Publisher marketing has quite been a buzzword recently. Essentially through the ‘Viral’ dimension of it, publishers now have a much stronger reach and hold on their target readers. This section will unleash the newest trends in the Publisher Marketing arena, giving away the best ways to leverage it for your business.

Publishers! Buckle-up for the viral marketing lane.

Why Viral marketing?

One of the coolest things about the Web is that when an idea takes off, it can propel a brand or company to seemingly direct fame and fortune. For free. Whatever you call it—viral, buzz, or word-of-mouth — having other people tell your story drives action. The challenge for marketers is to harness the amazing power of word-of-mouth.

Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s coverage and influence. It doesn’t matter if you have an outstanding product or an extremely well designed website, if people don’t know that it exists.

What’s in for the Publishers?

Promoting the e-book can be a crazy affair.

People can instantly see the value of a book that looks like for-purchase content but can actually be downloaded for free. Online tools are enabling publishers to spread the word about their books to more targeted audiences—and sometimes, at a much lower cost—than traditional marketing methods.

And the winner is – Widget Marketing!

Widgets are a Serious Marketing Opportunity and brands can use them tactically to form direct relationships with customer. They are like free advertising as they get your content/message onto peoples web pages and desktops at just the cost of the efforts invested in design and content. Their viral nature also means that a properly executed widget can reach the massive number of social networking audience.

What are Widgets?

Web widgets can be composed in HTML, JavaScript, Flash, and other scripting languages. These widgets run in the web page when the page is activated and is normally noticed along the left or appropriate feature bar or in the center of the post.

Widgets combine a range of digital marketing techniques:

• Online PR and strategic viral marketing
• Brand advertising and Brand engagement
• Direct response on sales and lead generation

Benefits of widgets for web marketing includes:

• Reach your customers faster!
• Low cost option
• Visitor engagement and effective call for action

Not only does the Widget enable publishers to promote their brand on the Internet, but also helps in increasing sales by directing traffic straight to the bookstores or retailers.

The Widget in a way acts as multiple storefronts spread all over the web. When a reader chances upon a widget he can view the table of content, browse a few sample pages from a book and search within the book before making a purchase decision.

This article was featured in the iPublishCentral Newsletter. To subscribe to our newsletters, write to us at marketing@impelsys.com

There are many reasons that eReaders and eBooks are changing the publishing landscape. As with any technology, early generations of software and hardware have led to continuous improvement over time. The technology behind eBooks is no exception.

The new ePub3 standard reveals the scope of ePub in the current technology trend with a move to HTML5 based content and key emerging technological advancements in all means. The ePub3 with HTML5 support provides rich media experience & interactivity, layout enhancements, global languages support and accessibility improvements.  So we hope to see all the features like video & audio embedding, metadata, linking, navigation, multimedia, font, scripting, text to speech, dynamic layouts, semantic mark-ups, etc., in an ePub with help of ePub3. This also provides opportunities for application developers to create eBook readers for web and mobile platforms.

While enthusiasts were analysing and trying to understand the specifications, I had an opportunity to work on a sample for the ePub3.  As a team, we have been working on all of the ePub3 features currently supported by the iPad. Below are the listings of the samples we have created using the latest ePub3 standards.

Video: Video can now be embedded in eBooks. Video spec: H.264 (a way of encoding video that’s free to use, but not public domain) is video standard right now, but there is a possibility of open standard by end of this year, that may change to another encoding which might be WebM, which is royalty-free.

Audio: Audio passages can also be embedded in eBooks, and ePub3 is better at adopting the current DAISY accessibility standards, making eReaders more useful to visually challenged users.

Interactivity:  An interactive ePub can act more like an app than a document, and can include features like pop-ups for images, tables, bibliography references, etc activated by clicking on words in the text.

Global language support:  Includes vertical writing, and writing from left-to-right and right-to-left.

Multi-column layout: A feature that will greatly enhance cookbooks and coffee table books.

Hyphenation: This helps page formatting, particularly in justified text, and avoids very tight or very loose lines of text.

Embedded fonts: This provides lot of opportunities to use any fonts in an eBook.

