A funny paradox of the eBook revolution — it’s easier than ever to create digital books, but frustratingly complex to share them and difficult for readers to actually read them without the right device or application. eBooks have turned books into pieces of software and publishers into software companies. The very smart Peter Brantley first articulated this distinction for me in an email remark, but it’s a concept — a new kind of category and role for book makers to Read more…
Everyday we get requests from people who want to build an eBook with Vook immediately. Everyday we look at what we’re building, what our users want and expect, and what we’ve committed to delivering. Our engineering team is working night and day (which isn’t hyperbole, I’ve interrupted them at 2 AM on our conference line in the past)—and the rest of us are constantly using and testing Vook, making sure it meets our standards. On Thanksgiving, I’m not grateful for Read more…
I raved yesterday about going to the National Book Awards; now I’m trying to catch up on reading the winners I didn’t grab from our table display — and I’ve hit a problem. Only 3 of the 4 National Book Award winning titles are available as eBooks—Nikky Finney’s collection of poems Head Off & Split is not available digitally. Dianna Dilworth also sharply caught this at eBook Newser, and I wish it was more widely remarked. I run into this Read more…
A post at TechCrunch by Eric Ries this morning caught my attention — it speaks to a core issue we’re wrestling with as we engineer new features and functionality into our digital book creation platform, VookMaker. Ries asks the question, “How do you know you’re building the right product — if you’re not talking to your customers?” Of course, he asks a lot of other things — but I’m going to focus narrowly on the bit relevant to us, so Read more…
When a panel on the future publishing includes a robust discussion of HTML5 and a debate on the tenacity of InDesign, you get the hint that things are changing. When one of the panelists says that “it’s not the publisher’s job to determine what should be published and what shouldn’t,” the writing is on the wall: there are new power players in this industry, and maybe even a whole new set of rules. The panel in question took place at Read more…
by Sabrina Jaszi Once Vook gets into the world, the potential for even unexpected industries to take advantage of it could be vast. Just look at how digital books are helping out the classical music industry. Classical musicians have been mourning the loss of establishments selling sheet music for a while. Stores like this once gave musicians the chance to mingle, and the opportunity to stumble upon music by composers great and unknown. Maybe the rent’s too steep (how much Read more…
Big news this morning. Google announces a brand new operating system based on its Chrome Browser – Google Chrome OS. Details on what it’ll look like are bit sketchy, but there is no doubt. This is huge, huge move for the search giant to make. Why, you ask? The New York Times categorizes this as a first leap into the clouds where ultimately all applications are hosted online. Google’s plans for the new operating system fit its Internet-centric vision of Read more…
Who could have predicted that one of the largest public endorsement of digital books would come from none other than the Terminator himself? Yesterday, Ahhhrni The Governator Schwarzenegger officially opened the door to e-books on a state educational level. Sure, he’s talking about generation 1.0 books — and his agenda is clearly about saving the money hemorrhaging state money — but it’s still a coup. And pretty forward thinking . . Sounds like other states and companies can’t be far behind. Read more…
Vook wasn’t the only e-book outfit at BEA, but we were one of the most visible, hanging around the floor and visiting lots of publishing folk to demonstrate our product. I’m a veteran of this book fair, but I have to say I have rarely encountered such enthusiasm, especially for a product that’s a little “out of the box.” For all the fretting that the book business is archaic and hidebound, there were dozens of “that’s cool”‘s and “I want Read more…