The Real Reason Enhanced eBooks Haven't Taken Off (Or, Evan Schnittman Was Right... For the Most Part)

Originally published on Digital Book World

According to a recent article on the Futurebook blog, so far no publisher has proven that Evan Schnittman, industry thought-leader and current executive vice president and chief marketing and sales officer of Hachette Book Group, was wrong when he declared enhanced ebooks and apps essentially dead and a non-starter for publishers during a presentation at London Book Fair in 2011 (he was with Bloomsbury at the time). Further, with Book Expo 2014 coming up, the topic of enhanced ebooks is conspicuously missing from the agenda. Though there are one or two such panels scheduled during the IDPF Digital Book conference, what does it mean when there are no general sessions planned to address this subject? Does it signal that most publishers have given up on spending the time and resources on developing interactive reading experiences? Have they simply determined there's no real market for these kinds of digital products? Was Evan Schnittman correct? Overall, I'd venture to say, for the most part, the answer is a resounding yes.

Despite plenty of debate as to whether or not enhanced ebooks have merit, not enough attention has been paid to the real reason digital books featuring embedded video, audio, and other forms of interactivity haven't resonated with readers:

The main problem is that the market as it currently exists does not allow publishers to deliver the same enhanced product across all current digital platforms, whether it be Apple's iPad, Amazon's Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble's Nook, or Kobo's Arc. And when you stop and think about it, no other content creator is faced with this conundrum.

We often compare publishing to the music industry, and yes, record companies have been dealing with fast moving changes of their own over the years, but regardless of the medium, if you and I are standing in line at Starbucks and I ask if you've heard Beck's new album and liked this song or that, you will know what I'm talking about because regardless of how you ultimately heard the tracks, whether by CD, vinyl, or download, we both heard the songs the way the artist intended. And the same goes for most other forms of media. For example: Did you binge watch all seven seasons of Breaking Bad? Well so did I, but you rented the DVDs while I streamed episodes on my iPad during my commute on the train. Played Call of Duty with your gaming buddies over the weekend? I did too and we're able to enthusiastically share our first-person shooter experiences even though you have an Xbox and I've got a Playstation. And that's how it's pretty much always been with print editions of books as well, whether bought from a brick and mortar store, online, or checked out of the local library. Like music, TV shows, games, movies, etc., the hardcover or trade paperback delivered the same content in the same format no matter what shelf it was pulled from.

Seems obvious that this is the way things should be because it's a more unified experience for consumers. 

But here's the thing -- that's just not the case when it comes to ebooks of any type, but especially when describing ones enhanced with audio, video, and other interactive features.

While I was at NBCUniversal we produced a number of highly interactive projects using Apple's proprietary iBooks Author ebook platform in support of television programs, films, and corporate initiatives. The most popular was Grimm: The Essential Guide, which was a big hit with fans of the show, reaching upwards of 250,000 downloads. In addition to reading about the series, the ebook offered unique options to view 3D models of Wesen (the monsters); get a 360 degree view inside Rosalie's Spice Shop; use a palette to draw a favorite character, and much more. All cool, fun stuff for iBookstore customers to enjoy, right? Well, yes and no, because even within an Apple-centric universe there were boatloads of Grimm fans that were eager to experience this digital companion only to learn they couldn't because they owned iPhones and iPods, but not iPads. And the reason? Because ebooks created using iBooks Author can only be viewed on iPad; disappointed viewers wanted to know why. And if that wasn't frustrating enough, when Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet users downloaded this free, awesome ebook they saw promoted on TV or social media, those versions didn’t even include any of these features since neither device, at least at the time, could support them. In other words, we had to release a simpler, flatter, more traditional book-like product, which was a compromise of our original vision.

And therein lies the rub.

If publishers can't widely distribute enhanced ebooks across all channels then they will simply never gain traction by word of mouth, reviews, or with promotions (and I mean ones that don’t require the necessary asterisk to explain in fine print that the iBooks version features this, the Kindle version features that, and the Google Play version features neither). Those in the trenches of day-to-day ebook development at Disney, HarperCollins, Workman, Wiley, S&S, Random House, DK, Atavist, and others know exactly what I'm talking about and are nodding their heads.

