Diatribe on "Book: A Futurist's Manifesto, Part 1"

As the title states, this "Book" from the O'Reilly collection is a compendium of dissertations covering some of the challenges and changes facing the publishing industry today, with commentary on how those changes might (or should) take place, ranging from overall conceptual shifts to specific issues of implementation.

The book itself was produced using (and as a test platform for) the new PressBooks utility, an online ebook creation and conversion tool that allows for outputting to multiple formats, including ePub, Kindle, HTML, InDesign-ready XML and print-ready PDF. While this efficient workflow is admirable in principle (and is discussed in both theory and detail in the book itself), the ebook editions I downloaded each suffer from some inconsistent (or just poor) formatting, broken external links, and at least one garbled graphic on the Kindle Fire (double tapping to zoom produced an image with full width but squashed to just a few pixels in height). I viewed the book in ePub format in iBooks (on the iPad2) and Adobe Digital Editions (PC), as well as Mobi format on both Kindle 3 and the Kindle Fire.

Currently the book contains only the first of three parts, with the next two said to be forthcoming as free "updates" for anyone who purchases part one. As each part is added the initial price will increase from its current $7.95, so getting in now guarantees the best value. However, you can also read the entire thing online for free. A print edition will be forthcoming once the book is finished.

Part 1: The Setup

As with most collections of essays, this one is a mixed bag, being aimed for the most part at medium to large scale publishing houses whose outmoded production model is currently in flux. While much of the content is of little use to indie authors and other content creators, the overall discussion of the changing landscape of publishing is informative and enlightening (if often pedantic and heavy-handed).

The opening essay in particular - "Context, Not Container" - while conceptually interesting, is nearly unreadable due to the utter tedium of its writing style and lack of a clearly stated thesis. It's a typically long-winded academic dissertation aimed at an unspecified target audience, filled with repetitive arguments and undefined terminology, which could have been said more clearly in a fraction of the space. Ultimately, it's as if we're reading an extract from a conversation for which we are not privy to the beginning, and in which a large number of us ultimately do not belong, since the subject applies only to a subset of content creators (a distinction made far more relevant and interesting in the final essay of this section by Craig Mod).

The overall concept of a broader content ecosystem that exists beyond the confines of its container makes great sense and is highly relevant to the future evolution of electronic texts; but the essay seems to place the content author at the bottom of an infinite pile, forgetting that without an artist's vision there can be no art at all. While the elements of the author's palette now extend far beyond the borders of the visible canvas, one must remember that these are all tools for the artist to use, and constitute a broader new "container," rather than the lack of one. The interconnected world is the new container.

To my mind this is an underlying flaw in the focus of the whole collection, which is aimed not so much at what can be done by content creators, but how e-production houses and aggregators can gain the most by implementing a workflow which creates the greatest efficiency and widest possible distribution to all platforms. Certainly this is a valid goal for all content, and is particularly relevant with respect to content that reflows easily, as much content does. But one of the foremost challenges facing content creators on the "bleeding edge" is in the areas where this is either undesirable, or simply not possible without destroying what the content is (i.e. as a work of art); some content simply requires a fixed state to retain its essential nature. Rethinking the container (or the canvas, as I prefer to think of it) is a fundamental shift which will be far more difficult for some than others.

However, that fundamental shift in perception is one we all will need to make, from seeing ebooks as a re-creation of what print books have been, to what ebooks can be in their new environment: the interconnected, interactive world without borders. The idea of an "infinite canvas" that stretches out endlessly in all directions from the e-reader viewport was a great revelation. Imagine, for example, the screen as a magnifying glass positioned over a giant globe - like Google Earth - that can travel in any direction endlessly, both horizontally and vertically, as well as in and out, with links like transportation hubs between distant points (this might be a great concept for an adventure novel, for example, with directional travel "paths" like an Indiana Jones vignette rather than mono-directional page turns). And those dimensions of travel are not limited in time or space: the reader's own input and interaction can effect the outcome, and alter the content itself by, for example, adding commentary or participating in an interconnected network of readers who each input information in a Wikipedia-like way. It's in ways like this that the "container" has been shattered.

These are just examples of what an ebook can be. But it's not necessarily what they should be (certainly not in all cases, at any rate). Just because the borders of the canvas can be transcended doesn't mean they must be. The iPad, for example, is a device with a specific dimension and resolution, a canvas with a frame if you will, and that in itself is a medium many artists will make great art on (and are with fixed layout epubs), entirely within those boundaries. Just because you can morph the Mona Lisa's nose doesn't make it better art than what daVinci created. And I can't imagine he would appreciate it much in any case, or think it an improvement.

