RT @timoreilly: John Sargent is a mensch. And I believe he's also right. #ebooks

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I've never consulted an index in an ebook. From a digital content point of view, indexes seem to be an unnecessary relic of the print world. The problem with my logic is that I'm thinking of simply dropping a print index into an ebook, and that's as shortsighted as thinking the future of ebooks in general is nothing more than quick-and-dirty conversions of print books. In this TOC podcast interview, Kevin Broccoli, CEO of BIM Publishing Services, talks about how indexes can and should evolve in the digital world.

Key points from the full video interview (below) include:

Why bother with e-indexes? — Searching for raw text strings completely removes context, which is one of the most valuable attributes of a good index. [Discussed at the 1:05 mark.]

Index mashups are part of the future — In the digital world you should be able to combine indexes from books on common topics in your library. That's exactly what IndexMasher sets out to do. [Discussed at 3:37.]

Indexes with links — It seems simple but almost nobody is doing it. And as Kevin notes, wouldn't it be nice for ebook retailers to offer something like this as part of the browsing experience? [Discussed at 6:24.]

Index as cross-selling tool — The index mashup could be designed to show live links to content you own but also include entries without links to content in ebooks you don't own. Those entries could offer a way to quickly buy the other books, right from within the index. [Discussed at 7:28.]

Making indexes more dynamic — The entry for "Anderson, Chris" in the "Poke The Box" index on IndexMasher shows a simple step in this direction by integrating a Google and Amazon search into the index. [Discussed at 9:42.]

You can view the entire interview in the following video.



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This post originally appeared on Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog ("iBooks Author: Appreciating Apple's Intent"). It's republished with permission.

With all the buzz about the agency model, the Justice Department, allegations of collusion, etc., I figure the time is right for a post about ebook pricing. Here are some quick thoughts as both a consumer and a publisher:

Eliminating waste is always a good thing — Walmart has mastered this for years. They squeeze every bit of waste out of the supply chain and generally end up with the lowest prices. I'm a frequent Walmart customer, and I greatly appreciate this. In fact, the only people who don't like this are (a) other retailers who can't match those prices and (b) ecosystem players who are part of the waste that's being eliminated, including suppliers.

Loss leaders are a great retail model — Selling some products at or below cost is a great way to bring customers in the door, regardless of whether that door is physical or virtual. I'm sure I've bought many cartons of milk at a loss for the retailer who made it up by selling me other items at a nice profit. It's a model that works, but have you ever seen a store that sells most of their products at a loss, every day?

Taking loss leadership to a new level — Remember when Amazon first launched the Kindle and pretty much every ebook was $9.99? It's no secret that Amazon was losing money on the majority of those sales. In fact, they still are. Prior to the agency model, Amazon was free to set whatever customer price they wanted for ebooks, even if it meant they were selling every single one of them at a loss. That brings up the razor/blades model, where it's not unusual for the razor to be sold at a loss, but the profit is made on the sale of the blades. So, if ebooks are the razors, what are the blades? The ereader device? According to iSuppli, the Kindle Fire's manufacturing cost is slightly higher than its retail price. How long can a retailer stay in business when they're losing money on both the razors and the blades? Presumably, they're making some money on other products they're selling (e.g., shoes, electronics, etc.). Perhaps. Then again, if they have deep enough pockets they can continue selling all their products at a loss until the cash dries up. In the meantime, competitors will find it difficult, if not impossible, to compete, so they'll disappear. What happens after that? Do prices remain low as products are still sold at a loss? Not if that company wants to stay in business.

The agency model prevents brand erosion — Think of the premium products you've bought or admired. Oftentimes, their prices are higher than most of the competition's. What would happen if those prices were suddenly significantly reduced? Would those products retain the full value of their premium brand? Highly unlikely. And shouldn't the owner of that brand have a say in what price is associated with it? Again, it's OK for a short-term loss-leader model, but I'm talking about selling something at or below cost for years and years, not just for a day or two. Over time, the value of that brand is affected. That's why I think publishers should definitely have the option to go with the agency model so they can manage retail prices and not let their brand lose value. By the way, consumers will ultimately vote with their wallets. If they feel the publisher's prices are too high, they'll stop buying and that publisher will either need to make adjustments or go out of business.