So, am I suggesting we throw in the towel and stop pushing the digital storytelling envelope? My answer is not just no, but a resounding one at that!

And that's because eventually Apple will most likely figure out how to make IBA projects viewable on iPhones and iPods and for all I know it could be as soon as tomorrow. And Amazon's recent purchase of Comixology suggests it has plans to make interactive reading more dynamic on the Kindle Fire, which would be great since ebook sales from the Kindle store represents the lion's share of the market.

Schnittman's bold stance didn't surprise me because in January 2011, just a few months before the London Book Fair, we had a similar conversation over drinks in Paris while participating in an international publishing exchange. Ultimately, I agreed with his point in regards to fiction, or immersive reading, after sharing my experience developing the iPhone app for Cathy's Book, the first young adult transmedia project that paved the way for Scholastic's hit 39 Clues, The Amanda Project, Aisling's Diary, and several others. The influential print edition first published in 2006 was a success, but the app, which came out three years later, not so much. I had to concede such ambitious projects weren't sound investments economically for traditional publishers and that the promotional window, particularly for novels, provided less opportunity to ever recoup the costs of production. This probably remains the case for most publishers, even the large ones. But I don't believe anyone in our industry has ever suggested that all ebooks should be enhanced, and even Schnittman recognized during the London Book Fair the potential for enhancements in "how to" and academia.

Having just wrapped up my role as lead producer of JFK: 50 Days, a 2010 video enhanced project by Perseus Books Group that received a good amount of attention, including from the New York Times -- I felt then, and still do today -- that select non-fiction titles can be even better when paired with curated video/audio/etc. And the more evergreen the topic, the better the chance to re-promote year-after-year or to be discovered repeatedly in Google searches.

The Meet the Press 65th anniversary ebooks I recently had the privilege to produce reaffirmed that belief and serve as great examples of bringing history to life in digital book form. It's one thing to read about an appearance on MTP by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1957, but it's another entirely to actually watch that moment accompanied by a few informative paragraphs that put her comments into historical context.

The Futurebook post concludes that 3.5 years after London Book Fair 2011 we now know people prefer to just read straight text and don't want these enhancements. But given the distribution challenges I described earlier, I think one can not come to such a conclusion with any certainty. Readers can't determine what they do or don't prefer if they aren’t aware of what they’re missing.

Mike Shatzkin, another industry thought-leader, wrote a blog post more than a year ago asking "How far away can it be for the NBC News book on a national election...", which we actually did publish in November of 2012 called Election Night. It’s an insightful read and features terrific archival footage from 1948, the dawn of television, right up until President Obama's re-election to office. During an appearance on MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews said to author Stephen Battaglio, "Congratulations on finally justifying having one of these hi-tech books..." and “I don’t think you can not buy this if you’re a true junky like me.” Such coverage resulted in hundreds of people that evening choosing to download the enhanced edition over the standard one when presented with the option.

I'm confident there are audiences equally anxious for well produced digital books featuring enhancements with purpose. This is the key: that interactive ebooks be developed with the long term in mind, with less expectation of being a blockbuster, but instead be elegantly simple in design/functionality, as well as entertaining, educational and utilitarian. Like the enhanced Everything Language series embedded with audio that was released during my time at F+W Media, which in print, includes a CD. Or the Everything Baby Sign Language book, which includes a DVD in the back of the print edition, but the same videos were repurposed and featured within the enhanced eBook. Interactive titles like these make perfect sense in digital form to consumers and become part of the slow burn for publishers that can result in a consistent stream of revenue, year-after-year.

