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O’Reilly Media’s Tools of Change for Publishing (@ToC) (#toccon) has begun in New York City. It’s the annual conference for professionals to discuss where digital publishing is headed. Some sessions will be live-streamed; also see the program schedule.

According to ePUBSecrets (@ePUBSecrets), the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) (#idpf, #epub), the group responsible for the ePUB specification, chose the launch of TOC to announce its new ePUB 3.0 reader Readium (@readium), “a new open source initiative to develop a comprehensive reference implementation of the IDPF EPUB^® 3 standard.”

This vision will be achieved by building on WebKit, the widely adopted open source HTML5 rendering engine.

“Adobe has been a strong supporter of EPUB 3 and we look forward to continuing to provide our customers with the ability to create and render rich content experiences and compelling eBooks with this format, which enables enhanced interactivity, rich media, global formatting, and accessibility,” says Nick Bogaty, Director, Business Development, Digital Publishing, Adobe Systems Incorporated. “Adobe welcomes the Readium project as an important step to help foster increased consistency across EPUB 3 implementations.”

Others supporting the IDPF EPUB^® 3 standard are ACCESS, Anobii, Apex CoVantage, Assoc. American Publishers (AAP), Barnes & Noble, Bluefire Productions, BISG, Copia, DAISY, EAST, EDItEUR, Evident Point, Google, Incube Tech, Kobo/Rakuten, Monotype, O’Reilly, Rakuten, Safari Books Online, Samsung, Sony, VitalSource, Voyager Japan.

Noticeably absent is Amazon and its Kindle ereader, which uses the proprietary digital format AZW based on the Mobipocket standard.

Read the news release in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you with your digital publishing needs.

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Image: Byook.com

In Salon (@Salon), writer Laura Miller (@magiciansbook) discounts the idea that fiction ebooks must be produced with more and more enhancements to attract and keep readers. In fact, she says those enhancements are distractions to the enjoyment of a well-written book.

Attempts to invigorate books with video and other digital bells and whistles keep bumping up against this fundamental problem: You can’t really pay much attention to anything else while you’re reading, so in order to play with any of these new features, you have to stop reading. If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, then the attentional tug of all these peripheral doodads is vaguely annoying, and if you’re not engaged by the story, they aren’t enough on their own to win you over….

Narrative constructs this alternate reality in your imagination, and narrative sustains it. What matters is not the story on the page — or the screen — but the story in your head. Interactive baubles pull a reader’s attention back to the screen, serving as a reminder of the thing you want to go on forgetting: the fact that all of this is just made up, words on a page. Some enhanced ebook publishers have cottoned onto this problem and as a result they’ve moved away from inserting video or clickable illustrations into their books, and in new directions….

For the most part...fictional narratives, when they work, don’t really need digital enhancements.

Read this in full.

For a counterpoint to this article, see our blogpost “How to Build the Pixar of the iPad Age.”

Bookmark and use daily SomersaultNOW, our (@smrsault) free online dashboard for booklovers.

Their first project, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (@MorrisLessmore), was released for the iPad last May. It recounts the wondrous adventures of a book lover who dotingly cares for a living library before writing a book himself that tells of “his joys and sorrows, of all that he knew and everything that he hoped.” Gorgeously illustrated, Lessmore breaks new ground in the way that it incorporates interactivity. Each page has a wormhole of interaction. Read about a song and perhaps a keyboard will pop up and guide your fingers to plunk out "Pop Goes the Weasel." When Morris Lessmore hand-feeds alphabet cereal to his books, the reader gets a bowl too, with letters that can be dragged along through the milk to spell out words. Each page holds its game like a secret and puzzling out what to do encourages the reader to look harder, knowing they'll be rewarded. The games pull the reader deeper; the narrative pulls the reader farther. The tension between lingering and racing is potent.

