of study and experimentation has been in the area of augmented reality where some publishers are looking at ways to combine both print and digital to provide a unique experience. The BBC science magazine FOCUS recently published an issue with special encoding on the cover and several internal pages, they when held up to a web camera, produced 3D images and text that appeared to move around and float above the page. One reader was so impressed that he made a You Tube video of his experience, and compared it to a digital copy of WIRED on the iPad. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEiUPyY03S4&) It’s clear from his reaction that the multi-media augmented reality approach, even when linked to a print magazine, was much more engaging than the page-based model of the digital magazine.
Unfortunately there are still too many other publishers who think that multi-media means having an eBook that can be read on the Kindle and the iPad.
The bottom line is that we need to be delivering content and information that takes advantage of these new platforms, and not simply replicating what we already do.
About the Author
Alan J. Porter a 20 year veteran of the corporate communications industry is founder of 4Js Group LLC a consulting and services company that specializes in combining creative talent with business expertise to help companies tell their story. He is also the regular writer of the monthly Disney*Pixar “World of CARS” comic book series.
His latest book, “WIKI: Grow Your Own for Fun and Profit” is available now from XML Press.
Blog: THE CONTENT POOL http://4jsgroup.blogspot.com
Email: ajp@4jsgroup.com
Phone: 512-968-7362
Twitter: @4jsgroup
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Great post, Alan. The publishing industry is in for some big changes, as is the medical, technical and marketing communication industries. Enhanced book publishing and interaction (augmented reality, etc) is going to change the way we think about communication using the written word and cause us to change the way we work, the skills we need to employ, the tools we use, and more. It’s an exciting time.
I think it will have a tremendous impact on education. If students can download all the enhanced textbook materials they need for all their courses to their ebook devices, they will no longer have to carry around 60-lb backpacks full of oversize textbooks with too little content. If teachers and schools are not limited only to the stack of distict-assigned textbooks, they should also be able to assign additional (enhanced) content to those students who already absorbed the regular class materials, to keep them engaged and challenged, instead of bored and tuned-out.
Alan, I couldn’t agree more! A growing percentage of young readers don’t want to READ how to do something, they want to WATCH how to do something. Why are companies still forcing their customers to read how to do something when they can drop on a quick how-to video or animation?
In order to attract the next generation of customers, companies will need to deliver user-optimized content WHEN the customer wants it, WHERE the customer wants it, and in the FORMAT the customer wants it.
And eBooks will be a major delivery platform for doing so.
I look forward to hearing your session at LavaCon!
Jack Molisani
Executive Director
The LavaCon Conference on Digital Media and Content Strategies
http://lavacon.org
Great article and certainly the way I see a number of educational publishers moving as well as others where multi-media content can reallly enhance the ebook versions of their publications.
Yes, there’s more to eBooks than words. There’s also more to eLearning than e-books, and more to educational publishing than flashy content, especially where it matters most: on the other side of the digital divide. http://nyti.ms/csWJdz
Media-rich eBooks may make us think more quickly and more socially, but they won’t make us think better. If your contacts in educational publishing really want to engage students and keep their interest, they will consider starting with the teachers, showing them /how/ to teach e-Books properly.
Thanks for a thought-provoking post.
I new this day would come, but I cant imagine what will come of this. I think we are heading for a monumental change once ebooks hit mainstream. From magazines to newspapers, books to homework assignments,…everything will be in multimedia format. This revolutionary change is going to have major impacts on the future for both good and bad. Only time will tell where this goes.
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Looks like we’re back to the future, Alan. Lots of what you’ve mentioned are things we’ve been discussing for at least 20 years. How do we enrich content (in all platforms) has been a goal for most of us in our careers. HTML was one step closer to that goal and the fact that you can embed videos in your post is proof that we’re getting there.
The real challenge, in today’s world, is the bandwidth. Even though we’re getting better speeds, we’re also placing greater demands on the infrastructure and that places demands on us to make sure there is appropriate media in our content. Imagine how things would slow down if the embedded video started playing as soon as someone opened this post? The reader would quickly abandon the page because it took so long to load.
Single-sourcing also brings in challenges because, while I have great intentions be bringing in multimedia content, I have to provide alternatives in less-rich environments. That fact alone adds a layer of difficulty to the authoring task. The easy path is to focus on the text, not that it’s the best answer.
There are mechanisms that allow you to bridge this gap and produce content for multiple targets, but they do require a bit of knowledge and patience on the part of the author. I’m afraid that there are many who are not ready to work that hard (present company excluded).
Let’s march forward!
Making a video truly immersive is difficult. Books are immersive. Movies are immersive and are far more involved to produce. Lone writer plus editor can create a world, for a film you need a CREW. A lot of the multimedia content I see on the Web today is nearly useless. I can confidently say that I would NEVER prefer to watch a person talk at a camera over taking in the same information by reading text.