09.1.2K7: Publishing: The Castle analogy

At times, discussion forums devoted to books or e-books discuss the possibilities for e-books for the future. Often, these discussions become monotonously predictable and for understandable reasons.

Those who are considered inside the traditional publishing industry, in other words the successful print publishers, authors in print, and the distributors and bookstore chains that stock and sell their material, commonly denigrate e-books and the idea of selling books digitally. They cannot see how e-books can fit into their current paradigm of how publishing works, nor do they show much of an interest in finding out. They also insist that, without the currently "perfected" system of book publishing and distribution, the entire industry will simply collapse, and no more books will be written ever again.

Those outside the traditional industry are those who tend to appreciate e-books. They see the traditional paradigm as a way to make themselves a profit on books... however, gaining access to the traditional system is very daunting, bordering on impossible, for most of them. The outsiders therefore see e-books as a new way to publish and sell their books without being involved in the traditional industry, and they promote the new paradigm enthusiastically. Neither side wishes to see the other sides' point of view... only they can be "right," and the others are clearly "wrong."

I now refer to this as the Castle analogy. The traditional publishing industry, that is, publishers and agents, distributors, and bookstores, represent the Castle: Purposely walled off to keep outsiders out, insulated and isolated, to the extent that they are removed from the realities of the overall economy, and act according to their own limited view of things outside. The castle is essentially dedicated to maintaining the status quo, no matter the cost, and the publishers are the gatekeepers. Castle members will occasionally give access to those they deem worthy, but most people are pointedly shut out of their system, and left seeking a way in.

To those within the castle, outsiders—in particular, e-book writers and readers—are the "barbarians," angry at being shut out, and therefore determined to sack the castle and lay ruin to order and sensibility. Outsiders are uncouth and ignorant, not to mention bad writers, stupidly abandoning the very virtues of the system that made it great, and attempting to impose a new system that is clearly doomed to failure.

To those outside of the castle, those inside the castle are considered hopeless "elitists": Completely out of touch with the realities of the outside world, and at the same time contributing to the lack of progress by hoarding their resources, maximized by their own system, and preventing outsiders from making changes to that system. The outsiders further see themselves as the future of the industry, and believe that the elitist insiders deserve to be sacked, as soon as possible, to wrest control of a dying industry from them and allow Free Market Progress to impose itself again.

I think this analogy fits, especially as it suggests that if there is a full-scale battle for possession of the book industry, we will all suffer, insiders and outsiders alike, before the smoke clears. Historically, castles that maintained their sovereignty and refused to bend to the will of the people, were eventually overwhelmed by the outsiders, and often torn down stone by stone. And castles that defeated attempts to be overwhelmed only found themselves isolated, and without outside support, collapsed on their own in time. In either case, recovery was painfully slow and wasteful, often taking generations before progress could be assessed.

The castles that fared better were those in which the insiders were willing to come out and meet the outsiders half-way, finding an effective way for both groups to co-exist. Those castles still stand today, but as museums, giving modern visitors a view of The Way It Was. And the insiders and outsiders have melded together to form new collectives, operating in new ways and prospering according to their gifts.

Are the traditional publishers and e-book pundits destined to fight their own crusade over the future of publishing? Or will insiders and outsiders shake hands on the battlefield and agree to work together? Unfortunately, neither side seems to be bending overmuch... and that's not a good sign.

09.8.2K7: Amazon's e-book push

Over the last few years, Amazon has been taking incremental steps to move into the e-book field. Their first steps, occasionally providing links to other sites that offered e-book versions of their printed books, did not last long. Their second step was creating an e-book that could be read from their website only... you could not download and keep the copy on your computer or other device. Their third step was to buy Mobipocket, by far the dominant e-book format right now (in terms of content, and the fact that versions of the Mobipocket reader exist for almost every computer and device platform).

Now, Amazon is preparing to sell its own e-book reader. Called the Kindle, the reader is expected to sell for $400-500 USD. The Kindle will exclusively read Amazon's newly-purchased Mobipocket format, which also allows for a level of DRM to be applied to the books. It will also be capable of displaying web pages, and will include a wireless modem. This should make it easy for users to get online, buy Mobipocket books from Amazon, and enjoy them wherever they are.

However, Amazon has made some questionable decisions regarding its e-book program. For one thing, the Kindle device is pricey at $400 or more, and isn't particularly attractive... the Sony reader, a much nicer product, sells for $300-350, and has sold for as low as $50 with the purchase of a Sony credit card. Mobipocket files can also be read on free readers on PDAs, smartphones, laptops, etc, making the Kindle less than necessary. Although wireless web access is nice, the Kindle will be optimized only for viewing very basic, non-animated, non-color-dependent sites... like, say, Amazon.com. Its screen, based on e-ink, views in 4 shades of grey only, and the browser cannot handle animation, flash, or other non-standard web content (though presumably it can handle javascript, in order to accept those book payments). So any web browsing will be limited at best, and downright ugly and unsatisfying at worst.