So even though the lid is off, there must still be a "box" where the core content resides. Otherwise, there is no longer an author or artist, and the readers themselves become the content creators, a conceit which is flawed in its very nature, since there is no longer a place for individual authors and artists in that world, and content without a guiding creative force can only become dissipated and, ultimately, forgotten. Great works are created by great minds, not by common consensus or collating the voices of the multitudes. Art by committee is not art but socialism. By the laws of the bell chart this can only result in reduction to the average.

As for the remainder of the essays in this section of the book, most of them were only relevant to large production houses facing a major restructuring of their workflow in the digital age. There are chapters covering topics from aggregated distribution to the history of metadata and the usual concerns with DRM. Interesting, and useful to know, but nothing that hasn't been written and discussed elsewhere already.

Of most value and interest to my mind (as an author and independent publisher) were Liza Daly's essay on 'What We Can Do with "Books",' which discusses the malleable nature of the digital medium and how interactive elements can give readers a chance to participate and explore a more immersive text in a real and focused way. The idea of a book as a living document, for example, that can be updated automatically in revised editions like software upgrades is intriguing. This very book is an example of that, with additions coming later this year. I recently read about an author who is selling the first chapter of her book for .99 cents, with additional chapters to be added as completed for no additional charge, simply by updating the retailer-hosted file. This not only gives her an income during the writing process (sort of an advance for the self-pub ebook era), but also allows her readers to offer feedback that she can incorporate into the story as it progresses. That's very much the idea I had in mind as I've posted up the pages and completed chapters of my current Ring Saga project for readers to peruse (albeit without any real feedback aside from friends so far, so at this point it's pretty much a failed experiment, but it may yet grow as time goes on).

Very much related to this is Craig Mod's insightful analysis of the "post-artifact" landscape of content creation. As mentioned earlier, I found this of particular value, with its discussion of the more direct interaction that can now be had between the author and the reader (theoretically at least, although he mentions more successful examples than mine), due to the narrowing and overlap of creation and distribution phases of content creation itself. The book is worth purchasing (or reading online at any rate) for this essay alone. It is a well-crafted piece of analysis with clearly defined concepts, into which a lot of thought and originality has gone. Would that all the essays included were as well written.

The overall impression the "Book" gives is not just of an industry in turmoil, but of a cultural icon and symbol of human progress undergoing a fundamental change. And that says a lot about who we are, and where we're going.

Book Rating: 3/5


#bookreview #ebook #eprdctn #selfpub #indieauthor

SVG Text in iBooks Fixed Layout

Here's a really cool video from those awesome eBookNinjas, showing some crazy sweet stuff you can do with SVG text in the iBooks fixed layout format. This is a children's picture book their e-production company eBookArchitects has put together (kudos to Bridget!), and I have to say it really excites me about the possibilities for more advanced graphic novels.

Being able to wrap and warp text while still having it remain interactive for functions such as highlighting and dictionaries - or the read-aloud feature displayed here - is a really critical step in creating complex illustrated books that can retain the elements that make ebooks so awesome in the first place. I've been following these guys for awhile now, as well as many others working on these problems, and eBookArchitects are definitely one of the leaders in this field. So if you've got an ebook project that requires complex formatting, you really need look no further.

Mirasol Color Display Goes On Sale

As I mentioned yesterday, Qualcomm debuted its new full color Mirasol e-paper display on a 5.7" Android tablet, with a 30-frame-per-second refresh rate for smooth scrolling and video. That tablet went on sale today.

The Kyobo eReader is now shipping in Korea where the book retailer Kyobo is based. Retailing at around $300, the device features a 1024x768 capacitive touch screen with front-lit LEDs for illuminated reading in dim light. The reader sports a 1Ghz processor running Android 2.3, and is WiFi only. No mention was made of its memory specs, but battery life is estimated at about 3 weeks, which is impressive. That factor alone should make it catch the attention of western device retailers. If user reviews are good expect to see next year's incarnation of the Kindle Touch in color.

For anyone who's interested, Mirasol's technology works essentially by refracting ambient light through tiny prism-like mirrors which rotate or "flip" magnetically to display a given color. Although these reflective particles are microscopic, they require a small amount of space to spin about, an "air gap" between the glass and surface. This is why I laughed so hard the other day when Barnes & Noble touted their new Nook Tablet as the first display without an air gap, as if that was somehow a major innovation.