Improved accessibility:  The new NAV formats supersedes the NCX format (ePub2) by providing enhanced navigation within the eBook, improving the reader’s ability to jump to specific chapters, pages, and passages.

MathML: A mathematical specification that provides greater opportunities for textbook publishers to convert and publish texts as eBooks and also provides 100% searchable content which was not there in ePub2 where all maths are coded as images.

Compatibility

ePub3 readers will be backward compatible, meaning they will be able to read eBooks created in the ePub2 format. But ePub2 readers will not be able to read ePub3 documents, as there are structural, non-compatible changes between ePub2 and ePub3.

Would like to hear your thoughts on this emerging standard and your experiences that made things work better with ePub3. Please do share your experiences by writing to us at info@ipublishcentral.com

The future of eBooks is brimming with possibilities and promises. Nothing short of a revolution is happening in the domain of eBooks. Increased interactivity, e-reading clubs—authors, publishers and technology companies are pushing the frontiers and coming up with new ideas every day.

Here is a link that summarizes some of these trends

We live in a world that offers too many choices and too little time. Quick and easy access to relevant and accurate information in the most economical way is what discerning customers look for. They do not have the time or inclination to search for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Then why buy an entire book, when you can buy just the relevant chapters in the book?

Last weekend, I was reading a book on lateral thinking. After progressing through the first four chapters of the book, I came to a chapter on information processing. It seemed like an area that I already had some knowledge about. Skipping the chapter, I read the rest of the book.

It occurred to me that I should have not paid for that chapter since I did not need it. Just to confirm my hypothesis, I went back and read the chapter that I had skipped earlier. It had information about what I already knew, although the chapter also contained the author’s perspective and some new info. Also, the author had made a few references about this chapter elsewhere in the book.

So does buying just certain parts or chapters of a book make sense? From a cost perspective, the decision is clear. Why pay for something that you do not need.

Another advantage is the time you save by arriving where you want to be without having to cut through the clutter. Why oppress yourself by spending time on information irrelevant to you. Additionally, there is no information overload. But, as always is the case, there are two sides to this coin too. The main disadvantage to buying just the parts and not the whole is the potential risk of not completely understanding the concept discussed in the book. If the author is building his arguments or explaining his concept in the chapters you chose to skip, there is the danger of misinterpretation and misconception.

Fortunately, there are ways to address and overcome this problem. When authors realize that readers want buy chapters of the book, instead of the entire book, they would design each chapter as an independent self-contained entity. Detailed previews of chapters—and not just the preview of the whole book—would give customers an idea of what they want to buy or not.

With chapter sale, we would be embracing the internet experience of searching for the most pertinent info and finding related info from the links that the chapter contains.

At this point, I am not sure how this trend will evolve, but I do feel that chapter sale would be a great option that all textbook buyers would like to have.

Please email your thoughts and suggestions to info@ipublishcentral.com

The move has happened and electronic books are mainstream now. With more than 80 tablet devices expected to hit the markets this year, new markets are going to open up that will allow additional channels to monetize content. Publishers will need to be ready to address these new market opportunities by figuring out customer needs, product offering, pricing strategy, content formats, delivery options, development and marketing strategies. A complete mobile digital strategy, so to say. This series of articles will focus on a few things that you need to get in place to be ready for selling on these devices. This list is in no way comprehensive, but it will get you started on the thinking.

• If you are one of the few publishers still sitting on the sidelines, then this series of articles is a definite must-read for you.
• If you have already explored selling electronically and want to go on the devices with a full-fledged digital strategy, then this series will help you with what to keep in mind when you formulate your strategy.
• But, if you are among those who are already on their way with mobile products, apps and a mobile digital strategy - then this series can offer a few tips and ideas that you may not have thought about.

The term, eBooks, covers a wide range of possibilities, all the way from the familiar PDF to the new yet-to-establish formats. They are also consumed in various ways - on computers, on laptops, on PDAs, on smartphones and recently, on ereading devices and tablets. The ereading device revolution was unleashed by Amazon, with their Kindle reading device, and the tablet revolution by Apple, with the now ubiquitous iPad. These innovations opened the doors of mobile marketplaces for electonic books. The devices combined with their marketplace, have made ereaders and tablets the most preferred devices to consume eBooks.