Finally, in purchasing and exclusively using Mobipocket, Amazon is pointedly ignoring the standardized ePub format recently released by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), and endorsed by Adobe, a major digital publishing player, and Sony, producers of the currently popular reader that is (by Sony's account, anyway) enjoying great sales. Most of the electronic publishers are hoping that a standardized format, easily ported to any reader or format, will help immensely to improve e-book sales and popularity, and remove many of the confusing roadblocks that keep the common consumer away from e-books. Amazon, in effect, is promoting its own format, and since they now own the company, it is now proprietary to Amazon. The e-book industry has already seen too many e-publishers with proprietary formats or software go belly-up or change their focus, thereby stranding e-book purchasers whose e-books suddenly could not be read. Dominating the market with proprietary formats will make many people nervous.

(Edit: I have since discovered that Mobipocket is working to support importing of the ePub encapsulated files, meaning that users will be able to convert standardized e-book formats to Mobipocket. Although it's more work for users, it is still good news overall.)

Still, Amazon is a company that is now famous for building its infrastructure, brick by brick, for years, and waiting patiently until they started making profit. They are obviously in for the long haul, and they've shown a willingness to tweak underperforming systems until they work as desired. The steps that they are presently taking may be incremental, and not all of them may be wise. But the Amazon keeps flowing, evolving, and replenishing, and over time, they could manage to inundate the entire e-book field. Only time will tell whether Amazon will someday engulf the e-book, or simply flow past it.

09.18.2K7: ePub: The new e-book standard

Last week, the International Digital Publishing Forum finalized their Open Publication Structure (OPS 2.0 v0.987) and Open Packaging Format (OPF 2.0 v0.9847), and declared them a recommended standard for producing e-books. All of which is a long way to say that their new ePub system is now considered a specification, not just a guideline.

The ePub format is actually not just one file, but a collection of files, mostly based on HTML with appropriate style sheets (aka XML), and all contained in a zip file. The group of files are designed to identify the components of the document, and allow an e-book reader to organize and present the document properly. Its main strength is, since it is based on a non-proprietary XML format, it can be created by anyone, and accessed by any e-reader that has the ePub system programmed into it.

Even before the final recommendation, Sony, producer of the latest e-reader, MobiPocket, creator of e-book software for virtually every computer platform, and Adobe, creator of Acrobat and the new Digital Editions, have announced that they will implement the ePub standard in their software and hardware. This may well make ePub the closest thing the e-book world has to a standardized e-book format... one of the chief requirements to bringing the e-book industry together, according to many pundits (including myself).

For myself, I plan to release my novels in ePub as well (although, since no hardware or software is actually reading it yet, there's no rush). Still, it is hoped that after a few years, I may not need to release my e-books in anything but ePub, and you'll be able to read them on anything you'd like, simplifying everyone's lives immensely.

09.25.2K7: Borders-Sony partnership follows Amazon

On the heels of Amazon.com's announcement of its Kindle e-book reader and e-book push, Borders Books has announced a partnership with Sony, maker of the very popular PRS-500 e-ink Reader. Borders plans to expand its sales of Sony's Reader, as well as co-branding an online store that will bring approximately 20,000 e-books to the public, and eventually be tied into Borders.com.

News of two of the biggest bookstores in the U.S., both with a strong online presence (Amazon exclusively online, of course), endorsing e-books and readers, is a boon to the e-book world. The fact that Sony has also agreed to support ePub in future Readers is also significant... Amazon's reader will run MobiPocket, which has also agreed to support ePub. That means the two readers sold by the two big bookstores will support a common e-book format, making it possible for anyone who writes an e-book to sell it to the two largest markets with one format. Widespread promotion of e-books and standardized formats have been two of the elements that have been severely lacking in the spread of e-books with the popular culture, and many believe that they could be the elements that finally push the e-book "over the hill."

Still of concern is the cost of the Readers, $300USD for the Sony, and possibly $500 for the Kindle (it has not yet been released). Most e-book fans, and certainly anyone outside of the e-book circle, consider such a price exceedingly high, and likely to limit any rollout of even a popular device. Many hope the bookstores will find a way to reduce costs of the readers, to bring them more in line with prices the American consumer would be more comfortable with. A few of us have speculated that the bookstores might subsidize the reader through a "book club" system, wherein the member buys the reader at a substantial discount, in exchange for an agreement to purchase X number of e-books (possibly also discounted) over a period of time. All of this is speculation, however, and it remains to be seen how the bookstores will attempt to bring the American consumer over to the e-book side.