Nick Bogaty

Last month, the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), a trade and standards organization for the digital publishing industry, announced Michael Smith as its new executive director. Smith, who replaces Nick Bogaty, is charged with directing the IDPF’s efforts to promote the newly adopted Open Publication Structure 2.0 and .epub file format, which the organization approved as the official digital publishing industry standard in September. In October, Hachette Book Group USA was the first publisher to announce that it had adopted the new standard. Smith, who previously managed e-book and book production for Harlequin Enterprises Ltd. for its North American, U.K. and Australian

The Executive Director of the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) Nick Bogaty speaks with Book Business Extra about the International Digital Publishing Forum’s (IDPF) work to help standardize digital publishing. In late November, the trade association joined forces with the Association of American Publishers (AAP) to help educate book publishers on the background of the new industrywide technical standards IDPF is introducing for digital content delivery. Book Business Extra: From what you saw at November’s meeting at the AAP, how are book publishers catching on to the standardization of eBooks? Nick Bogaty: Publishers, especially trade publishers, have long created their XML eBooks

The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), the standards and trade association for digital publishing, joined forces with the Association of American Publishers (AAP) this week to help educate book publishers on the background of the new industry-wide technical standards for digital content delivery. The IDPF’s new digital standard for packaging a digital publication, including the contents of the publication, metadata, signatures, encryption, rights and other information, into one standard file were formally introduced Wednesday to publishing leaders by the association during a meeting at the AAP’s New York offices. The registration was limited to 50 attendees for the event. According to the IDPF, its Open eBook

New York, N.Y. (February 28, 2005) -- Will digital textbooks replace print? Do Books offer improvements in learning? These questions and presentations on the advantages of using digital media to deliver educational content will be center stage at the Books in Education Conference, Thursday, April 14th, 2005 at the McGraw-Hill Auditorium in midtown Manhattan. The Open book Forum (of) is sponsoring this one-day event to present the latest developments in digital reading technologies, case studies on Books in the classroom, new business models for online curriculum, and legislative initiatives for digital textbooks. Presenters include educators, and representatives from textbook publishers, software companies, and online

After several reboots, e-book publishing is seeing signs of growth. Recent sales figures compiled by the Open eBook Forum (OeBF) have given publishers an indication of what the future holds. And that future might be now. For the first quarter of 2004, e-books posted double-digit growth (28 percent), and though revenue is projected to be a modest $13 million for the year, sales are rising, and the OeBF, an international trade and standards organization for the electronic publishing industry, began tracking sales of trade titles via a monthly bestseller list in March. Given all the optimism, publishers have taken a harder look at their

A new consumer survey finds 70% of readers are ready to buy electronic books if they can read them on any computer. The survey also finds 67% of consumers are ready to read electronic books, and 62% would borrow e-books from the library. The research was sponsored by the Open E-Book Forum (OEBF), an industry trade association that promotes e-book technologies. But if consumers are ready to thumb through electronic pages, sentiment among leading book publishers hasn't changed. They believe consumers and retailers still aren't ready for e-books. Publishers are also wondering how to integrate e-books into manufacturing and distribution workflows originally designed