Electronic Rights

The first place to start will be look at your title’s electronic rights. Though this may seem obvious, it is better to figure this out at the beginning rather than mid-way through defining your strategy. Do you have the rights for digitally publishing your titles? If not, you may need to renegotiate these rights with the rights holder - the authors, their agents or other distributors, who may have these rights. The rights should cover all devices and formats.

Geographic Rights

While figuring out the electronic rights, you may want to negotiate for the overall global rights for your electronic content. If you look at the spread globally of mobile technology and smartphones, the rate of growth is phenomenal in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries. Having rights to sell your electronic content in these countries will be important, as markets mature.

Language Rights

Most of us are familiar about how important the Spanish markets are, due to the huge market within the US. But, what about other languages? Chinese and Russian are three language that must be considered to have a global appeal for your content. These new markets will become important revenue generators in the near future.

Ancillary Rights

Now that the book rights have been figured out, what about the images that were used within the book? Were they a single-use license or print only? What about using the same image across different products? An eBook is essentially a different product from the print book in which the image would have been used originally. You need to make sure that you have the rights to these ancillaries or look around for suitable replacements. Ancillaries can be images, drawings, illustrations, videos, audio, and more.

Media Rights

As most of these tablets are multimedia devices, getting rights to different media adaptions of the book will ensure long-term adaptability for your content. Do you have the audio rights to the book? Can you deliver the title as an audio eBook or have a read-aloud option within the title? What about the rights to convert the book into a game? These media types provide immersive experiences and can provide additional monetizing options for the same content.

In the next part, we take a look at how you can plan your pricing and what you need to keep in mind while devising a mobile strategy. Watch this space for Part II, of Mobile Strategies - Pricing.

Over the years, the Internet has grown into a large repository of data and information that can be accessed from anywhere through multiple devices. Today you no longer need to be seated at your personal computer to read your e-mail or book movie tickets. Instead you could be on the beach, at the playing field, at the airport or in another country.

It has been our vision that books, like all digital products should be accessible and available all the time. We have worked hard to build an infrastructure that ensures that we can provide this to our publishing customers, who in turn can ensure that their books reach their readers anywhere and at all times. We watch with confidence as the market takes shape and as this vision of books being on the cloud turns to reality in the months to come.

There are three main reasons why books on the cloud makes sense and I have outlined them below:

Consumer is King
Consumer expectation is to have services available all the time - from Webmail, to Google docs, to salesforce, to Evernote consumer expectation is that they will have their services accessible from anywhere and from any device. Companies that understand this and create this access entry point are guaranteed success. An example for me is a note taking service. I have used several note taking applications; I put notes on my mac, on my blackberry, my iPad too has a few note apps. And then, a few months back I discovered Evernote. This amazing web application, wins over every other note taking software as I can confidently use it knowing that I access all of my notes at anytime from any of my devices, no matter where I am.

Muti-device accessibility
with the speed at which technology is advancing, it is difficult to judge whether our lives are getting simpler or more complicated. Today, we use multiple, multipurpose devices, to stay connected. I have my laptop, my home desktop, my smartphone, my blackberry, my iPad and I work and live my daily life going between all these devices. For convenience sake I EXPECT my applications and software to work interchangeably between all these devices. While I might be an early adopter of technology, a few years down line, this just like e-mail being available everywhere will be a norm for most people.

Follow the Leader(s)
Amazon recently announced that they are launching the web based kindle. With this version, Amazon is now ensuring that their customer can access their eBooks from anywhere and on any device. I use a kindle and I expect to read my books on my iPad, my kindle or on my iPhone. As the market leader, Amazon is establishing a benchmark in the industry by providing this experience; a benchmark that all customers like me will expect to have when using books in the eWorld.

These norms will push publishers to deliver their content on the cloud, needing sophisticated technology to achieve the same. The good news is that there are companies like ours who can provide this infrastructure. This is just the beginning, once books are on the cloud; the opportunities for the publisher are innumerable. Publishers need to realize that this is the future and start implementing their cloud strategy immediately.

A lot has been said about eBook pricing in the past year. Publishers now are in a stronger position of control, shunning older pricing models for models that fit in with their business objectives.