Fixed prices vs. price-fixing — In the U.S., we're so used to competitive retailer discounts that we're surprised to hear of the fixed price models used in other countries. For example, in Germany the price you pay for a book doesn't change from one retailer to the next. They're all required to sell them at the same price. Obviously, there's a huge difference between Germany's fixed price law and the price fixing the Justice Department is alleging. Germany's model doesn't lend itself to squeezing out waste like the U.S. model, but I'll bet it prevents one deep-pocketed retailer from putting its competitors out of business.

I don't work at a big six publisher, but I believe publishers should have the option to choose between the agency and wholesale models. The key issue though is that the Justice Department has suggested that Apple and a number of publishers colluded to keep prices high. I think this article by Gordon Crovitz in The Wall Street Journal sums it up quite nicely, particularly in the closing two paragraphs. Read that piece and ask yourself if the Justice Department's efforts will actually fix or merely add to an existing problem.

What's your opinion of the pricing questions and allegations currently facing the book publishing industry?

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Here are a few of the stories that caught my attention this week in the publishing space.

Barnes & Noble puts its foot down on Amazon

Last week, Amazon teamed up with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to print and distribute the Amazon Publishing East Coast's adult titles under a new imprint, New Harvest. Some speculated the move might get Amazon through the brick-and-mortar doors of B&N. This week, B&N made it clear that not only would HMH's New Harvest imprint not make it in the door, but that no Amazon Publishing title would. In a post for the New York Times, Julie Bosman quoted from a statement made by Jaime Carey, B&N's chief merchandising officer:

"Our decision is based on Amazon's continued push for exclusivity with publishers, agents and the authors they represent. These exclusives have prohibited us from offering certain e-books to our customers. Their actions have undermined the industry as a whole and have prevented millions of customers from having access to content. It's clear to us that Amazon has proven they would not be a good publishing partner to Barnes & Noble as they continue to pull content off the market for their own self interest."

O'Reilly's general manager and publisher Joe Wikert called on B&N this week to disrupt the industry — maybe this is its first move. Bosman also took a look at B&N's position in the industry and its importance to the publishing ecosystem, especially in the face of a competitor like Amazon. Jordan Weissmann at The Atlantic mulled the prospects of Amazon killing publishing and argued: "In a financial arms race, publishers simply can't beat Amazon's arsenal."

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Breaking up is hard to do

Amazon had issues with a social networking partner this week as well. As of Monday, Goodreads no longer displayed book data from the Amazon Product Advertising API, opting instead to move its data partnership to the Ingram Book Company. A Goodread's representative told Laura Hazard Owen that "the [API license agreement] terms now required by Amazon have become so restrictive that it makes better business sense to work with other data sources." Owen outlined some of the specifics on the restrictions:

"Amazon requires sites that use its API to link that content back to the Amazon site exclusively — so a book page on Goodreads would have to link only to its product page on Amazon and not to any other source or retailer ... Amazon also does not allow any content from its API to be used on mobile sites and apps."

Jon Mitchell at ReadWriteWeb took a deeper look into the situation — and explained why Goodreads will survive its breakup with Amazon.

The news caused some readers to worry about their cultivated Goodreads bookshelves. GalleyCat detailed potential data issues and offered up a Goodreads link that allows users to check on the state of their shelves to see if any tidying up is necessary.

Jonathan Franzen waxes absurd on ebooks

There's no shortage of things slated to be destroying society, and this week, author Jonathan Franzen added ebooks to the list. The Telegraph quoted Franzen speaking at a book festival in Cartagena, Colombia:

"I think, for serious readers, a sense of permanence has always been part of the experience. Everything else in your life is fluid, but here is this text that doesn't change. Will there still be readers 50 years from now who feel that way? Who have that hunger for something permanent and unalterable? I don’t have a crystal ball. But I do fear that it's going to be very hard to make the world work if there's no permanence like that."