The video below gives a brief demonstration of the Kyobo screen's refresh rate and color capabilities. To me it still looks a bit pastel, but it's certainly got speed and color. Color intensity and contrast will improve with time. I would like to have seen the screen demonstrated in a darker room to see how the LED illumination looks, but since it's only available in Korea at present it's a mute point for me anyway.

The Hobbit Issued as Enhanced eBook

One of the foremost prototypical fantasy novels of the modern era has been treated to a new edition for the digital age. J.R.R. Tolkien's perennial 1937 children's classic The Hobbit was released today as an enhanced edition for iBooks and Kindle, complete with 28 full color interactive images and four audio recordings of the author reading (and singing!) excerpts from the story.

The four recordings are:

• "Chip the Glasses and Crack the Plates!" (sung)
• "Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold"
• "Roast Mutton"
• "Riddles In The Dark"

New high resolution images of Tolkien's illustrations are included for the first time, which can be zoomed to full size by double tapping. Many of the original black and white drawings also now have alternate overlays colored by H. E. Riddett, which can be accessed and dismissed with a single tap or swipe. Among these are some unused drawings and several images of Tolkien's first handwritten manuscripts, complete with doodles and margin notes.

In addition, a new introduction by Christopher Tolkien examines the writing of the book and discusses many of the sketches and drawings that are included.

NOTE: KINDLE BUYERS BEWARE!!!

While this new edition has been released for both the Kindle and iBooks (and apparently soon the Nook), the interactive content is currently only available in iBooks. A notice beneath the book cover image on the Kindle edition page states that "Audio/Video" content is available only on iOS devices, but whether this refers to the interactive illustrations or just the audio is unclear. I'm guessing that the latter is the case, as it would be difficult to justify selling this edition as an "enhanced" ebook without at least one of the added features included. Even to release it as a semi-crippled version of what it was intended to be is pretty sketchy.

It is also uncertain if this is just a temporary glitch in the KF8 rollout, or if the enhanced features will be forthcoming for the Kindle edition at some point down the road. I would presume they will be for the reason I just mentioned (some serious backlash is certain to ensue otherwise), but since it isn't mentioned there's no way to be sure. Consequently I bought the iBooks edition, which works better on the larger screen anyway.

DC Comics on Amazon & Kindle

DC Comics has launched a branded page on Amazon where its line of 100 Kindle-exclusive titles are now for sale. Most of these now include the "Look Inside" feature so that you can view the first few pages before purchasing. The page also hosts a bestseller list and news of upcoming titles.

In addition to the current digital list, the entire DC print catalog is available as well. Reacting to the exclusive DC-Kindle deal, both Barnes & Nobles and Books-A-Million have pulled the print editions of 100 exclusive titles from their shelves. The exclusivity agreement is rumored to be for a four month window, meaning the two boycotting chains will now lose out on any potential holiday sales on these print titles, which can only help to strengthen Amazon's position. Stupid move.

Related to my prior post is the news that these and other KF8 formatted graphic novels would soon be supported on other Kindle devices and apps. Currently you can only view the new editions on the Kindle Fire itself, but once the KF8 format is rolled out across the Kindle ecosystem these new ebooks will load and sync on all your Kindle readers, whether that's an Amazon device or not. KF8 is not yet supported on the iPad 2, for example, even though the capability is clearly there.

My guess is that this delay in rolling out the format upgrade was intended to spur sales of the Fire tablet itself rather than service those who already read comics and graphic novels on the iPad. Having these 100 DC titles also available via the Kindle app for iPad would have partially undermined the exclusive nature of the DC-Kindle Fire release.

Graphic Novels on the Kindle Fire

Today I purchased the new Kindle Fire editions of both V for Vendetta and Sandman, Vol.1. I've been anxious to see how the new KF8 format delivers when it comes to complex graphic novels, since my current project relies entirely on its ability to render full screen color images with overlaid text effectively if it's to be successful in the Kindle format.

At left is a shot of a full panel of Sandman in the Kindle Fire's native reader. Colors are clear and vivid as expected, but the 7" screen presents text that is much too small to read. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that both pinch and zoom and horizontal orientation have inexplicably been turned off for both the titles I downloaded, so that the only way to enlarge the text is via KF8's version of Panel View. This renders graphic novels much the same way the Fire handles magazines, which is to say not well. Pinch and zoom has reached the point of being virtually synonymous with "touchscreen," so that its absence here is truly perplexing. In addition, pages load at annoying slow speeds in the Kindle Fire's reader, so that I found myself constantly swiping twice to turn a page, thinking it hadn't registered my first motion.