The Retail model

In the recent past, the retail model, made popular by retail giant Amazon, has been facing a lot of criticism from publishers. Under this model the publishers sells books to online retailers, who then sell it to readers at a price that the retailer determines. Amazon was buying eBooks from publisher for about $13 and selling the same eBook, at a loss-leader pricing, for $ 9.99 for reading on its Kindle eReader device.

The strategy of taking a loss on each eBook was aimed to push sales of the Kindle mainly succeeded in establishing $ 9.99 as an acceptable and popular price for an eBook.

The problem publishers have faced with this model are two fold. Besides having limited control over pricing, publishers believe that a standard pricing of $9.99 devalues the book — negatively impacting sales of the hardcover paperback.

The Agency model

Many publishers such as Macmillan, unhappy with the Amazon eBook pricing model that resulted in devaluing the content of the book, began pushing for an ‘Agency model’ for the sale of eBooks.

Under this model, the publisher shall remain the sole seller, and an online vendor like Amazon would merely act as an “agent,” in exchange for a percentage of the commission. This ensured that the publisher had full control over prices, rather than having to accept the standard $ 9.99 price made popular by Amazon. Under this system, Amazon would probably earn extra dollars from publishers as compared to their current loss-leader pricing model.

The war against the $ 9.99 eBook price was started when Macmillan challenged Amazon head-on and refused to settle for the $ 9.99 price. Macmillan was soon followed by the Hachette Book Group and Harper Collins. Amazon initially retaliated by refusing to sell Macmillan books through their online store. But in a short span of time, Amazon accepted Macmillan’s terms and put their books back on the Amazon store — but not without insisting that Macmillan prices were still needlessly high for e-books.

Apple too has adopted the agency model for eBooks on its iPad, by signing up with publishers such as Harper Collins, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster and Penguin.

The Subscription model

The problem that publishers faced with both the above models, be it the wholesaler-retailer model or the agency model (selling through agents), was lack of access to buyer statistics and behavior. In the future, publishers are largely going to shift from B2B to B2C business models i.e. selling directly to readers / end-users or institutions.

Under a B2C business model, the publisher enjoys certain advantages. Publishers have control over prices, get to know the readers directly and can gain insights into the usage of their content.  They can also sell several supplementary / ancillary assets at incremental prices directly through their website. This type of content monetizing is possible by adopting newer models such as marketplace Apps or subscriptions.

Many publishers are now choosing to supplement their retailers by distributing books and eBooks via their own branded eBookstores that have e-commerce systems built into them.

A buyer looking to purchase a particular book can visit the publishers’ eBookstore and buy the book directly from them. This is useful particularly when readers wish to gain access to several books in the store. Along with selling the titles individually, publishers can offer a monthly or yearly subscription to all the books in the store. Publishers can also go one step ahead and offer eBooks, eBook supplements or content chunks to customers on ‘rent’. i.e. enable micro-payments to provide access for a short periods of time. For example, a reader no longer has to buy an entire book just to access say Chapter-7 of the book. He can instead loan out the content for just as long as s/he needs it.

In the future, it is likely that more and more publishers will create and manage their very own eBookstores to supplement sales through their retailers, intermediaries and other online distributors. The advantage of reaching out directly to the end user, not only allows publishers greater control over prices, but also helps them understand their reader buying and consumption habits better.

Other Noteworthy Business models

Harper Studio

One model worth taking note of is the game changing business model by Harper Studio that pays the author 50% of the profit sharing as compared with the traditional 7-15% royalty that an author gets.

The model aims at seizing the doors of opportunity that technology has opened. Harper is looking at packing and supplementing their products with multimedia tools such as DVDs and / or embedded videos or narrative blurbs.

Odyssey editions

A group of well known and well respected authors, have formed Odyssey editions to sell their titles as Kindle ebook editions. Most of the books are priced under Amazon’s target eBook price of $9.99 and mostly undercut the price of the paperback edition. The model which offers self ePublishing authors 70% of sales, is facing flak from traditional publishers who have, under newer contracts been claiming exlusive eBook rights, offering authors only around 25% for ebook sales.

With the agent taking on the role of the publisher, Publishers such as Random house are disputing Odyssey’s rights to sell the ebooks.

