Is ePublishing the Future of Computer Books?

Recently Joe Wikert wrote about tinkering with the publishing model and I wondered if we could publish a printed book with an online companion. That generated quite a bit of discussion. It seems that some pioneers have already forged ahead and started providing books online. As for an online companion, providing the online information (with routine updates) for free can be a hook for the printed book and it sounds like the author should take the initiative. I think the printed book with companion online content is only an intermediate step towards something else that’d be the future computer book. The problem is that I don’t know the specifics of that future, but could ePublishing play a role?

There are already some examples of ePublishing—for example, there is Adam Engst’s Take Control eBooks covering Mac OS X,  Mac applications, and hardware. It’s definitely a niche market. He prices the 70- to 100-page PDF books between $5 to $10 The PDF eBooks are designed to be read online and they are not copy-protected. A 2004 Wired article says the model is working well for Engst and he pays his authors 50 percent royalty. Engst does have the 50,000 subscribers of his TidBits magazine as a built-in audience for his eBooks.

Would a similar ePublishing model work for other niche computer books? Could established print publishers adopt a model similar to Adam Engst’s? It’s hard to tell.

By the way, I noticed several ePublishing books on Amazon, but guess what, they are all print books—why aren’t these books practicing what they preach? Or is it because people aren’t buying eBooks yet?

Comments

[Joe Wikert]

Hi Naba. I think the problem is two-fold. First, there's no real "killer app", or in this case, "killer reader device". I've been known to read PDFs on my PocketPC, but it's far from a pleasant experience. Something's got to come around that is as effective as the original Palm Pilot. That device reinvented the whole handheld market. Remember Apple's Newton? Neither do I. But the folks at Palm knew what they were doing, built just the right functionality into it and the rest is history. Some day we'll see a similar device come along for e-books.

The other key to this is the content. As I mentioned in a related post on my blog ( http://jwikert.typepad.com/the_average_joe/2005/03/tinkering_with_.html ), we've got to think differently about how content is presented in a non-print format. Layering is an important piece of this. Simply pouring the print content into an electronic format will only take us so far. We need to figure out how best to take advantage of the platform.

[Naba Barkakati]

Hi Joe, I was wondering if PDF books might be an interim step before that killer eBook reader emerges.

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