A further peculiarity is that the Kindle reader's guided panel view (see at right) only zooms each panel by a percentage of the original (roughly 150% or so), rather than expanding to fill the available screen from edge to edge like all the current comic apps do (including Comixology's Kindle Fire app, which I'll get to in a minute). And as you can see it does so over a dimmed out view of the full page image. I can see artistic reasons for doing this, the main one being controlled and consistent resizing of the artwork: smaller panels zoomed to full screen width can pixelate and become fuzzy with extreme expansion. And this points out the other major reason for restricting zoom, which is that it allows the use of smaller, more compressed images in what is already an extremely large file for an ebook even at these smaller image sizes (Vendetta is 87.8 Mb and Sandman 79.4).

Panel View is accessed and exited via double tapping as normal, and as usual while in the guided panel view swiping moves the zoomed-in image sequentially from one pane to the next, while swiping in full page view moves from one page to the next, albeit very slowly here. There is no menu function for turning Panel View on and off as in other apps (although it isn't needed either), but more importantly, the context menu is exactly the same as that in any other book read on the Kindle Fire, except that both the search and font resizing/typeface functions are inactive here: only the "Go To" links are available, though not surprisingly the table of contents link is grayed out for both of these books.

In Comixology - and every other comic app I have installed on my iPad 2, including Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse - there are additional menu features available for their graphic novels that the Kindle reader doesn't have, such as choices for page transitions, letterboxing (blacking out the white space at the top and bottom), and showing full pages on entering and/or exiting a new or completed page, on top of which there is built in metadata and in-app storefronts and content management. You can also generally browse through a comic in grid view (though not always), seeing an overview of the page sequence in thumbnail form, a function which serves as the graphic novel equivalent of a table of contents.

Somewhat surprisingly, given the Kindle reader's shortcomings mentioned above, the Comixology app on the Kindle Fire functions exactly the same as it does on the iPad, with the ability to pinch-and-zoom any page or panel, as well as rotating the device orientation to auto-zoom the individual panels, and including all the context menu options. As seen in the image below, the currently selected panel automatically expands to fill the available space. And more importantly, it does all this with absolutely smooth and seamless transitions regardless of the level of zoom, showing that the Kindle reader's quirks are not a shortcoming of the device hardware but a flaw in the Kindle reader software and/or format code itself.

Of course, an app is an entirely different creature than an ebook reader, which by its very nature is a much more simplified affair, designed (until now) primarily to accommodate the most basic requirements of text-based files, whereas apps can be as complex as its programmers need it to be (and their creativity and budget allows). Whoever devised the guided panel view was in my mind a deviously clever genius, and I take my hat off to them and hope they somehow find their way into a job in ebook formatting and code development.

Meanwhile, the Kindle reader app for the Fire tablet is at least a step in the right direction, and no small one at that. Although it's clunky and awkward like an old Ford Model T when set beside the sleek and regal Speedster that is the modern comics app, it's still a good beginning. While e-reader screens have finally reached the point where full color illustrated books look good - and often even stunning - the reader software and format code have got a long way to go yet to catch up with the cutting edge. With any luck the capability is there in the new KF8 and ePub3 specs and only needs the proper implementation to bring out. But only time will tell.

Still, that being said, even a PDF viewed in the Kindle Fire's reader loads in lightning fast when compared to the KF8 comics I just bought. On top of which they also allow for both orientation and zoom, as you can see from these two images of the Ring Saga pdf test file that I sideloaded into the Kindle Fire's document folder. Viewing a page in vertical orientation shows the full page by default, whereas rotating horizontally auto-zooms the page to fit the screen width, allowing for scrolling down the page and easier reading of the embedded text at a larger size. Unfortunately, of course, none of more advanced features found in the comic apps are available when viewing PDFs, nor are any of the standard text functions active, such as highlighting, built-in dictionaries, and the like, which is a common failing of this format.

This is hardly an ideal situation for those of us attempting to create full color content. While the technology is finally beginning to reach the realm of possibility, we're not there yet. Still, it's a start. Even with its limitations, this is a major advance for the Kindle reader, from black and white text with grayscale images only weeks ago to full color guided view graphic novels today (albeit clunky ones). Bold steps are being taken, and a lot of brilliant minds are hard at work, focused on this very problem. Another two years down the road and this will all be academic, I suppose. But for now it's really a major pain in my posterior.

Kindle Fire as a Reading Device

The big news this week, of course, was the release on Tuesday of the Kindle Fire 7" tablet. And while the new Nook Tablet also began shipping the very next day, it seems that no one's really talking much about it, whereas reviews of the Fire began flooding the web space literally within hours of release. Many of these are step by step, hands on evaluations that are very thorough, so I won't bother to go into all the specs and details here. Most of you will have read them already.