References:

http://blog.macmillanspeaks.com/macmillan-ceo-john-sargent-on-the-agency-model-availability-and-price/
http://www.digitaltrends.com/gadgets/three-publishers-now-reject-amazons-9-99-ebooks/
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/135/fast-talk-the-experimenter.html
http://industry.bnet.com/media/10006134/harpercollins-inkpop-another-step-in-the-digital-publishing-revolution/
http://www.i-programmer.info/the-stone-tapes/1098-publishers-bypassed-by-kindle-ebooks.html

www.apple.com

The iPad has been around for more than four months now and after using it extensively for a multitude of purposes, here are some of my observations…

To start with, the iPad is not just a passing fad. Instead it is the birth of an entirely new category of devices; devices that, in the future, are going to be a majority. Steve Jobs has once again wowed us with more than just a beautifully designed product backed by meticulous marketing. He has in fact created a global phenomenon, one that everybody wants to be a part of.

Till date, Apple has sold over three million devices with millions more to soon be sold in countries all over the world. Citing a Forrester Research Report; Tablet PCs are expected to replace netbooks by 2012 to become a strong segment in the global PC market, and nearly one-fourth of personal computers in the US market will be tablets by 2015.

The second distinct feature of the iPad is its ability to instantly appeal and interact with almost anyone. Be it a 4 year old, a teenager, a grad student, a working professional, or a 74-year-old grandmother, the iPad appeals to everyone. The other day, I was at home watching a game on TV while my 4 year old daughter was clambering all over me, wanting to be entertained. Me, too involved in the game and not wanting to be distracted, opened up my iPad and tried to get her busy with one of the word building apps I had downloaded. Soon enough she figured she’d do better without my help and ran with my iPad to the far end of the room, sat herself in a corner and was engrossed in the game for the next 20 – 25 minutes.

This is just one example that further proves how fantastic this device is. Any device that can hold the attention of a 4 year old for more than 20 minutes is truly the future. The device finds its way into the lives of almost every individual and has an app to cater to almost any interest.

Third is the ease in which its intuitive touch based user interface facilitates interaction. The manner of interacting with this particular device takes us back to the basic, the natural dynamics of using our hands and fingers to interact with an object as compared to using mechanical devices such as a mouse or stylus to navigate.

Fourth is that this is a everything device. For me it’s a book, a magazine, a newspaper, a piano, a map, a video game player, a note pad, as an additional screen and much more. With the increasing number of apps, the functionality of the iPad is only going to increase, making it a necessity in our everyday lives. Fifteen years ago, no one imagined that cell phones would be such an important part of our everyday lives. I think this would be the case with tablet computers like the iPad too. Ten years down the line, we probably may never leave home without them.

Moving closer home to gauge the impact that this device has on publishing and the publishing industry brings me to my fifth observation. As technology partners for many leading publishing houses, this could be the device we have all been waiting for. The iPad allows us to do justice to our product offerings, taking learning and reading to a whole new level of engagement and interactivity.  It facilitates convenience for purchase and the ability to make impulse buys. Over the last month, many of the books I have bought have been the result of discussions and conversations with friends who have recommended a particular book or article and me buying the book then and there. An added advantage is that I have all my books and magazines in one place, and knowing that I can access all of my content at anytime, anywhere

This new category of devices is getting us closer than ever to the tipping point. We now have the device in place, information search in place, distribution through apps and eBookstores in place, as well as, the ease of payment through well established payment systems and infrastructure. For those of us in the Publishing industry - I’d say - The future has arrived.

With readers increasingly looking to the web and digital media for information search, learning and content needs, publishers have drastically expanded their business models to adapt to new and emerging trends, yet without losing sight of their core competency.

An interesting phenomena is the role social networks play in the publishing industry.

I would say that it impacts the industry in two major spheres

a) Sales

b) Content

Let me delve into this a little further;

Everyone has an opinion, and in the past, well that opinion was just an opinion. But today, opinions can be shared, heard and actually listened to. People share opinions about toothpaste, chocolate and well, most definitely the books they read.