In the late 1990s, Internet pioneer Josh Harris launched an experimental, video-based art project called, Quiet: We Live In Public, which invited 100 volunteers willing to appear on webcam 24/7, capturing their every movement. It was a challenging, technological feat that led the way for reality TV. More than 15 years later such an online endeavor would be a piece-of-cake in our world of YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Facetime, and Pinterest where we’re literally all connected and share everything about our daily lives. I feel we’re in a similar moment in time when it comes to interactive reading and that eventually enhanced ebooks, or whatever they’ll be called years from now, will become more mainstream. And that is why I passionately believe it's more important than ever to keep innovating, to keep redefining reader engagement, and to keep the conversation going with our ebook retail partners until it’s possible to present the same interactive digital product to everyone, everywhere.

Hopefully such discussions will return to Book Expo 2015.

Until then, you can find me in the trenches.

Everything Embellished: The Making of an Enhanced eBook Series

Originally published on Digital Book World

It was late January and I was getting ready to leave for Paris. The bags were packed, the iPad charged, and before departing I intended to download an enhanced eBook to learn a few simple French phrases during the long flight. After searching several online booksellers I managed to find a number of choices but each was either poorly formatted or the enhancements just didn't contribute much to the reading experience. Needless to say, what was available (even for free) was of no use and I ended up downloading an app instead.

This experience resonated with me and upon returning from the City of Light I eagerly started working at F+W Media as Director of Digital Content to produce exactly the type of product I was hoping to find (or the kind even my friend Evan Schnittman might appreciate!). And so I proposed our first project be the relaunch of eight eBooks, enhanced with audio clips, that would make learning a foreign language easy and enjoyable. And so we immediately began development on The Everything Learning Language Series.

Since these were backlist titles, the first thing we did was extensively review the original ePub files. The print editions were published with CDs and to our dismay the digital versions referenced audio tracks from those accompanying discs. Yikes!! So all the tiny CD icons and sentences instructing readers to listen to this or that track had to be replaced and rewritten. Another aspect that required similar attention was the various tables populating each chapter. Tables, mathematical formulas, or symbols can be pretty challenging to replicate in digital format. However, the tables were essential to include and we wanted to get 'em right. We discussed at length how best to present these key components in a way that was both practical and aesthetically pleasing while closely replicating the formatting established in the physical editions. That's the fine balance with utilitarian books like these. They're typically meant to deliver useful information with little concern for the design. That said, I wanted us to aim high and focus on making them clean and inviting.

I shared this perspective with my colleagues Colleen Cunningham (aka BookDesignGirl), Matt Leblanc, and Lisa Laing, the terrific Production/Editorial team at Adams Media, and waxed philosophically about end user experience, etc., etc. And after much discussion (mostly of them explaining to me why half my zany ideas would never work!) they rolled up their sleeves and dove deep into the files to achieve what I like to refer to as an "elegant simplicity." But attempting to make something look the way it "should" is never easy and in this case required rounds and rounds of production notes and several months of experimentation. If there's one thing I've learned with these types of projects it's that they always take much longer to create than anyone first anticipates. Fortunately, I'm lucky enough to interact with knowledgable pros and together we learned a tremendous amount while embarking on this concerted effort.

But here's the thing (and why I personally have a love/hate relationship with eBooks). These enhanced versions of the Everything Learning Language books do look great, especially when the font is set to an average size. Make that font larger or smaller and all hell can break loose! If only we publishers could be present at those very moments to say to readers, "Stop, please, don't do that, can't you see it was perfect just the way you had it?!?" But alas, we cannot. However, thoughtful planning (and lots of programming) can go a long way to prevent most breakdowns in formatting...within reason. In the end, it's the reader who controls the text size, font style, line spacing, and background color with options such as sepia, black, or in some cases lavender depending on what device they're using. Unfortunately, there's just not much we publishers can do except try to predict the unpredictable. This is the reason while working on projects like this I'm often reminded of the Voltaire-ism: Perfect is the enemy of good enough.

Here's an example of what I mean: Each of the Everything Learning Language titles contains a number of writing activities designed to help the reader fully comprehend the lessons sprinkled throughout each chapter. But these are enhanced eBooks, not apps, so there weren't many options to make this kind of functionality possible. Yes, we could've spent the programming time to include a JavaScript pop-up that would allow for some kind of entry field, but at what cost? And for which device? What might work well on an iPad will most likely not do so on a Nook Color or even Kindle for iPad. So instead we decided to take a very different approach and begin each with a "How-To" section explaining the need for pen and paper while using these eBooks. We also recommend the user allow sufficient time for the eBook to load due to the amount of audio and images it contains. It's a simple solution we believe readers will appreciate.