Yet with so many opinions and analyses of Amazon's latest Kindle device, surprisingly few of them have focused on the feature that the Kindle was built for in the first place: reading. Yes, this is a multimedia device, and yes, Amazon is no longer just a bookstore. But while this new incarnation of the Kindle can handle audio and video with ease, my own foremost interest in it is as a reading machine.

Much of the online debate this week has been the Fire vs. iPad argument, with the general consensus that for $199 bucks, you pretty much get what you pay for (for good and bad), and against that I certainly won't argue. The Kindle Fire does its job, but leaves much to be desired, at least if you've grown used to the larger screen size and virtually unlimited features of the iPad. But that's not what the Fire was intended to be, and Apple Insider said it best when they made the statement that the match up was really between Amazon and iTunes for content delivery. And there Amazon is really the only true challenger to Apple in the digital market space.

I don't plan to use my Fire for watching movies much more than on rare occasions, and as a general rule I don't play video games, preferring to spend my time reading. As for music, I have a 160 gig iPod, so why waste battery life and the limited storage space on the Fire? I'll use the streaming features some, but not extensively. So for me the question was not so much how the Fire stacks up against other multimedia tablets, but against other e-readers.

My main reason for purchasing a Kindle Fire was for its 7" color screen. eInk Kindles have proven to be a huge boon to the ebook reading market, making digital books a real pleasure to read for the first time. But their one great disadvantage is the lack of color. Even for readers of standard text-based books, viewing the cover in 16 shades of gray is a truly disappointing experience, starting off what otherwise promises to be a new adventure with a lackluster sendoff. Yet for fans of illustrated books and graphic novels the experience has been utterly disheartening.

That is, until the iPad arrived. Reading color pages such as magazines and comics on the iPad's rich and vivid screen is truly thrilling. So the hope was that a 7" screen could somehow capture that as well. But unfortunately it's a mixed experience. I will say here that in general the Fire's touch interface is quick and responsive (almost overly so), although there are slight burps and gurgles here and there, though nothing terrible. I have had a few buggy issues with downloading apps, but overall most things seem to work as planned. Sideloading content is easy enough, and the Fire automatically sorts each item into its appropriate category without any problem. I loaded .prc, .mobi., .azw, and .pdf files via USB, all of which worked fine, and pictures show up crisp and clear.

Comixology's app comes pre-installed on the Fire, so I was able to open up my graphic novel copy of Dante's Inferno and enjoy the guided Panel View - a pane-by-pane sequence that scrolls and zooms from one panel to the next which any reader of digital comics will be familar with. In this mode the text and images were crisp and clear and the reading experience delightful. But viewing the pages as a whole rendered them entirely unreadable, although you can pinch and zoom to view it in sections. So while this is possible on the smaller 7" screen, it's not ideal, and panel view is really the only way to read comics here, while on the larger iPad either way works fine.

The Kindle reader itself now features Panel View, but the only titles I could find available so far were children's picture books. The Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Sandman and a few others will be released for the Kindle Fire tomorrow, so I'll post a further review of these in the days to come.

Reading an ordinary illustrated book seemed antiquated by comparison, with the images sandwiched in between blocks of text due to the limitations of the previous file formats. Amazon has yet to release its KF8 and KindleGen2 file conversion protocol and interface, so only the older, now outdated mobi/azw code is being used for building Kindle books. But with the introduction of these cheaper tablets, that is about to change. The mobi format is being retired in favor of the KF8 update, although the new tablet will still read it.

So while reading graphic novels and comics is a joy on the Fire, magazines were a big disappointment for me, as they function essentially as a PDF, with pinch and zoom your only real means of navigating the columns of content. There is an option to view only the text, but that seems to defeat the purpose of a magazine, and thoroughly eradicates any attempt at style devised by the graphic designers (who must be cringing at the thought). Reading magazines on the iPad has become my preferred method of consuming periodical content, due to its intuitive interface and advanced features not available in print editions. So while the Fire delivers with vivid images, the text is much to difficult to interact with comfortably in this iteration of the software. Future upgrades will likely fix this, but at present I'll keep reading magazines on my iPad 2.

The final factor, of course, is the now seemingly age-old debate between eInk and reading on a backlit screen. Frankly, I like both. There are pros and cons to each, so the reading situation really dictates which I'll use, and this is one of the Kindle line's finest features: the ability to effortlessly sync between devices. I like the eInk screen for daylight reading, but since I tend to read indoors more often than not, in a dimly lit house and often at night, the LCD screen tends to serve me better. My eyes aren't bothered at all by long stints of reading, often preceded and followed by lengthy sessions in front of dual widescreen monitors. It's just a fact of the modern age that content is now consumed on brightly lit screens. Get used to it.