Sales

A 16 year old cheerleader sitting in Austin could well be influencing your sales through her twitter profile, her facebook account or even her shared shelfari/ Amazon reading lists. That famous Harvard professor has the power to influence more than just the students he has spoken to by endorsing a particular book. Your author now has an even more powerful sales strategy that physical book signings in form of a fan page or a blog, managed from the comfort of his writing desk, saving millions of dollars that would otherwise be spent on a book tour.

Viral marketing tools like widgets that can be spread all over the web either by you, by your fans and readers or by authors enable readers to preview a sample of the book, search within the book, view the table of content or be directed to the e-commerce or retail site.

Today publishers are seeing the shift from a traditional B2B business model, where the sales cycle was incomplete without distributors and retailers. Without them, sales were more or less: nil. Publishers are surpassing these middlemen and have the option of selling directly to their readers. Today, it is relatively simple for publishers to create their own delivery platform or end user portal from where they can sell books directly to consumers. This enables them to reach readers spread over vast geographies with minimal investment. It also enables them to study reader behavior and preferences, that enables them to offer readers content chunks at lower prices, rather than the entire book which may not be if use to the reader. This could in way save them from piracy practices such as copying of books or the used textbooks market.

Content

Today readers are influencing and creating content in more ways that one. Not only do they call the shots when it comes to exactly which part of the content they prefer, social networking allows them to share opinions with readers who have the similar interests and expertise. Professors, schools and institutions now have the option of sampling content online. Social bookmarking too gives your content more visibility

Publishers now share a one on one relationship with readers and they have the option of ready reporting tools which tells them everything, from the number of pages read, time spent on each page, number of readers of a particular book old through an institution, notes made, recommendations and opinions shared, ancillary content used. This enables them to build content that is specific to user needs, and gives users the option of buying only that part of the content that they require.

In the education and professional learning sectors, too, social networking plays a vital role in creation of content. Readers of a particular book/topic are able to network with others of similar interests and expertise which allows the learning  experience to be enhanced by asking of questions, sharing of experiences and discussions.

Social networking in business has seen tremendous growth in the past few years, and its full potential, well, we’ll have to wait and watch where it takes us!

source: www.businessinsider.com

The iPad hit homes in the beginning of April and users have been going berserk playing with their sleek and shiny new toy. One single beautiful looking machine, gives them a host of entertainment options, starting from online web surfing, gaming, and most importantly reading and information consumption.

With the launch of the iPad, reader expectations seem to have skyrocketed. Readers now expect so much more from a book than just plain text. The iPad changes the way in which content is created and consumed owing to its video streaming, audio and interactive media capabilities.

The publishing industry for one is abuzz with predictions, hopes and, ambiguity. Many wonder, if the iPad will indeed define the future of books. Will print books eventually die out? Will publishing houses perish or evolve, the questions are endless and the predications aboundless.

Opinions are varied. Quoting Mr. Ulrich Hegge, Managing Director Burda Media Innovation Lab,

“We have to take readers’ view and expectations in regard to start telling stories in a way that suits the new possibilities. We have that potential and we already proved that in the printed publications department. We believe a new era has begun.”

Jim McGregor, who is Chief Technology Strategist at In-Stat believes the significance of the iPad for publishers will be much smaller than some seem to hope for:

“Although the iPad and other tablets are being positioned as next generation e-readers, their value really extends to more multimedia rich content. This may be a boost for audio and video, but it is unlikely to change the fate of the publishing industry which has to adapt to a digital world driven by the Internet. Devices like the iPad will probably accelerate the move to digital content, especially in areas that are traditionally tied to printed material, such as education.”

While both industry leaders question the extent of impact that the iPad will have on publishing they are the first to admit that the iPad cannot be ignored. They both endorse that publishers have recognized the need to adapt to the digitally skewed changes engulfing the industry. Many publishers are migrating towards the ePub format, thus making their content iPad ready. Yet, despite uncertainties, the iPad does open up a market of over 10 million users that publishers can target opening up a whole new business model that could be centered on selling through apps.

Publishers such as Condé Nast announced they were working on an iPad version even before the device became official, and according to a leaked memo will have GQ ready for the April launch, followed soon afterwards by Wired, Vanity Fair, New York and Glamour magazines.