After all is said and done, I'm pleased to report the entire series is currently being promoted in the iBookstore and we're working hard on getting them formatted for Nook Color and Kindle for iPad as soon as we can. Personally, I'm looking forward to the day when the Everything Learning Language Enhanced Series will also be available through Google eBooks, Blio, and Sony's upcoming tablets.

Naturally, we're hopeful all this effort and support pays off and "translates" into sales ;-)

NOTE: Special thanks to India Amos, our latest addition to the F+W Media family, eBook Architects, and Ugly Dog Digital, for their assistance in the production of this eBook series.

The French (Digital) Revolution: My Week in Paris - Part One

I was recently invited by the French-American Federation of Publishers to spend a week in Paris along with fellow American publishing pros Evan Schnittman of Bloomsbury, Mitzi Angel of FSG, and Ira Silverberg of Sterling Lord Literistic.

The intent was for our group to meet with several of the top publishers like Gallimard, Flammarion, and La Martiniere and booksellers like La Procure and Fnac in France to discuss the burning topic of eBooks, Enhanced eBooks, Apps, and the various challenges currently facing our industry when it comes to all things digital. Needless to say, it was a great privilege and the business trip of a lifetime that provided me with a new perspective and plenty of food for thought (and I'm not just referring to all the amazing cheeses or baguettes!).

We first met with the Ministry of Culture and Communications where we learned, among other things, about how the government supports the local independent bookshops by not allowing price reductions on any books published in France, which prevents an indie or chain store from being undersold by a competitor, such as Amazon.fr. Instead, stores are expected to sink or swim based on the shopping experience they provide to their customers. And if a store struggles to live up to expectations, then pointers are given to an owner on how to create a good shopping environment. In other words, every effort is made to prevent a store from shutting its doors. This may seem incredible, but it's just one reflection of how committed the French are to preserving the written word and their culture at large. And it must be working because from what I could see, it seemed like there were independent bookstores, large and small, around every street corner.

But much of what was discussed centered around the issue of eBooks and whether or not they would be welcomed or disdained by French readers. Everyone seemed to acknowledge the growth of eBooks as inevitable, but no-one felt confident one way or the other predicting at what pace they would be accepted or impact the sales of print books. To date, books published in France are not available from Amazon.fr, which means they are not available on Kindle. The few times I did see a Kindle being used on a bus or the metro, the person using it was reading in English. Were they French, British, American, or none of the above? There was no way of telling and confess I wish I'd taken the opportunity to ask.

There are a few e-Readers available online in France, most notably from Sony, iRiver, and Bookeen. And while there I visited a Virgin Megastore at The Louvre to give them a try and must say each had their pros and cons. One other device released this past November is the FnacBook, an e-Ink Reader launched by Fnac, the largest bookstore chain in France, the equivalent of our Barnes & Noble or Best Buy. This device is just OK and we were told that a new, improved model will be coming in the spring. Since eBooks currently represent a little less than 1% of the total market, it was no surprise that the only place I saw one of these eReaders was at the Fnac headquarters. One thing everyone seemed to agree on, is that when the Kindle becomes available with French titles for download, the eBook market will significantly increase.

The other major player that concerns the French is Google France and the eventual purchase of eBooks from their cloud-based store. Ads for iPads were everywhere in the streets of Paris and it won't be long before the other tablets begin to catch on as well, which means lots of access to both Google Editions and the iBookstore. The one portable device I did see in the hands of practically everyone, everywhere was the iPhone! But will the French want to read on such a small screen? Only time will tell.

Regardless of how consumers in France feel about reading digitally, one thing is pretty certain, eBooks are coming on strong later this year and many of the industry people I had the pleasure to meet, both young and old, are excited and anxious to be part of this French revolution.

More on that later...