However, that brings up this weeks other big news, which is Qualcomm's demonstration (video here) of a 5.7" Android tablet with a full color Mirasol display (an eInk variant, more or less) capable of a 30 frames-per-second refresh rate, which is fast enough for smooth scrolling and video. They announced this week that they are investing just shy of one billion dollars ($975,000,000) into manufacturing plants to ramp up production. So expect to see a lot more e-reading devices start to show up with a color eInk-type display. And this may well include next year's line of Kindles.

Idaho Book Extravaganza Audiocasts Now Available

Audio recordings for 17 of the 2011 IBE Workshops have been made available as of today. Each one runs an hour and can be downloaded as MP3s for $4.99 apiece, which is a steal, really, as the full two-day pass ran $55.00 and with multiple workshops running consecutively the most you could have attended were eight. Now you can pick and choose the ones that sound most promising and pay for only those. So for those of you who were unable to attend, or did but missed out on some lectures (or merely wish to revisit one you did), now's your chance to tune in to some fascinating conversations.

Here's the full list of the sessions that are out (some were apparently not recorded, or were not released for technical or legal reasons):

• Turning Your Experiences Into A Book - Walt Hampton
• The Future of Publishing - Don Jacobson, Tim Vandehey, Vincent Zandri, Maryanna Young
• Converting Your Current Titles Into eBooks - Jason Chatraw
• Writing To Change: How to Write Books That Inspire Change in Your Community - Don Jacobson
• Advanced Social Media Traffic Tips & Campaigns - Alex Gutierrez
• Going From Backlist to Best Selling Author - Vincent Zandri
• 30 Ways To Make Big Money As A Writer - Tim Vendehey
• Social Media is Your Friend: Online Marketing Essentials for Authors - Thubten
• Write Your Best Book: The Writing & Editing Process - Stracy Ennis
• 30 Years in Publishing & Still Standing - Robin Lee Hatcher Answers All Your Publishing Questions
• Personal Finance for Creative People - Pamela Thompson
• Essential You Need To Know About Writing & Publishing - Maryanna Young
• Getting Published, Case Studies & Success Stories from the Authors Themselves - Jennifer Deroin, Sarah Tregay, Yvonne Rousseau, Estevan Vega, Walt Hampton
• Online Story Telling: Effectively Marketing Yourself on the Web - Corey Smith
• Copyrights, Trademarks & Fair Use Explained - Brad Frazer

Out of all these, the most useful and informative one for me was given by Aaron Patterson, and is not available as audio, even though he wore a mic, so I'm not sure why that is. Tune in to his blog or follow him on Twitter @mstersmith for an insightful look into independent publishing and author marketing. Aside from that, the other standout was Jason Chatraw's talk on ebook conversion. Most of what he says I've already talked about in depth here (which you can find by searching my archived posts), but his discussion is a fairly thorough and well-organized introduction for those just starting out.

The event was a lot of fun, with a good attendance and a well-represented trade show, and I definitely plan to go next year. With any luck I'll have my own booth, so I hope to see you there.

Scrivener for Windows Finally Released

At long last, it's finally here...

I've been waiting for the Windows version of Scrivener to come out for well over a year now, having received outstanding reviews from a number of writer friends who are fortunate enough to have used the Mac version for several years. With Word becoming increasingly bloated with features few novelists would ever use, and none of those they really need, Microsoft's Office suite has become more and more a business person's tool and far less helpful for creative endeavors. I actually deleted my copy of Office 2010 (version 14) in favor of the far more streamlined and efficient Office XP (version 10), albeit with an added plug-in to allow me to read .docx files I get sent. Scrivener is what Word should have become. And for those of us who are Windows-bound it's been a long time coming.

Scrivener is a "complete writing studio" - an all-encompassing creation tool and project manager that houses a wide range of disparate elements all geared toward the organization and development of creative writing projects, with particular benefits for those that are long and complex. As you can see from the image above, there is a corkboard which replicates an index card system, but with the benefits of electronic manipulation of both content and order: they can be rearranged with ease, blown up for easier viewing, and customized to your heart's desire.

There are linked outlining tools that access and compile all your research notes and files, including audio/video and web documents, creating a central hub where all your reference sources are readily available. Scrivener can even temporarily combine multiple documents for viewing and editing as a single cohesive whole, while saving each piece separately. Using the outline tools allows you to rearrange these pieces easily using drag and drop. These organization tools are far more powerful and useful than those in Word, with visual elements that let you color-code and see the bigger picture at a glance.

