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On-line Publishing - Hype or Reality?
by JA Santiago
What is On-line Publishing
On-line publishing is the publishing of on-line reading material over the Internet. These literary works are available in digital format for access and viewing by computer. A number of on-line books are currently available for viewing onscreen or for downloading to print or to read off-line. Some companies are beginning to see on-line publishing as a viable alternative to print publishing and have set up websites which sell books on the Internet. There are today about one hundred such publishers mostly concentrated on websites registered in the US who see an entire generation of book readers who are not only computer literate, but expect real time access to in formation, including books as their market.
Online publishing is seen as a viable altenative to traditional print publishing because it involves the removal of printers and distributors and eliminates printing and distribution costs and the cost of unsold books, which according to publishers approaches a 40% return rate for some books. Most online books that are bought are password protected and "locked" preventing the purchaser from changing or modifying the book file in any way. Addtionally some books come with the publisher's watermark incorporated into the page design and may also include an encryption tag that prevents online books from being copied and distributed via e-mail.
Online publishers have copied Amazon.com's method of shopping by placing all purchases into a cart, followed by an agreement to a standard licensing agreement not to make illegal copies and then proceeding to the checkout counter. Online payment is executed by keying in your credit card number and other personal deta or by sending it to you via e-mail.
Would you Read An On-line Book?
Some say yes, some say no. Most say no. On-line publishing has come a very long way from being the ASCII text based screens that used to make you want to quit after the second line. Today books such as my own entitled, An E-Mail Affair at http://sis.bris.ac.uk/~js8338/ or the mirror site at http://lit.freeservers.com/emailaffair.htm appear onscreen as how it would appear in a real book. The look, colour and texture of the ink and print are displayed onscreen. The only things missing is the smell and the feel!
Publishing a book on the internet goes beyond pasting some text on a website. Although many on-line publishers claim to have authored their books to be specifically designed and according to one at http://www.tarapublishing.com, 'both easy and enjoyable to read on a computer screen' with a simple transition from page to page is simple which minimizes key strokes or mouse movement, the usual response from readers is 'if I look at a screen too long I feel like my eyeballs are getting singed.' To read a book from a website is a challenge. I sometimes wonder whether people have read An E-Mail Affair till the end!
The counter argument to this is that an on-line book can be printed out and read without getting your eyeballs singed. It is understandable if it is three or four pages, but it is hardly unlikely that readers would download hundreds of pages of text that could eat into their expensive ink or toner cartridges. It is also a messy job trying to read from a pile of A4 sized paper. One slip and your pages could be in disarray, dog ears appear quite frequently and it is just to big to hold and read comfortably.
Most on-line publishers utilize Adobe's PDF (Portable Document Format) technology which makes the reading material available as a .PDF file, a format that enables cross platform access by PC, Mac and UNIX users. The standard Adobe reader today is Version 3.0 of the Adobe reader which is available free from www.adobe.com in order to read quite vivid documents with complex graphics all in full colour.
You Can't Take It With You To The Beach
On-line books are leaving the shelves of science fiction and heading for the beach. Today you don't hear people talking about downloading books onto their desktops or laptops anymore. There are already products waiting to come out before this years Christmas sale that looks like a book, feels like a book and weighs less than a book but can hold up to 50,000 pages of text which can be either downloaded or bought in the form of plug in PC-cards.
Several hardware vendors ave come up with competing products notably SoftBook Press, NuvoMedia, Everybook, Glassbook and Librius, all based in the US. All these companies are working on developing a common Open eBook standard with several of the big print and electronic publishers to prevent a standards war. It will be seen whether a standard can come because each of the parties would naturally want to promote their proprietary technology. Watch this space.
Teething Stages
The on-line publishing business is still in the teething stage just like most electronic commerce business models. One publisher still maintains his full time job although he firmly believes that online books are the future. Another publisher has such strict guidelines you may have better luck with that fussy print publisher who never answers your calls. Online publishers are also sticking to strict submission guidelines on obscenity, pornorgrapy just like their print counterparts.
From their websites it appears that online publishers envisage that online publishing will replace the real thing. Some of these publishers are using various methods to promote this form of reading. Many sites have got previews that allow you to have a look at excerpts or sample chapters before buying. Some like Online Originals at http://www.onlineorginals.com are even offering free books each month.
Writers who are familiar with the internet and who can develop a half decent website are bypassing online publishers altogether and publishing their own books on the web. This way a writer can control every aspect of the publication of his or her book.
Sceptics will point out though that publishers rarely surf the web looking out for online books and that any hopes an online writer have that his or her book will somehow filter through to those who count in the publishing world may be dashed.
The Future
Online books have a long way to go towards matching the average paperback's price, portability and legibility. A physical medium from which to read has been one of the pleasures of life and yes, you can take it the beach.
On-line publishing will always remain as a supplement to print publishing. It may be used as a promotional tool for the print version or as a pre-release or co-release of the printed book, but it will never take off as a medium for reading pleasure.
On-line publishing does have its place though. It could be very useful for publishing dictionaries, atlases, directories and other bulky resources which require the reader to conduct search and retrieval tasks could all be available to the reader at the touch of a button on an electronic tablet the size of an organizer.
An electronic book with audio capabilities would be useful for picking up new languages offering pronunciation of words, animated definitions and illustrations on the most popular method to write a word.
A good market are school and university textbooks which accounts for 25% of all books sold in the UK. It would be a useful tool for students who will not have the problem of lugging an overflowing schoolbag. It could further help them in preparing for assignments where keyword searches will replace trudging up and down the library aisles clutching on to a miserable piece of rough paper with the index number of the book you so badly need for the weekend.
Old fashioned readers may be lured to the on-line books in the hope of finding out of print books or books which have no significance in the marketplace - books written by amateur writers and unknown authors.
Amateur writers would find an online publisher hard to beat. Where else can you get immediate publication and worldwide distribution and royalites to top it all? As it stands, unknown authors find it difficult convincing publishers, distributors and points of sale as the industry prefers big name authors who can guarantee a minimum print run in the thousands due to the high cost of printing and distribution.
An online publisher's website would be able to provide writers and readers the chance to interact with each other through online book reviews, discussion groups, live book readings and interactive chat.
The standard royalty payments these days for online books in the region of 20% (some are even offering 50%) of the retail price and only involves electronic rights for two years renewable at the author's choice for single years beyond that. During this time your title will be published under the publisher's imprint which will give them the exclusive electronic production and distribution rights to the title. Sometimes a minimal production fee, per title, is charged to cover a portion of the initial production cost.
Even authors who have been published before in print may be tempted to convert to this form of publishing!
From a print publisher's point of view, it would be very cost effective to publish a book on the Internet to test the market before actually beginning a print run. This way a traditional print publisher would be sure that the book that he will be putting up on the market will not be left unsold.
The participation of the traditional print publishers in this arena such as Bertelsmann, HarperCollins, Penguin Putnam and Simon & Schuster who are working with the hardware vendors in developing standards is an indication that online publishing is looking at bigger things further down the horizon.