Morris Lessmore may be the best iPad book in the world. In July, Morris Lessmore hit the number one spot on Apple's iPad app chart in the US. That is to say, Morris Lessmore wasn't just the bestselling book, but the bestselling *app* of any kind for a time. At one point or another, it has been the top book app in 21 countries. A New York Times reviewer called it “the best,” “visually stunning,” and “beautiful.” Wired.com called it “game-changing.” MSNBC said it was “the most stunning iPad app so far.” And The Times UK made this prediction, “It is not inconceivable that, at some point in the future, a short children's story called The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore will be regarded as one of the most influential titles of the early 21st century.” ....

....But what is it? It's not just a book, nor wholly a movie, nor fundamentally a game. Maybe we can call it a story that's reenacted live by whoever is holding the iPad. It makes parents cry, kids laugh, babies stare, and artists drool.

Read this in full.

Also see our previous blogpost, “William Joyce’s Children’s iPad Book Embraces the Future.”

For a counterpoint to the above articles, see our blogpost “Can Bells and Whistles Save the Book?.”

Bookmark and use daily SomersaultNOW, our (@smrsault) free online dashboard for booklovers.

trendwatching.com (@trendwatching) provides an overview of “12 must-know consumer trends (in random order)”:

·         Red Carpet — In 2012, department stores, airlines, hotels, theme parks, museums, if not entire cities and nations around the world will roll out the red carpet for the new emperors, showering Chinese visitors and customers with tailored services and perks, and in general, lavish attention and respect.

·         DIY Health — Expect to see consumers take advantage of new technologies and apps to discreetly and continuously track, manage and be alerted to, any changes in their personal health.

·         Dealer-Chic — In 2012, not only will consumers continue to hunt for deals and discounts, but they will do so with relish if not pride. Deals are now about more than just saving money: it’s the thrill, the pursuit, the control, and the perceived smartness, and thus a source of status too.

·         Eco-Cycology — Brands will increasingly take back all of their products for recycling (sometimes forced by new legislation), and recycle them responsibly and innovatively.

·         Cash-Less — Will coins and notes completely disappear in 2012? No. But a cashless future is (finally) upon us, as major players such as MasterCard and Google work to build a whole new eco-system of payments, rewards and offers around new mobile technologies.

·         Bottom of the Urban Pyramid — The majority of consumers live in cities, yet in much of the world city life is chaotic, cramped and often none too pleasant. However at the same time, the creativity and vibrancy of these aspiring consumers, means that the global opportunities for brands which cater to the hundreds of millions of lower-income CITYSUMERS are unprecedented.

·         Idle Sourcing — Anything that makes it downright simple - if not completely effortless - for consumers to contribute to something will be more popular than ever in 2012. Unlocked by the spread of ever smarter sensors in mobile phones, people will not only be able but increasingly willing, to broadcast information about where and what they are doing, to help improve products and services.

·         Flawsome — Consumers will consider those brands awesome that behave more humanly, including exposing their flaws.

·         Screen Culture — Thanks to the continued explosion of touchscreen smartphones, tablets, and the 'cloud', 2012 will see a screen culture that is not only more pervasive, but more personal, more immersive, and more interactive than ever.

·         Recommerce — It’s never been easier for savvy consumers to resell or trade in past purchases, and unlock the value in their current possessions. In 2012, ‘trading in’ is the new buying.

·         Emerging Maturialism — While cultural differences will continue to shape consumer desires, middle-class and/or younger consumers in almost every market will embrace brands that push the boundaries. Expect frank, risqué or non-corporate products, services, and campaigns from emerging markets to be on the rise in 2012.

·         Point & Know — Consumers are used to being able to find out just about anything that’s online or text-based, but 2012 will see instant visual information gratification brought into the real and visual world with objects and even people.

Read this in full.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you track trends that impact your brand.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Since 2002, the United States has lost roughly 500 independent bookstores — nearly 1 out of 5 — due in many instances to the dominance of the Barnes & Noble (@BNBuzz) bookstore chain. Now, however, it’s B&N that’s fighting for survival.

Julie Bosman (@juliebosman), book publishing reporter for The New York Times (@nytimesbooks), writes a behind-the-scenes look at Barnes & Noble, a company that started in 1873 by Charles Barnes in Wheaton, IL.

