Penguin Books bets big on iPad interactive content
Penguin Books demonstrated of a series of interactive ebook titles the company is preparing for Apple's iBook Store for iPad, in a presentation looking at how the company plans to accommodate a transition to digital ebooks.
According to a report by PaidContent UK, the London-based publishing company expects ebooks to grow from 4% of its sales to 10% next year, thanks in large part to the market Apple is creating with the iPad.
John Makinson, the company's chief executive, said "the iPad represents the first real opportunity to create a paid distribution model that will be attractive to consumers."
Thinking outside the book
Thinking beyond the simple ability to just view the text of conventional books electronically as the Amazon Kindle does, Makinson said, "We will be embedding and streaming audio, video and gaming into everything we do. This will present us and the platform owners with technology challenges.
"The .epub format, which is the standard for ebooks at the present, is designed to support traditional narrative text, but not this cool stuff that we?re now talking about. So for the time being at least we?ll be creating a lot of our digital content as applications, to sell on app stores in HTML, rather than as ebooks.
"The definition of the book itself is up for grabs. We don?t know understand at the moment what the consumer is prepared to pay for [?] We will only find answers to these questions by trial and error.?
Apple's iBook Store vs the traditional book store
Asked whether his company was chafing at Apple's iTunes business model that takes a 30% cut of all sales, Makinson said that this is actually better for publishers than the existing agency model for books, where retailers take 50% of sales.
"There is an argument," Makinson said, "for saying Apple needs the content; that they should be paying us for our content." That argument hasn?t worked however.
"We'll have to become more innovative and take some risks," Makinson said. "We'll need above all to listen to our readers, to understand what they want and what they'll pay for. But if we can do all that, which is a big task, I agree, we'll have a great and varying digital business."
According to a report by PaidContent UK, the London-based publishing company expects ebooks to grow from 4% of its sales to 10% next year, thanks in large part to the market Apple is creating with the iPad.
John Makinson, the company's chief executive, said "the iPad represents the first real opportunity to create a paid distribution model that will be attractive to consumers."
Thinking outside the book
Thinking beyond the simple ability to just view the text of conventional books electronically as the Amazon Kindle does, Makinson said, "We will be embedding and streaming audio, video and gaming into everything we do. This will present us and the platform owners with technology challenges.
"The .epub format, which is the standard for ebooks at the present, is designed to support traditional narrative text, but not this cool stuff that we?re now talking about. So for the time being at least we?ll be creating a lot of our digital content as applications, to sell on app stores in HTML, rather than as ebooks.
"The definition of the book itself is up for grabs. We don?t know understand at the moment what the consumer is prepared to pay for [?] We will only find answers to these questions by trial and error.?
Apple's iBook Store vs the traditional book store
Asked whether his company was chafing at Apple's iTunes business model that takes a 30% cut of all sales, Makinson said that this is actually better for publishers than the existing agency model for books, where retailers take 50% of sales.
"There is an argument," Makinson said, "for saying Apple needs the content; that they should be paying us for our content." That argument hasn?t worked however.
"We'll have to become more innovative and take some risks," Makinson said. "We'll need above all to listen to our readers, to understand what they want and what they'll pay for. But if we can do all that, which is a big task, I agree, we'll have a great and varying digital business."
Comments
Makinson sounds relatively open-minded and willing to embrace new technologies, as contrasted to the image of some media companies who have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the scary future.
He definitely gets it.
I wonder if Apple will release a proper format for interactive material using the iTunes LP and iTunes Extra forma. While all the video and audio can be encrypted I'd think that content owners would like the other data encrypted, too.
OH MY!!! Face it folks...THINGS ARE NEVER GONNA BE THE SAME...EVER AGAIN!!!!
This beats the toaster by a universe!
Thanks Steve. This may be the turning point for society.
Interactive, color and sound books for children, adults, doctors and repairmen.
If it's broke, anyone can fix it now.
How about danish furniture assembly! You won't have to take it apart and reassemble
the bookshelves anymore, because you can see it being put together on the iPad and you won't get part A mixed up with part D!!!
I have been still debating whether or not I would buy an iPad, but after watching that video, and seeing what Penguin is preparing for the iPad there is no way I wouldn't buy one now. I'm convinced ...
The more glimpses we get of this, the more convinced I become that this is the breaking crest of a new wave, that computers have matured to the point where they are no longer 'computers' in the contemporary sense of the word, but are utility devices that will become ubiquitous in a myriad of different applied uses across homes and workplaces.
This is huge news for the iPad.
I'm convinced about the iPad. Many don't seem to be.
I believe they'll see that the iPad is a "sleeper" and down the road they'll look back and realize just how revolutionary, and not evolutionary, it is. ("They" meaning the people who aren't convinced the iPad is anything special.)
Greg
Nah people want Windows 7 on a laptop that weighs 4lbs with no keyboard! hahaha sorry I couldn't resist
I thought they wanted Windows 7 on a tablet that weighed no lbs and had a choice of 4 keyboards.
But hey, what do I KNOW, I DON'T DO Windows
or is that - iDo multithingy and some otherFthingy together?
On second thought, WOW!!!!
Hope it isn't a return to the "Multimedia PC" that the CD attempted and failed, as The Register points out.
Nah people want Windows 7 on a laptop that weighs 4lbs with no keyboard! hahaha sorry I couldn't resist
Ahahahahah!!!
Ahahahahah!!!
Wow. You signed on to say this as your first post!?
Welcome to AI.
Hope it isn't a return to the "Multimedia PC" that the CD attempted and failed, as The Register points out.
Good point. Watching this reminded me of an Encarta demo from the early 90s. People kept saying "it's going to change the way children learn and knowledge is shared!" Well not so much. I realize the technology is different and the internet makes updates easier and not having to drag a class of kids to a computer lab isl going to make adopting easier, but there is still going to be a lot of barriers to overcome before technology replaces print.
But man knowing my kids aren't going to have to lug around backpacks full of text books...
Good point. Watching this reminded me of an Encarta demo from the early 90s. People kept saying "it's going to change the way children learn and knowledge is shared!" Well not so much. I realize the technology is different and the internet makes updates easier and not having to drag a class of kids to a computer lab isl going to make adopting easier, but there is still going to be a lot of barriers to overcome before technology replaces print.
You are right, but printed encyclopedias in particular are well and truly obsolete, thanks in small (very small) part to encarta.
Makinson sounds relatively open-minded and willing to embrace new technologies, as contrasted to the image of some media companies who have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the scary future.
That's because it *is* a good deal for the publishers, despite all that crap from a week or so ago when the publishers were arguing they'd have to be almost the same price as real books and everyone was agreeing with them.
Productions costs are ridiculously low, distribution is free, advertising is included, and the publishers get a much larger cut anyway.
For a publisher that already has paper versions of books they've been producing for many years, eBook versions *should* be a no brainer, (and they should be a lot cheaper than the paper one's as well). Capitalism being what it is they probably won't be, but there is nothing stopping them from being so.
Penguin Books demonstrated of a series of interactive ebook titles ...
It's worth noting that they didn't demo any "interactive titles" at all here.
The video shows obvious *mockups* of *possible* ways in which these as yet *hypothetical* eBooks *might* be done.
It was just a keynote presentation of what they are thinking of doing not a demo of actual product.