Technology

2013 Meeting Guide: At the Trade Shows: Hope and Opportunity Spring Eternal
January 4, 2013

Where is the book industry going, what will my workplace and career opportunities be like, what do I need to know to keep up with the times? Or, in a more cosmic vein, what does the future hold?

In an effort to answer these questions, publishers have settled each year into a series of industry meetings of general interest. Each has a unique theme, as noted below. They make the effort to bring together a cross section of publishers, associations, service providers and media professionals to connect with audiences ranging from first-time aspirants to seasoned managers and executives in every channel and of every level of responsibility.

Following is my own overview of the events with which I have become familiar through the years. I would say that a judicious choice of BEA or ALA and any one of the others whose focus comes closest to your own would provide a more than satisfying menu. If I had to attend only one: (a) I would pick BEA or ALA if my interest was in authors, reading, content and publishing as an enterprise, and (b) if my primary concerns were business development and operating management, I would choose any of the others from whose quality of attendee profiles and lists of presenters, speakers, sponsors and exhibitors I would expect to learn the most.

The Metadata Handbook Published in Both PDF and Print
November 16, 2012

Columbus, OH, November 15, 2012 – DataCurate announces the publication of The Metadata Handbook, a one-stop guide for book publishers — large, small, and independent — offering help in understanding how metadata works and outlining the essential components of successful metadata creation and distribution.

Topics covered include:

  • How metadata for books operates in the real world
  • Metadata fundamentals & the history of metadata for books
  • Standards and best practices for creating and distributing accurate and comprehensive metadata
  • The basics of ONIX for Books, including ONIX 3.0
  • The basics of EPUB 3 metadata options
  • The latest metadata trends, including metadata for self-publishers.
The first comprehensive reference to publisher metadata, The Metadata Handbook includes a glossary of more than 150 industry and technical terms, a bibliography providing access to metadata documentation and further reading, and directories of industry organizations and vendors.

HACHETTE BOOK GROUP ANNOUNCES EPUB3 PROGRAM LAUNCH
November 15, 2012

November 16, 2012 – Hachette  Digital today announced the launch of Hachette Book Group’s EPUB3 program.  Hachette Digital is committed to the EPUB3 format, which allows greater flexibility in representing enhanced content, including interactive covers,

Putting Fans To Work: A new tool for successful author events
November 7, 2012

For authors, one of the risks of doing promotional events is sitting at a table stacked high with books and reading to an empty room. Even in this era of social media, getting out into the meatspace to build an audience is vital for authors. But not only is it demoralizing when the book you've poured your passion into is met with a shrug (or worse), it's a big waste of time—time that could have been spent, say, promoting a more successful event.

What's an author to do? Andrew Kessler—entrepreneur and author of "Martian Summer," his first-hand account of shadowing NASA's 2009 Phoenix Mars Lander mission—thinks he has an answer.

Twelve Tips for Agile Product Development
November 1, 2012

As publishers become increasingly digital, both in workflow and product offering, we will continue to hear more and more about the agile publishing model. Agile is a methodology that comes from the software development industry. Its main components are iterative design, rapid prototyping, minimum viable product (MVP), customer feedback loops which provide behavioral and usage analytics and data-driven decision making.

Essentially, the objective of agile is to push things to market more quickly, and to learn from actual usage patterns. The data collected informs subsequent product releases. While this model has yet to be fully realized or articulated in the publishing space, there are components of it which have been the subject of experimentation among publishers. If your company is just starting in agile or is in the midst of implementing an agile workflow, here are a few tips to keep in mind:

Impelsys' iPublishCentral Platform Powers New Bowker "Book as an Android App"
October 23, 2012

Impelsys, a global leader in providing electronic content delivery solutions, is powering the innovative new Bowker(R) "Book as an Android App," with its award-winning iPublishCentral software platform.

"Book as an Android App" allows authors and small publishers to use Bowker's popular

to create Android-compatible eBook apps from any PDF or ePub document, opening new sales channels such as Google Play and the Amazon App Store.

"We've partnered with Bowker to make available to their customers a simple option for creating their own eBook app, which helps authors and small publishers better market their titles to potential readers," said Sameer Shariff, founder and CEO of Impelsys.

Ebooks: An Analytics Gold Mine
October 17, 2012

Just as ebooks have turned book publishing on its head, so is a new breed of rich media reading devices changing the ebook paradigm. Publishers who delver their ebooks through dedicated reading apps on iPads, Kindle Fires, Nook Tablets and platforms such as Impelsys, Inkling, MAZ and Copia, are privy to volumes of data on how their customers consume their content, from basic information such as how many pages they've read to more granular info such as, "Was this test-preparation chapter effective."

Behind the Curtain on Cross Platform Production
October 16, 2012

Look at the publishing news these days and you'll read as much about devices as you do about books. There are new families of Kindles, Kobos and Nooks on the block; Google's Nexus 7 is outselling the Kindle Fire; Microsoft is betting big on its Surface tablet; oh, and maybe you've heard about an iPad mini coming 'round the bend? And let's not even get into the wild world of smartphones. Point is, while the printed book was once a platform unto itself, now the ways people read "books," and the devices they read on, are expanding.

Scientists Convert a 53,000-Word Book Into DNA
August 16, 2012

In a scientific first, Harvard University researches successfully transformed a 53,426-word book into DNA, the same substance that provides the genetic template for all living things. The achievement could eventually lead to the mass adoption of DNA as a long-term storage medium.

Published Thursday in the journal Science, the experiment aimed to demonstrate the viability of storing large amounts of data on DNA molecules. DNA can actually store more information per cubic millimeter than flash memory or even some experimental storage techs, IEEE Spectrum reports.