How the Future of eBooks is Up for Grabs

(MoneyWatch)  Penguin Books CEO John Makinson's recent presentation shows why forward-looking publishers are so excited about the iPad (and other eReader formats), while the more tradition-bound remain downright scared.

Unlike some in the book industry, Makinson seems unwilling to simply concede the future of reading to technology companies. By focusing on how the content of books can grow and change beyond the parameters of new technological platforms, he seems determined to help shape that future.

A good example of this activist approach is Penguin's willingness push beyond the ePub format supported by Apple's iBookstore to launch content applications -- as opposed to actual eBooks.

"We will be embedding audio, video and streaming in to everything we do," promises Makinson. "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 content as applications, for sale on app stores and HTML, rather than in eBooks. The definition of the book itself is up for grabs."

Some worry that until the format issue is decided, confusion will reign in the marketplace. "Until Apple announced its iPad, you could have argued that the industry seemed to be solving the compatibility problem," notes Troy Wolverton on MercuryNews.com. "Although numerous eBook formats have existed over the years, the industry seemed to be coalescing around...ePub."
On the other hand, Makinson's initiatives illustrate how the standardization of formats could be premature until the broadest concept possible of what a book might be has been more thoroughly explored.

One who might disagree with Makinson's perspective is Joe Clark, who observed on SixApart: "The Internet did not replace television, which did not replace cinema, which did not replace books. EBooks aren't going to replace books either. (They) are books, merely with a different form."

But as Makinson's preso shows, this is not necessarily going to be the case in the future.

In this way, unlike his colleagues at newspapers and magazines, who tended to wait around and let technology companies figure out the standards their content would be using on the web, Makinson (and others) seem determined to help invent the mobile book future themselves - and then challenge the tech firms to catch up with them.

That, for a print industry too long mired in lethargy, would be setting a good example going forward.

Note: Thanks to Junko Sasaki for help with this post.
Related BNET links:
E-books Now More Popular Than Games in iTunes Store
For the first time ever, the number of eBooks (27,000) has surpassed games (25,400) in Apple's iTunes app store, according to the mobile ad company Mobclix.

The New Book: An Interactive, Networked Gathering Place Writing in Humanities magazine, a bimonthly review published by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Steve Moyer has taken a detailed look at the future of books and of the act of reading itself.

E-Readers in 2010: DIY or Partner With Amazon, Sony, Plastic Logic, et. al. If you scan the many predictions for the media industry in 2010, one consensus is that e-readers will become a much more important channel for content distribution over the coming year--

E-Books Reach a "Tipping Point," Triggering Explosive Growth "My email in-box is humming this week with people sharing anecdotes about the growth in popularity of e-books--"

Amazon, the Kindle, and the Future of All Books New York City "--you can't turn around in this town without bumping into yet another laid off editor--

The Future of Books "As the age of print approaches its final years, its most treasured form -- the book -- stands much like Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, surrounded, doomed, and all too soon to be slaughtered unmercifully--"