The quality of the electronic publishing: compatibility

There are some aspects of technology that are accepted, even if outside the technology world they would not. One of these is the compatibility of what we consume.

If you buy a book in your favorite bookshop in Charing Cross you do not have to ask yourself if the paper is compatible with your eyes. If you buy and ebook in one of the online bookshop you HAVE to ask if your reader supports the format. What will happen if all the pages of the paperback you just bought were blank? What would you do if, trying to lend your book to a friend, it will refuse to open?

It is clear that we are not able to perceive the limitation of today’s electronic publishing.

I believe that standards are some of the most important values to keep in mind when we have to deal with the IT world. If I were to publish a book, I would not risk to lose part of my readers just because what I have written is not readable by them.

Unfortunately the use of the DRM imposes electronic versions with padlocks and witchcrafts that limit the publication. And do the digital right managements works? I have my doubts.

For Books Underground (Ink On Screen) I am thinking a DRM-free/open standards publications. The project has the aim to make new writers known to the world, enlarging the number of readers (or listener). Would the authors fear the lack of presumed security given by the DRMs?

Ideas, Time and Resources: the niche and the social direction

Little by little my idea has its shape more outlined, day after day. Some friends gave me support, some people I know gave me advices, some theoreticians of the “right time for climbing the ladder” gave me no hopes.

Ian gave me some interesting links to projects similar to Ink On Screen. My primary goal is still far from those websites, nevertheless I can easily compare some of the features with one or another. These sites has been funded and this is the starting point I want to reach with my project.

1000Keyboards is a nice site for free short stories. It is quite clean and straightforward. It has a specific target and it is following it “maybe” too much, limiting the stories to those between 800 and 1000 words. Nice and well done.

Fanlib.com is the paradise of fanfiction. At a glance it seems to be quite professional, it does not give me the feeling of “I am a social networking site, Full Stop” as 1000Keyboards, but I feel like entering a domain where someone is expecting great revenues… and do not ask me why, because I do not know. However, the quantity of material is impressive.

Both of these sites have a specific target, a well defined market niche. Ink On Screen, a name that is going to change soon, has a complete different approach, a different target. I do not believe in limiting the type of writing in order to create a niche, but I think that it is the writers’ scope to define the niche itself, while the target of the social networking is one: get published (or e-published). One thing that will change in the time is the perception of publishing; right now we perceive it only when we hold a book or a newspaper, but the first visionaries are starting to understand that in the internet era the paper is not any longer the most popular and convenient distribution method. Being published on (and through) the net, is the next step. Will it be understood and accepted by the writers?

Ian suggested me something I had not kept in consideration before: instead of focusing only on eBooks, whose market is still uncertain, why not opening the door to the audiobooks? In the end when the book is ready, there is just a simple step to add. I have to tell that he gave me a lot of fine advices. Thanks!

The original idea at the basement of Ink On Screen (Books Underground?) is still the same: to provide the writers a social platform to gather the required elements to publish their writings. Proofreaders, translators or readers for the audiobooks: this is what can be required by every writer (or wannabe).

Someone I can see as a sort of “mentor” once told me: Do you know why the startups are successful despite of the lack of experience of their founder? Because of the inexperience and the stubbornness of their founder. After all the advices, after all the market research there is one thing to consider: if you believe in it you have to try!

Ebook prices: where is the real deal?

Have you ever checked the ebook prices? In my opinion they should be priced less than the real books, and this for quite a number of reasons. First of all the absence of paper, ink and all the instruments needed to produce the physical book. Second, it must be clear to everyone that nowadays to print a book you need its electronic format, therefore the publishers already have them. Last but not least the distribution channel, with all its expenses, is not present for the electronic copies, if not for one or two electronic resellers. The ebooks does not eliminate every single bit of the publishing process. The electronic publishing removes everything physical.

With these introductions it should be logic that the pricing of the ebooks would be lower than the pricing of the normal books. False!

This is a trick easy to understand, but not easy to accept: for the publisher the ebook is a complete added value, no money spent on it, just revenue!

These things are slowing down the development of an ebook market. It seems to me that the lack of low-end hardware and the discouragement to buy electronic versions of the books are two of the main reason this market is not already taking off. This is a strong weakness of the market. I strongly believe that there is a strong placement for anything that would drive the publishing rules away. Don’t you think the market is ready to change a “little” bit?

Electronic Publishing: remove the technology barriers to reach the consumers.

I feel that the electronic publishing is on the verge of its dawn. It won’t take long before we will be able to start publishing via internet, no relaying any longer on the paper. If it will be the best solution I can’t answer, but I think it will be a way to change the rules.