At its heart, of course, is a simple, but powerful word processor with all the formatting options you'll ever need. It will even convert your story into script format, or mix formats for writing rough draft treatments. Statistics show your progress for both overall and session word-count targets. It even has a name generator to help with character creation. And finally, it will export your document to both ePub and Kindle formats, as well as Word, RTF, PDF and HTML for external editing or file sharing.


My current "organization system"

I'm looking forward to importing my current notes and outlines into Scrivener and getting down to work on that final draft, but I sure wish I had had it six months ago when I was working on the outline and the first draft.

You can download a free trial version of Scrivener for Windows or Mac OS X here.

Nook Tablet vs. Kindle Fire

The tablet wars officially began today as Barnes & Noble fired a warning shot across the bow of Amazon's flagship tablet, the Kindle Fire. Making a number of direct comparisons to their arch-competitor, B&N CEO William Lynch came out with guns blazing, stating that the new Nook Tablet has "seven times more storage capacity" than the Kindle Fire, is "faster", and has the first "no air gap" screen!

Say what?

You mean my 1024 x 768 9.7" iPad screen really sucks because it has an air gap? Bummer. I guess I better toss that piece of crap out and get a 7" 1024 x 600 Nook Tablet instead. Yeah, it's 169-ppi instead of 132 (as if that really makes a big difference), but what I want to know is how exactly does 1080p HD streaming work on a screen that's only 1024 pixels wide? And wait a minute, isn't the Kindle Fire's screen also 1024 x 600 @ 169-ppi resolution, just like the Nook? But oh, if only it wasn't for that crappy air gap!

And let me get this straight, 16Gb versus 8Gb of onboard storage is ... how much? ... 7 times more capacity? That must make the Nook Tablet's $249 price tag about seven times more expensive than the $199 Kindle Fire. And how exactly is the Nook's 1GHz dual-core processor "faster" than the Fire's exact same specs? Especially when a hands-on review over at Gizmondo showed the new Nook's performance to be sluggish and lagging in both the browser and the interface, while the Kindle Fire was smooth and smoking fast.

Here's a handy comparison chart for those of you who want a side-by-side lineup of features...

Kindle Fire vs. Nook Tablet (courtesy of CNET)

The only real advantage I can see to the Nook over the Kindle is the microSD card slot, which will allow for added storage portability and rooting to a full Android OS (with access to the Android app store). But with cloud storage onboard memory is rapidly becoming irrelevant, so that content availability is really of "Prime" importance here, and in that department Amazon wins hands down. Barnes & Noble can only claim to be the "biggest bookstore in the world" because they have brick and mortar stores as well as an online website. But fewer and fewer people are shopping in those physical stores, which is why they've recently jettisoned their entire DVD/Audiobook departments - in favor of ... what? ... toys and games?! How exactly is that helpful in advancing their digital platform?

But here's the real qualm: whereas with Amazon you can get video streaming, free monthly ebook rentals, and free two-day shipping all for $79 per year, Barnes and Noble is somehow touting "access" to their new "content partnerships" with Netflix, Hulu, and Rhapsody as bonus perks of their device. Seriously? So paying $7.99 a month for Netflix streaming ($95 a year for access to a truly lame movie selection), and another $7.99 a month for Hulu Plus so that I can watch television shows that I can DVR already (that's $190 a year now), plus $9.99 a month for Rhapsody (an additional $120/year) so I can listen to music I can listen to for free with Pandora or will likely buy on iTunes anyway if I like it. Where exactly is the advantage for me here? Do they have any kind of book programs on this thing?

Oh, yeah, they were the first ones to do ebook lending. There's a plus. Except that Amazon now does it better with a variety of lending programs in place (not to mention the handful of third-party sites that mediate the Kindle lending process). If B&N was first then why aren't there a dozen Nook eBook lending sites out there somewhere? The answer: because Barnes & Noble's 27% of the eBook market still pales in comparison to Amazon's 66% - and that's where size really matters. The square footage of your buildings and warehouses matters not a whit if someone else's warehouses are doing more business. Biggest bookstore in the world? I don't think so.

Still, another factor might be important to consider here, and that's the Nook's native ePub support. Whereas Amazon's main format is proprietary, ePubs are open source and quickly becoming universal. In a way it boggles me that Amazon has been able to make its restricted ebooks the dominant format in the market. But that just goes to show you the power of a dominant device. Barnes & Noble has a lot of ground to make up if it plans to overtake the Kindle as an e-reading leader, and I really have to question whether this new Nook line is anywhere near enough to close the gap (unless it's an air gap, that is - honestly, is anybody buying that line? Is anyone really going to look at the Nook and go, "Oh my God, look! There's no air gap!!! How awesome is that?!").

