iPad Publishing: eBooks and eZines

This article comes with some small print:
It is unlikely to ever be finished. On this day in February 2011 (when I started to write this down), things are moving very fast and with new tablet devices appearing and new tools becoming available, the whole process of publishing to tablet devices sits on shifting sands.

How do like yours wrapped?

The terms eBook (e-book, E-book, EBook, whatever), eZines and APPS have some very fuzzy boundaries. We are seeing eBooks that might be considered applications. We are seeing eBooks that might be regarded as interactive games and eBooks that are partially audio books. The range of development tools for eZines on the iPad (and other tablets) is growing but some are coming at a significant price. On the other hand, open source tools are gaining ground (more on this from me soon).

Standards are evolving - just today we see the first public showing ePUB version 3.0.

furthermore...

Here are some notes and pictures.

iBooks

This is the free app, within which, eBooks in ePUB format are delivered and displayed. This app handles the user interface for ePUB format books, so that you see (what appears to be) a traditional looking book; one page in portrait and double page in horizontal/landscape mode. The UI includes search and font size choices as well as brightness of display. This app was created by Apple and has gone through some version changes; currently 1.2. 1.2.1

The iBooks app will also show PDFs with a basic but usable interface.

The iBooks app also includes direct access to the iBooks store, which is a special kind of iTunes store, but just for books. Here you can buy eBooks (all in ePub format). Browsing the book store is very difficult, since the category list is very limited and not (IMHO) very fine grained.

eBooks

Strange this. The iTunes store also has a category of app called Books. Not to be confused with eBooks inside the iBooks store.

The difference is that the Books in the iTunes store are (mostly) one off apps with bespoke user interfaces. Many are just simple page turning apps, but many have other features like animation. We can presume that they are created with the approved tools from Apple, although some may include, at their heart, HTML and javascript. The problem is (from a developer/publisher perspective), it is impossible to tell how they were made, although we can do some detective work!

Akaneiro from Spicy Pony

Books is a category of APPS, and so, does not have any sub-categories. This makes it very difficult to browse, and, in fact you can only order by date or paid/free or (informatively) 'What's Hot'!

Some books in the app store are very special and include animations and read aloud features. A good example is Akaneiro, a beautifully crafted short story with narration and animation.

Currently (February 2011) there are about 14,500 Books in the iTunes app store. I should point out that this includes books frommany parts of the world in a variety of languages. There is no filter for language or country of origin - as you browse the books, languages are mixed. It also includes 'apps' that are not Books, but, rather 'readers'. In fact thee are lots of these 'readers', including the Kindle ebook reader, various PDF readers, comic book and manga readers. Many of these readers also incorporate direct download and purchasing of ebooks. The format of these books varies, but some will certainly be in ePUB format. The Stanza reader seems to be just that - an ePUB reader.

Books in the iTunes APP store have no categories nor are they organised by language

Investigating readers that support the ePUB format, is probably the subject of another article, but it should be noted that many of these ereaders have been superseded by the Apple iBooks app, which does a better job than many of them.

eZines and eNews

There is a whole other area of published content that can be found for iPad. I would define these products as having updatable content; that is, you download a 'reader', and then purchase issues as they are published. Famously, The Daily - an electronic newspaper from the Murdoch empire (not available in the UK yet), is a good example of this.

Browsing pages in an issue of The Boat
note the thumbnail images along the bottom as a means of navigation

User interface mish mash

Unfortunately for the users of these newsy/maggy type products there is no consistency with the user interface when viewing and reading. The simplest and maybe the best, are those that provide one page at a time; moving to the next page is simply a matter of swiping across the screen. Some will use both portrait and landscape views, some may be just one or the other (more often portrait, since this is how the print version would have been created by the publisher).

I will be writing later about the tools for creating and publishing e-content to the iPad, but it should be noted, that there is a strong move towards the use HTML5, javascript and CSS to deliver this type of application. We will be seeing a convergence between ePUB and HTML5 and a convergence between eBooks and rich media eMagazine techniques, through the tools that will soon be available.

Some examples

Popular Mechanics

This is a free app that has 'in app' purchase of each issue. Vertical/portrait only, very effective navigation methods. Each page takes one iPad screen, although articles sometimes span more than one page. Some very compelling animations and videos (even in the advertising).

Popular Mechanics
another interface with thumbnail images along the bottom of the screen 

Wired

This was one of the first of its type in the app store. When you rotate the iPad, you get a completely different layout. Some pages have more content than fits on one iPad screen, and you need to scroll down to continue reading.

Wired Magazine
built with the Adobe Digital Publishing suite, this view shows the full scope of the publication with thumbnail images of all pages 

International Herald Tribune

This is a very simple interface. Each article's title and introduction appears in a block on the page. Click the block to read the full article, which then continues (by swiping) on 2 or 3 further pages. No up/down scrolling. Text size can be adjusted, images can be enlarged.

The International Herald Tribune

eZine Portals

I should mention that there are also portal APPs. I guess these are really content aggregators who take a publisher's material and build in their tools and then provide the front end. Examples of these include Tablisto and Zinio.

Tablisto Bookshelf in walnut veneer

In House Magazines

Large corporations (car manufacturers mostly), have put a lot of money into bespoke apps for iPad (and iPhone). Examples are:

The BMW magazine

This functions in both portrait and landscape mode, but some articles have vertical scrolling content, one page at a time. Individual pictures are, in fact sets of images that can be navigated by swipe.

The BMW Magazine

Summary

Just to summarise the above; the iPad is a good device for reading ebooks and eZines:

Books delivered and read within iBooks

• ePUB format
• ePUB format but enhanced (more on this later)
• PDFs

Books that are APPS

• These are available from the APP store within iTunes and have the category Books.
• Books that might come under other categories in the store, such as 'Reference', 'Education', 'Lifestyle' etc.
• Some books include multimedia content
• eBook readers and portals (in a way, competing with the Apple app - iBooks)

eZines and eNews

• subscribe-able episodic, with free app that presents available issues
• one off apps
• corporate brochure ware
• eZine portals

Posted on 14 Feb around 4pm

Tags: eBooks • Ideas • Publishing