One of the biggest barrier, however, can be seen in the technology. I am not speaking of the thousands of softwares that can be used to create an ebook; I’m talking about the barrier defined by the hardware.

The eInk technology is definitely a jump forward, but the two most known eBook readers using that technology are the real gap! The Sony Reader and the Philips iLiad are undoubtfully amazing machines, but they are creating the gap, their price is so high to make them something for few.

The Sony places his Reader at 300$, while Philips has gone for a more broad market presenting iLiad, an hardware not only for reading, but for writing also, but the price flies up to 700$. You can easily understand why the underground is not packed with people taking these machines in their hand.

We are still tied to the concept of book with paper pages, with a physical appearance in our bookshelves. This is already a huge gap to cross, but if the alternatives are so expensive, the resulting market will be such a small niche that the early adopters will still have to wait long time…

The power of books and the choices of the Publishers!

These days, with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we are witnessing once more to the power of books. The written words are still able to enchant the great public, but only when great books can see the light.

I fear that there are a lot of authors that will never be able to send their writings to the public through the normal channels. Are we loosing masterpiece of perfect strangers? Publisher are “risk adverse” and they prefer to publish bullshits of known authors more than giving space to unknown ones.

Electronic Publishing will be able to change this, don’t you think?

Changing the rule of Publishing: is this possible?

One of the biggest problem of the new writers, the unpublished ones, is to find the right channel to be published. They have to loose a  lot of time sending part of their works to editors and agents, hoping to be read. It requires a lot of efforts, a strong will and a good dose of luck. When sailing amongst those figures, every author must take care of who deserves to be trusted, sending them some excerpt.These rules allows few to be published, but it is a long ordeal.Can these rules be changed, using the internet as key to unlock a new vision?This is not an easy questions, there are a lot of problems underneath it, and I’m not talking of a simple obstacle as the publisher, but of the deepest question about the media: are the reader ready to accept the electronic format for the book as well as the listener accepted the same for the music?

People that make History

Yesterday I had a very interesting chat with someone that has helped me a lot understanding what I wanna do with Ink On Screen.

One of the question that hit me harder was:

“If you are not fond of the publishing rules, why are you supporting them?“

I need to find the gut to follow what I really want: the disruption of the publishing establishment. I think the next few days will be devoted to dig into new Business Models.

“…you don’t want to work for Apple. You wanna BE Apple…“

Journalism and information source credibility

In these days I have moved the target of Ink On Screen from a literary point of view. Instead of considering novels and books, we are going to manage News and Articles. Smaller piece of information with complete different problematics.

One of the most important point involved is the monopoly of the information by the News Agencies and the complete lack of trust given to other sources.

In this field I am much more interested in the latest news from specialized blogger than those provided by some news agencies. In the last days I have read some articles on some books, and they were Wrong. Simply going to anyone of the blogs specialized in that specific book would have prevented those huge mistakes.

The problem is the credibility of those who are not journalists. We are therefore moving our primary target from the trustworthiness of book authors and reviewers to the same credibility management for a generic source of information.

The target? Get rid of the information monopoly by the News Agencies, creating a Social Website capable of creating an organic discriminant for the information credibility.

How does it sound?

Brainstorming

In these days I’m having a lot of chats with people who wants to listen to the ideas behind Ink On Screen. I’ve noticed that I have already moved the original target I had few weeks ago.

Every critic, comment or dismissal I get is helping me to understand the different vision the people have, empowering the initial vision and showing me some details I did not take into consideration from the beginning.

The name “Ink On Screen” is becoming obsolete, because the main target I identified has changed enough to push me searching something more accurate. I knew this would have happened and I was already prepared.

Brainstorming and the capacity to listen and absorb the comments ad (especially) the critics, is a very important game right now. It’s not easy to pillory your ideas, but if you are strong enough not to loose self confidence and flexible enough to accept to modify yourself learning wisdom, your ideas will be better every day!

Books and Innovation: the next step

I’ve always thought that ebooks would have become the replacement for the normal books. I would have expected this to start some years ago, but it seems that the market is still unresponsive to the new method of distributing Literature: why?

I admit that I’m a skeptical myself of leaving the good old paper, but I was also one of the early adopter of the .lit format while I was using an iPaq. That solution was not working (screen too small and too bright), and todays ebook reader are still too expensive.

Maybe tomorrow, with the advent of the iPhone and all the similar things that will follow, there will be another way for distributing the contents without requiring the paper! I’d love to have 1.000 teenagers telling me how they will read the new bestsellers in five years time.

What do you think? Will we use the same old method or will we move to a new method for distributing digital contents for literature as we did for music and video?