eBooks, the Sequel
eBooks are back, and this time it looks like they're here to stay. Trebuchet President Eli Willner comments on the phenomena and what it means to you - and to Trebuchet!
Waxing nostalgic is for oldsters, not for young folk like me, but permit me to indulge myself just a bit. Around ten years ago I was Director of Technology at a prominent high-end data conversion facility, learning the nuances of the just-minted technology known as “XML” and watching what I felt was the latest passing fad – something called “eBooks” – out of the corner of my eye.
A fellow publishing enthusiast and I were shooting the breeze one afternoon and I was enumerating the reasons I was skeptical about the concept. He said, “You know, I agree that there are barriers but they’re surmountable. The idea isn’t as crazy as you think – in fact, Barnes & Noble recently made a major commitment to eBooks – they established a digital content division and are signing up both publishers and platform developers in droves. They’re encountering some of the very problems you’re mentioning and they need help – and I think you’re just the guy who can help them. Why don’t you give them a call?”
So I did, and found myself Chief Technologist of the B&N Digital Content Division a short time later. It was one of the most challenging gigs of my career. Everything was new – the eBook formats (PDF eBook, OEB and several others were in their first incarnations at the time), the delivery platforms (anyone remember SoftBook and RocketBook?), digital rights management technology, and the processes to convert typesetting files created as print masters into useful electronic documents.
The tools provided for the conversions were in beta form, and that’s being polite. Our captive facility in Manila utilized more workarounds than tools to extract the text and apply rudimentary tagging. A team was quickly assembled in New York to handle the ultimate conversion to eBook and to create the required metadata. Here too, workarounds were the order of the day. And we couldn’t afford to be leisurely about the process because Corporate optimistically committed – publicly – to have a couple of thousand eBooks online in just a few short months.
In addition to technical problems we had to contend with publishing politics – a visceral fear that eBooks would signal the End Of Publishing As We Know It and set loose the dogs of piracy. “If I let you convert my content to eBooks no one will every pay a nickel for a book again!”, was a frequent refrain – one that ignored the fact that anyone with a $50 scanner and half an hour of spare time could pirate a book a lot more easily than trying to “break” a protected eBook. But, a fear is a fear and logic often did not prevail.
When the dust settled, our team heroically managed to reach our several-thousand book target on time, but market acceptance was less than stellar. The devices were clunky, not that easy to read, and often expensive. Standardization efforts were only moderately successful. In the end, the market voted “not ready for this”, all involved muttered at the seemingly wasted expense and moved on to other things.
Well, it’s ten years later and it seems that the market is now voting “ready for this!” with a vengeance! What changed? Yes, e-Ink is cool and the devices somewhat less clunky but they are still mostly monochrome and still mostly expensive. Standards have advanced but are still problematic. Several key things did change, though, and are making all the difference:
- The Internet has accustomed publishers to the idea of electronic content distribution and the business model is better understood. The fear factor has largely disappeared.
- Almost everyone has some kind of hand-held device that can be pressed into service as an eBook reader. The dedicated devices are high-end, but there are more ubiquitous alternatives.
- People are more accepting of the “read at my PC” concept, especially for educational, news and other non-fiction content.
- Wider availability of “fat pipe” connections to the Internet, and wireless connections to the Internet, make content distribution a relatively painless process.
- People are familiar with the subscription model for content distribution; they buy music and movies that way and are disposed to buy reading content that way now as well.
- Social networking has taken the world by storm and people really like to annotate and share annotations, comment and share comments – and that is only practical when content is distributed and read electronically.
The last factor is probably the strongest one and, we believe, will strongly fuel an appetite for eBooks for the long-term.
This time the eBook revolution is real and here to stay. And I intend to capitalize on my own expertise in this domain, and on the expertise of my super staff, and will keep Trebuchet in the forefront of this exciting area of publishing.
Stay tuned to this space as we announce alliances with players of all kinds in the eBook world, for the provision of the full gamut of Trebuchet technical and editorial services!