How Social Sharing, E-samples, And Mobile Can Revitalize Book Publishing
The EPUB format is based on HTML, but EPUB files are designed to be downloaded and then read locally. It is essentially a self-contained output format, albeit a more flexible one than PDF. If sample ebooks were available in HTML5, they could not be read without an Internet connection, but they would be readable on any size screen. More importantly, however, HTML5 ebook samples give the publisher far more control over social sharing, the inclusion of links to related information, and -- above all -- links to e-commerce sites.
John Parsons (john@intuideas.com), former Editorial Director of The Seybold Report, is an independent writer, ghostwriter, and editor. He is the co-author of the interactive printed textbook, Introduction to Graphic Communication, on the art, science and business of print, which has been adopted by Ryerson, Arizona State, the University of Houston, and many other schools and vocational training centers. Custom editions of the book are under consideration by major printing companies and franchises for internal training purposes.