In March 2009, an eternity ago in Silicon Valley, a small team of engineers here was in a big hurry to rethink the future of books. Not the paper-and-ink books that have been around since the days of Gutenberg, the ones that the doomsayers proclaim — with glee or dread — will go the way of vinyl records.

No, the engineers were instead fixated on the forces that are upending the way books are published, sold, bought, and read: ebooks and e-readers. Working in secret, behind an unmarked door in a former bread bakery, they rushed to build a device that might capture the imagination of readers and maybe even save the book industry.

They had six months to do it.

Running this sprint was, of all companies, Barnes & Noble, the giant that helped put so many independent booksellers out of business and that now finds itself locked in the fight of its life. What its engineers dreamed up was the Nook (@nookBN), a relative e-reader latecomer that has nonetheless become the great e-hope of Barnes & Noble and, in fact, of many in the book business.

Several iterations later, the Nook and, by extension, Barnes & Noble, at times seem the only things standing between traditional book publishers and oblivion.

The article goes on to say B&N plans to unveil another e-reader soon.

At its labs in Silicon Valley last week, engineers were putting final touches on their 5th e-reading device, a product that executives said would be released sometime this spring.

Read this in full. Also on CNBC.com (@CNBC).

Bookmark and use daily SomersaultNOW, our (@smrsault) free online dashboard for booklovers.

Hilary Greenbaum (@HilaryGreenbaum) and Dana Rubinstein (@danarubinstein) write in The New York Times Magazine (@NYTmag) about the history of the highlighter.

Before the rise of the highlighter, says Dennis Baron (@DrGrammar), a University of Illinois professor and the author of A Better Pencil, attentive readers relied on “a combination of underlining and marginal notes.”

Like so much else, that began to change in the 1960s. It was then that the Japanese inventor Yukio Horie created a felt-tip pen that used water-based ink. The following year, in 1963, the Massachusetts print-media giant Carter’s Ink developed a similar water-based marker that emitted an eye-catching translucent ink. They called it the Hi-Liter.

... The highlighter’s appeal has flourished in the digital age. Most word-processing and e-reader software products have a highlighter function. And the hand-held highlighter continues to evolve, too....When the highlighter business saw that it wasn’t being embraced by holdouts who preferred pens, it made the dual highlighter/pen. There are now retractable highlighters. And flat ones. And ones that smell like pizza.

...Due to the thin paper used in most Bibles, typical highlighters often bleed through. For that reason, G.T. Luscombe (@GTLuscombe), a distributor of Bible-study accessories based in Frankfort, Ill., got into the business of Bible-paper-friendly highlighters. John Luscombe, the president and chief executive, explains….

Read this in full.

Bookmark and daily use SomersaultNOW, our (@smrsault) free online dashboard for book lovers.

Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) senior news editor Calvin Reid (@calreid) says, “Despite the constant economic pressures on a book publishing industry in the midst of change, the Digital Book World conference (#dbw12) [that ended yesterday in New York City] offered a snap shot of a range of industry positions and best practices as it comes to grips with digital delivery.... the book industry is indeed reinventing itself on a daily basis.”

There are more electronic reading devices, some 60 million e-readers and tablets, in the hands of consumer and there are more ways to buy books, read them, and talk about them, than ever before. “Books today are elastic and dynamic,” said Hyperion president Ellen Archer.

Read this in full.

Reid also reports

The transition to digitization continues in book publishing, an industry that is both susceptible to digital disruption, but also positioned to benefit tremendously from it, according to Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey (@jmcquivey) who kicked off this year's Digital Book World conference. That said, a survey conducted by Forrester in collaboration with Digital Book World found that while 82% of publishers were optimistic about digital, the number was down from 89% last year. Indeed only 28% of those thought their own company would be stronger in the future, down from 51% last year.

The decline has a lot to do with a realization of hard work ahead for publishers to adapt to the new digital environment, according to McQuivey.

Other stats:

·         25 million people in the US own an e-reader

·         34 million people own tablets

·         8 million homes have at least 2 tablets.

·         75% of publishers have an executive level person responsible for digital

·         63% of publishers report that digital skills are formally integrated into all departments

·         69% of publishers expect to increase digital staffiing in 2012

·         22% expect overall company staffing to go down in 2012.