Chenda Ngak at CBS's techt@lk took offense at Franzen's remarks, stating: "Even if I agree with him, as a book lover, his statements are too condescending to take seriously." Jonathan Segura at NPR chimed in as well, calling Franzen's comments "absurd" and pleading that we "get past the e-books versus print books thing." Segura's final comment pretty much summed up the overarching sentiment:

"We should worry less about how people get their books and — say it with me now! — just be glad that people are reading."

Photo (top): Kiftsgate Court, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire - No Entry - sign by ell brown, on Flickr

Photo (bottom): Broken Kindle by kodomut, on Flickr

Related:

We're in the midst of a restructuring of the publishing universe (don't panic)

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Coming soon to a location near you: The Amazon Store?

Open Question: Is it realistic for publishers to cut Amazon out of the equation?

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Apple is slated to announce the fruits of its labor on improving the use of technology in education at its special media event on Thursday, January 19. While speculation has so far centered on digital textbooks, sources close to the matter have confirmed to Ars that Apple will announce tools to help create interactive e-books—the "GarageBand for e-books," so to speak—and expand its current platform to distribute them to iPhone and iPad users.

Along with the details we were able to gather from our sources, we also spoke to two experts in the field of digital publishing to get a clearer picture of the significance of what Apple is planning to announce.






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Amazon just sealed the deal on a partnership with 11,000 public libraries in the United States to allow Kindle owners to visit and check out books using their ereaders, straight from the library's web site. Just make sure to have your library card handy. More »

Although its copyright settlement with publishers is still in legal limbo, Google has announced that it will be starting to sell e-books through an online storefront early this summer. Like Apple and Amazon, Google's store would see it offer up in-print books obtained from publishers, which will retain their ability to set the prices for these works. But there's every reason to expect that the same storefront will be awash with out-of-print books the minute that Google can get a settlement for its ongoing lawsuit approved.

Google apparently dropped the news at a publishing industry event, sponsored by the Book Industry Study Group, and held in New York City. It has since been picked up by, well, just about everyone (many reports seem to be crediting a Wall Street Journal story for the announcement).






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Liza Daly's recent piece in the New York Times inspired a great back-channel discussion among O'Reilly's editors. The subject: pros and cons of ebook links, annotations, and notes. There was a lot of interesting back-and-forth, so I asked participants if we could publicly share a handful of excerpts.

Mike Loukides on the reading path:

... inasmuch as I have lots of questions when I'm reading, I don't think I'd like to have the tools to answer them right at my fingertips. It's too easy, at least for me, to move from Little Dorrit to the entry on the Marshalsea in Wikipedia to a history of debtor's prisons, and sooner or later: what was I reading?

I suppose it depends on the implementation. The "Annotated" series from the 70s was, I think, just annoying. Better to just read the book and go back later for the commentary, rather than shoving it all in the reader's face.

There's an excellent book titled "What Jane Austen Ate and Dickens Knew" that goes into all the nitty-gritty background: how much was rent, how much did bread cost; if someone has an income of 500 pounds, is that a lot or a little? But it's a good thing that this information is packaged up in a separate book, not embedded into my copies of Dickens' books. But if someone could figure out the right way to build this kind of reading experience in a way that wasn't intrusive, that would be really good.

Adam Witwer on annotations as an option:


As a formerly serious student of literature (I got better!), I couldn't agree with Mike's sentiments more. The more difficult and rewarding stuff that I've read required all of my focus and attention. The only secondary aid I wanted was a dictionary, which is why the built-in simplicity of the iPad dictionary is such a beautiful thing.

Still, there are some texts for which the annotations are an indispensable part of the experience. I would have found "Ulysses" to be nearly impenetrable in places if I didn't have the annotations handy. To have those annotations somehow built in to the ebook so that I could easily flick back and forth between text and annotation sounds very appealing to the grad student in me.

Tim O'Reilly on anticipating a reader's needs:

The Oxford edition of Trollope has amazing footnotes, but they really get in the way of reading the book. If you don't ignore them, you don't get the benefit of the narrative because you're constantly distracted.