But really when it comes right down to it there's only one comparison that shoppers are going to make, and that's the $249 price tag versus $199. Because when it comes to dollars and cents, there's just no comparison.

And finally, just for the fun of it, here's some video promos for this new Nook Tablet...

ePub File Download Fixed

The ePub file for the chapbook download has been packed into a RAR and reuploaded for those of you who had problems trying to access it before. Apparently the Yahoo uploader was making some structural changes to the ePub archive that caused it to be unreadable, so I've wrapped it in a .rar container which seems to have solved the issue. The same thing happened when I tried to zip the ePub and upload that, so it must be something in the way Yahoo's File Manager sees zipped archives that renders them unusable.

At any rate, I'll leave the files up for another week or so before taking them down, so get them while you can. I'll be making a fixed layout ePub available in the near future for those of you with iPads, so stay tuned for that. I'm currently studying the new ePub3 specs and learning HTML5/CSS3 coding so I can create better formatting and add some interactive features to the book, like moving elements and audio, and possibly a video biography and some behind-the-scenes features.

Thanks to those who informed me of the ePub problem, and let me know if there are any further issues.

Case Study: Print vs. eBooks Sales

I talk a lot about the ebook "revolution" here, and how it's developing in terms of trends and stats. And while it's certainly interesting to see facts and figures such as those I put up in my last post, I thought it might be a good idea to give a personal insight into why these numbers matter.

Although the figures reported by the "Big Six" of the industry and their major market outlets show one side of the story, for many of us down here on the streets of independent-ville there's an altogether different perspective on those facts. New York Times best-sellers in the main marquee at Barnes & Noble may sell tons of print editions and a relatively moderate supply of ebooks by comparison. But while those handful of titles may make up the majority of sales overall, they don't make up even a fraction of the titles being sold and read around the globe. For every Grisham thriller selling millions each, there are millions of titles selling only handfuls each, but being read and enjoyed by humans nonetheless. How they get before those eyes is irrelevant in the end, except in knowing how and where an author might best market their work.

So here's my personal take on the digital versus print issue...

Above is a screenshot of the print book sales of my first novel The Saga of Beowulf on Amazon, over the course of the last two years. The book came out in October of 2008, but Amazon's sales tracking in Author Central only goes back this far. This accounts for some 50-60 sales in nearly two years, at least one spike of which is six books purchased by a friend of mine for clients. Initial sales after the book's launch were higher and more consistent for the first six months while I was promoting it heavily, and these are all residual sales achieved well after the fact with no additional promotion other than this blog and my website. Certainly nothing to make a living from, but at a list price of $14.99 for a 640 page historical fantasy novel by an unknown author, it's not surprising.

But here's where it gets interesting...

These are my Kindle sales for the same title over the last 15 months, which is again as far back as Amazon has tracking data available. This accounts for over 600 copies sold in three-quarters of the time the print book chart covers, and only for the single volume edition on Amazon here in the U.S. There is also a two-volume version available with bonus content on virtually every online retailer out there, including the iPad where print books are verboten. But this version sells the best. So while my print edition has barely cracked the top 100,000 on a handful of occasions, the equivalent digital edition has never fallen below 200,000 ever, and peaked at around 9600 not long after its release, with a 13,000 appearance just last month. And this at a price of $4.99 (which Amazon has consistently discounted to $2.51 for most of its life thus far). It's not a .99 cent novel, and can never be, since the large file size prohibits it. If it were .99 cents, it would probably sell even better. But since the book's release three years ago now I've sold close to 3000 copies altogether, in all editions and venues, so I'm okay with that. Particularly given where things seem to be going.

You'll note an interesting shift in my sales trend beginning the day after last Christmas, and continuing steadily ever since. That's when people started buying ebooks for their new Kindles. This is what my sales looked like back in late 2008 and early 2009 as I was undertaking a blog tour, garnering reviews, and doing interviews. But as I said, this new trend is with absolutely no directed promotion on my part at all. Instead, the jump is entirely due to the number of Kindles given as gifts last year and the rapidly increasing number of people reading ebooks. So you can see why I'm a little bit excited for this holiday season and the release of Amazon's new tablet, and why the stats for ebook sales overall are of particular interest to me.

Big name authors may still make their living from selling print editions, but I certainly don't, and I likely never will. But ebooks offer a glimmer of hope.