·         75% of the publishers surveyed produce apps, but 51% said they cost too much to produce; only 19% believe apps will change the future of books and 15% say apps represent significant revenue for them.

Read this in full.

PW’s news editor Gabe Habash (@gabehabash) writes

Perhaps the most eye-opening facet of a study on the children's ebook market discussed at a Digital Book World panel was how great the potential for ebook reading in children really is:

·         27% of 7-12-year-olds own their own computer

·         25% own a cell phone

·         7% own a reading device.

·         teens have tripled their reading rate of ebooks in the last year.

Read this in full.

Ron Hogan (@RonHogan) reports that Shelf Awareness’ (@ShelfAwareness) editor-in-chief John Mutter (@JohnMutter) moderated a panel on “The Bookstore Renaissance” where it was stressed that bookstores must stay relevant. Roxanne Coady of R.J. Julia Booksellers (Madison, Conn.) (@rjjulia) talked about the recently launched JustTheRightBook.com (@JTRBook), which offers subscribers a monthly book selection based on a personal review of their reading tastes — “the opposite of the wisdom of crowds,” she quipped.

Coady elaborated on how the site’s “human algorithm” drew on one of their biggest strengths as booksellers: “We know how to put the right book in the right hands,” she said, “and we are early discoverers.” She noted that 67% of the visitors to the site who took their quiz wound up buying or borrowing one of the recommended titles (though not always from R.J. Julia).

Read this in full.

Also see DBW conference coverage by paidContent (@paidContent), especially its article about e-singles (and its “guide to e-singles”).

Read Porter Anderson’s (@Porter_Anderson) conference wrap-up on the Jane Friedman site (@JaneFriedman).

See GalleyCat's (@galleycat) coverage.

See DBW’s (@DigiBookWorld) own coverage of the show at “Video: Seen and Heard at Digital Book World.”

And see conference photos.

Stay current with news about the publishing world by bookmarking Somersault’s (@smrsault) SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

As online college courses have become increasingly prevalent, the general public and college presidents offer different assessments of their educational value, according to a new Pew Research Center (@pewinternet) report. Just 3-in-10 American adults (29%) say a course taken online provides an equal educational value to one taken in a classroom. By contrast, half of college presidents (51%) say online courses provide the same value.

• 77% of colleges now offer online courses
• 15% of college presidents say most of their current undergraduate students have taken a class online; 50% predict that 10 years from now most of their students will take classes online.
• 15% of college presidents say most of their current undergraduate students have taken a class online, and 50% predict that 10 years from now most of their students will take classes online.
• Nearly two-thirds of college presidents (62%) anticipate that 10 years from now, more than half of the textbooks used by their undergraduate students will be entirely digital.
• Most college presidents (55%) say that plagiarism in students’ papers has increased over the past 10 years. Among those who have seen an increase in plagiarism, 89% say computers and the internet have played a major role.
• The leaders of the nation’s colleges and universities are a tech-savvy group. Nearly nine-in-ten (87%) use a smartphone daily, 83% use a desktop computer and 65% use a laptop.
• College presidents are ahead of the curve on some of the newer digital technologies: half (49%) use a tablet computer such as an iPad at least occasionally, and 42% use an e-reader such as a Kindle or Nook.

Read or download the full report.

Making ebooks just became easier (at least ebooks only for the iPad). That’s the outcome from today’s announcement at the Apple event in New York City (see the QuickTime video of it). Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) says

Apple's event was first rumored to be a self-publishing venture then called an "education" venture. It turned out to be both. Apple is launching iBooks 2, a new multimedia textbook platform and iBooks Author, a shockingly easy authoring tool to create them – indeed to create any kind of book – and publish them instantly to the iBookstore. Both the new iBooks 2 app and iBooks Author app are free and available today.