But I still think back to my days editing. One of my principles was that you had to anticipate the reader's questions and objections, so that just when they were about to leave you anticipated their need and filled it. It's what makes a great book compelling. I was so delighted when a reader wrote in about one of our "X" books to say that just as a question was starting to bubble to the top of his mind, Adrian [Nye] answered it. That's an awesome technical book. So even if the reader can go out for more info, it increases the need for thoughtfulness about what the reader really needs to know.

Russell Jones on a toggle solution:

There's a difference between linked information (where links can become obsolete) and embedded information, which is persistent. I'm sure you've all had the frustrating experience of clicking on a link only to find that the information is no longer available. In contrast, footnotes or endnotes in a book are always available. Ebook publishers can use both, as needed. If the information is critical (and small), embed it; otherwise, link to it.

The UI problem of all the ancillary material getting in the way of a clean reading experience can be solved easily, by simply making the links/extra info invisible until the user reveals them. That can be done through a gesture, a Ctrl+Click or some other unused-in-ebook-reading action. The reveal would be a toggle, so users could turn it off equally easily. That lets publishers include as much ancillary information as they wish without interfering with the reading experience.

And because I can't resist adding my own two cents ...

Ebook discussions sometimes degenerate binary debates. Digital vs. print. Disconnected vs. connected. Sometimes even good vs. bad (although that's a bit much). But what I found most interesting about this conversation is that everyone approached the topic from a use-case perspective. And use cases vary wildly between people, and even within people. It all depends on the particular need, goal or subject. That's precisely why I find the toggle solution proposed by Russell Jones so compelling. There's no "or" involved. You'd have public and private, disconnected and connected. Just flick a switch for your desired experience.

iPhone/iPad: The native PDF reader on portable Apple devices isn't quite a genius app, especially with larger files. To read huge PDFs, Office docs, and other documents, and grab them over Wi-Fi, Dropbox, or other web services, try GoodReader. More »

Tunecore has been a boon for musicians like Trent Reznor, who pay the Brooklyn-based company a flat fee of $40 or so and then see their music available for sale on Amazon, iTunes, and eMusic. The copyrights all remain in the artists' hands, as do the revenues; after paying the flat fee, 100 percent of the payout returns to the artists. (The digital stores take their cut first, of course.)

Today, Tunecore announced that it would extend this model to e-books through a service called Bibliocore. After an upfront payment, the e-book is delivered to Apple's iBookstore, rights remain with the author, and Bibliocore takes no cut of the royalties.

To participate, you need a few basic things. First, you need an ePub formatted book that has passed the 1.0.5 ePub check, contains no unmanifested files, and has its own ISBN number. Second, you need some cover art, at least 600 pixels "along the larger axis." Third, you fill out some metadata and set the price. Boom.

The service, now launching in beta, doesn't currently offer listed prices; interested authors must e-mail for a custom quote. Along with numerous other services like Smashwords, Bibliocore makes it simple to get books into the iBookstore. But once you're in, then what? Authors face the challenges of abundance that musicians have faced for the last decade. How do you get noticed? Who will help you market your work? How does one book a reading tour?

For those who already have an established audience, such services look like an incredible way to up one's royalty percentage on each sale—at the cost of being much more entrepreneurial about spreading the word, getting a cover designed, generating blurbs, getting an ISBN, buying all that brie for the launch party... But if you're ready to become youre own indie publisher, it's quickly becoming simple to do. Companies like Smashwords can even distribute to multiple stores, including Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and now the iBookstore, saving would-be authors even more work.

Publishers have been watching the music biz carefully, and have hopefully learned some lessons. They're about to face the same pressures: infringement gets easier, disintermediation means that publishers aren't the gatekeepers to quality work they once were, and digital storefronts can soon start dictating terms to you if they grow too powerful.

Print-on-demand has done its own disintermediation work for the last five years, but the sheer ease of the new devices and the digital storefronts, along with their recent popularity, look set to bring a whole new level of entrepreneurial activity to the book world—and that probably means more pain for traditional publishers.



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Dear Lifehacker,I've got a lot of ebooks in PDF and other formats, but some e-readers—like, oh, this iPad I just bought—only support specific formats with their default reader apps. What's the best way to convert those PDFs to ePub? More »