Some publishers have even released demos of their iPad versions already, including the New York Times and Sports Illustrated, while Children’s novels such as the Toy Story and Alice in Wonderland are already on the iPad. In approximately two months, school textbooks will be available on the iPad in the form of highly interactive applications. TSTC Publishing is adding the first e-books to its inventory.

Yet questions still loom, will the iPad really transform publishing – boosting circulation numbers and opening up new audiences? Will selling content through apps and the iPad actually bring in additional revenues from end users?

With over 700000 introductory versions of the iPad already in homes, and thousands of people still awaiting their orders, one thing is clear - the iPad is here to stay. The rising number of apps also suggests that users are enthusiastic about milking this device to its full potential. iPad competitors such as Germany’s WePad, the Google tablet and more such devices, prove that this trend is here to stay, and publishers now have unlimited possibilities when it comes to creating interactive content.

While a huge problem is the investment required to optimize this platform, the sooner publishers realize the need to convert to ePub, (which is emerging as the industry standard, and whose open source features make it the ideal platform, accepted by a wide range of devices) the more return on investment in the long run. With the popularizing and acceptance of the value of e-based consumption of content, it is likely that content publishers will actually leverage interactive media to the fullest. Dynamic links and multimedia content will readily be embraced and supported by those that provide content.

Brief history

In September 2007, ePub became an official standard of the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), superseding the older Open eBook standard. Since then ePub has gained widespread acceptance, starting with Project Gutenberg endorsing it as a preferred standard owing to its free and open source features.

ePub: Catching on

The main reason why ePub seems to have caught on as the most favored format is that this open book format is not owned or controlled by any one company or device as is the case with the Amazon Kindle’s AZW format.  This enables scope for critique and improvement as is the present case where IDPF has invited discussions on how to improve ePub standards so that it is more holistic and suits the needs of, and leverages the capabilities of newer devices such as the iPad.

Not only has ePub been built on existing standards, but ePub specifications or standards are free to be downloaded by anyone with out any licensing costs or restrictions. ePub file can easily be examined by simply renaming it to a .zip file and opening it with any tool or OS that supports the zip archive format (e.g. Windows XP and above, Winzip, gzip, 7-zip, etc).

A typical ePub file contains the following,

• Metadata, an xml file containing information about the ebook, such as the author, publisher, title and a list of all the other files in this ePub file
• A table of contents for the ebook
• One or more html pages, containing the ebook text
• Any images used in the ebook, such as a cover image, and images that accompany the text, stored in standard formats such as jpeg ePub uses the same standard file formats such as xml, html, jpeg that are used to build the web.

This has one indisputable benefit. Since every modern OS or programming language supports these formats, ePub files can be read on any system with an OS. The technology required to create an ePub reader application is the same as that required to display a web page and any modern computing device, be it a PC or a mobile device is compatible to this technology. Another advantage of ePub is that all text is represented in form of text files that can be easily opened with a text editor, viewed or edited. Also, the ePub format is DRM-free, which means that anyone purchasing an ePub file can be certain that they have full access to the content, and are free to convert it to any other format, transfer and display it on any device, print it and importantly in this case, convert it to speech. Yet, ePub does provide the option of adding DRM as an additional layer, if a publisher so chooses to protect the rights of his ebook/content.

Thus, the advantages of ePub format can be summarized as below:

• Compatible with almost any modern OS based device
• Can be created by common softwares such as InDesign and Quark
• Publishers can reduce the cost of conversion by only creating a single ePub file for multiple distribution channels
• Content can be sold from multiple outlets
• Compatible with most mobile devices including the coveted iPad

ePub Patrons

Currently, the ePub format can be viewed by Calibre, Adobe Digital Editions (ADE), Stanza, Aldiko, Sony reader, iPad, iPhone. Google too has 500,000 public domain titles in the ePub format. Many countries such China, Taiwan, Germany and France have chosen to use ePub as their primary electronic book format.

One point worth mulling over is the future of ePub. What could the format finally develop into?  Will it see more animation options, resizing, cross referencing, linked table of contents and footnotes?

The opportunity is endless. The future of ebooks could well be written by the ePub standard and converting to ePub is an investment in the future.