Gene Therapy: Embracing E-books
Getting started with the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle.
October 2008 By Eugene G. Schwartz
As Steve Potash, CEO of Overdrive and president of the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), said last spring at IDPF’s annual meeting: The world of digital books is expanding, and there is a steady flow of major publishers and technology providers adopting the .epub standard.
What we’re going through now is a ramping-up stage during which it can’t be either/or—nobody is saying that we will accept or deliver only in .epub. Accepting only .epub formats is likely to be the first move that’s made, because the advantage to publishers is that they will have only one electronic book version with one ISBN of which to keep track.
What really created the turning point for all of this was the launch of Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader—the first to use the magic of electronic ink, called e-ink.
In Part 1 of this two-part series (Book Business, September 2008), I described the evolution of e-book technologies to this point, and how and why the .epub standard for the e-book was introduced. This column explores what you need to do to provide your books on the Reader and Kindle, if you’re not already doing so.
The Sony Reader
Sony’s Reader reached the U.S. market two years ago and was the first device to feature the user-friendly e-ink reflective display screen that overcame the liabilities of backlit LED screens. It quickly caught the attention of trade publishing professionals, and for many has become a valuable tool.
Publishers, editors, reviewers, and marketing and promotion executives who spend large amounts of time reading manuscripts in various stages of consideration or development are able, in a few moments, to take Word files, save them as RTF files, drag them to the Sony eBook Library application on their computers and load them into the Reader. The Reader has become a popular reviewing tool—during business and leisure travel, the morning commute, and even in the office—for both the prepublication and pre-acquisition stages of a new title.
The primary purpose of the Reader, of course, is to introduce the convenience, economies and portability of e-books to consumers. As with all re-flowable reading devices and platforms, the books that most benefit are one-color general trade and reference works that do not have complex text and graphic element structures. (Because text can flow freely into the available screen area when, for instance, font sizes are increased, tying text to graphical elements is a challenge.) However, the Reader sports eight shades of grey, and handles images and illustrations quite well, according to Daniel Albohn, Sony Reader manager of new business development, who for the past six years has been working in the publishing industry’s digital space, and is seen regularly at IDPF, BookExpo America and many other industry gatherings evangelizing for the Reader and strengthening Sony’s relationships with publishers and librarians.
What we’re going through now is a ramping-up stage during which it can’t be either/or—nobody is saying that we will accept or deliver only in .epub. Accepting only .epub formats is likely to be the first move that’s made, because the advantage to publishers is that they will have only one electronic book version with one ISBN of which to keep track.
What really created the turning point for all of this was the launch of Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader—the first to use the magic of electronic ink, called e-ink.
In Part 1 of this two-part series (Book Business, September 2008), I described the evolution of e-book technologies to this point, and how and why the .epub standard for the e-book was introduced. This column explores what you need to do to provide your books on the Reader and Kindle, if you’re not already doing so.
The Sony Reader
Sony’s Reader reached the U.S. market two years ago and was the first device to feature the user-friendly e-ink reflective display screen that overcame the liabilities of backlit LED screens. It quickly caught the attention of trade publishing professionals, and for many has become a valuable tool.
Publishers, editors, reviewers, and marketing and promotion executives who spend large amounts of time reading manuscripts in various stages of consideration or development are able, in a few moments, to take Word files, save them as RTF files, drag them to the Sony eBook Library application on their computers and load them into the Reader. The Reader has become a popular reviewing tool—during business and leisure travel, the morning commute, and even in the office—for both the prepublication and pre-acquisition stages of a new title.
The primary purpose of the Reader, of course, is to introduce the convenience, economies and portability of e-books to consumers. As with all re-flowable reading devices and platforms, the books that most benefit are one-color general trade and reference works that do not have complex text and graphic element structures. (Because text can flow freely into the available screen area when, for instance, font sizes are increased, tying text to graphical elements is a challenge.) However, the Reader sports eight shades of grey, and handles images and illustrations quite well, according to Daniel Albohn, Sony Reader manager of new business development, who for the past six years has been working in the publishing industry’s digital space, and is seen regularly at IDPF, BookExpo America and many other industry gatherings evangelizing for the Reader and strengthening Sony’s relationships with publishers and librarians.
I do not find anywhere what e-book publishers need in order to to make e-books available for the Sony .epub application.