On top of all that, iBooks 2 textbooks will be priced at $14.99 or less. The new iBooks 2 app will provide the usual access to the iBookstore but will also feature a new category: textbooks….They feature beautiful layouts, endless multimedia (audio, video, animation, animated 3D models, interactive quizzes, the list goes on). And iBooks Author makes it really easy--any author can follow the template or make up a new one and drag-and-drop prepared materials like text and video right into the new book. Once complete, a push of the button places it in the iBookstore in a digital marketplace holding hundreds of millions of credit card numbers....

In addition, Apple is relaunching iTunes University with a new free app. Originally focused on offering videos of university lectures, the new iTunes U app will make it possible for professors to offer full online courses, complete with assignments, notes and communications with the students, all situated on iTunes U and all for free. Several universities, including Duke and Yale, have already started posting courses.

Read it in full.

The Washington Post covered the event live, quoting Apple’s iWork vice president, Roger Rosner, “In like 5 minutes flat, we created an ebook and deployed it to the iPad. I hope you find that as inspiring and empowering as I do.”

Read it in full.

Lindsey Turrentine (@lturrentine), editor-in-chief of CNET Reviews, offers her commentary in “Apple iBooks in schools: Devil is in the hardware.” She says the high cost of outfitting classrooms with an iPad for each child and the blunt-force trauma students would inflict on the tablets, coupled with rapid advancements in technology leaving the school’s investment soon outdated, make her skeptical that today’s announcement is actually practical.

Read it in full.

Jeremy Greenfield (@JDGsaid), editorial director, Digital Book World (@digibookworld), says of today’s event:

In a stunning display of ebook creation acrobatics, Apple executives dragged images and video into an e-book page and text wrapped seamlessly around it. 

The company also demonstrated completed textbooks, showing off interactive features, including: Images that come alive with explanations when tapped; fluid layouts that shift smoothly from portrait to landscape view; and index and glossary functions that are integrated directly into each page.

Read this in full.

As for the ease of creating ebooks, CNET’s (@CNET & @CNETNews) technology columnist Don Reisinger (@donreisinger) explains it in “Apple’s new iBooks Author targets ebook creators.” Also see "Apple revamps iTunes U, makes it class portal."

Other articles to read are "6 things we don't know about Apple's e-textbooks strategy" by CNET's David Carnoy (@DavidCarnoy) and Scott Stein (@jetscott), and "This is Apple At Its Absolute Worst: It Thinks It Owns Any Book You Make Through iBooks Author" by Business Insider's (@sai) Steve Kovach (@stevekovach). 

What do you expect today’s announcement will mean for your publishing plans? Write your comments below.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you with your textbook and reference publishing. Veterans with more than 100 combined years of experience in the field, we eagerly embrace current technology and the revolutionary changes it’s making in the publishing world.

Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially see the list of self-publishers in the Publishers tab.

In Publishing Executive (@pubexec), Dianne Kennedy (@DianneKennedy), head of nextPub and Vice President of Emerging Technologies for IDEAlliance (@IDEAlliance, @IdeasINprint, @IdeasINemedia, @IdeasINcreation), writes a summary of the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (@intlCES), especially as it pertains to publishers.

For publishers, last year the star of CES was clearly the "Tablet.” The tablet onslaught clearly had huge implications for publishers racing to deliver their content as widely as possible across the emerging tablet publishing channel. This year, while we saw refinements and hybridization in the tablet market space, the lack of overwhelming leaps in publication delivery technologies was good news. CES 2012 predicts we will have a year to refine production tools and workflows to deliver content to a relatively stable delivery platform environment.

Here’s what she predicts based on her observations:

·         Tablet display size seems to be standardizing at 7.7 inch and 10.1 inch This is good news for publishers who are designing publications for a target device size.

·         Tablet display resolution is increasing, and for these tablets battery life is decreasing.

·         The functionality of tablets is rapidly increasing while the price is dropping. Price point for new Ice Cream Sandwich tablets sets a new price point of about $250. This means a larger audience for content will be in place by the end of 2012.

·         Office Tablets are emerging to provide more PC-like interfaces and functionality while maintaining the mobility of Internet Appliance Tablets

·         Ultrabook PCs will begin to compete head-to-head with tablets.

Read this in full.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you navigate the churning and fast-changing waters of 21st century publishing.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.