The typo is a bug, reprinting an update
The books are software
12
December
2014
Advanced Typography, Unicode, vector images, metadata must become essential ingredients of the electronic book.
This piece does not end in three lines, after having reported the article If electronic books are software, is now in version 2.0 of Benjamin Denckla of Publishing Perspectives, just because my position is more radical.
Denckla is soft – you is softened, in fact – to the choice of so many ebook publishers to bring out low-quality optical character recognition from the edition printed and little or nothing more, while quickly enter a new market with an initial investment low. I disagree: the readers remember the low quality they encounter, and over time they learn to avoid it. The quality has to justify the price immediately. The key step is however the next one:
I have not softened too: I think [the publishers] have done the right thing with the wrong intent. Believe they have produced a conversion at low cost and have finished work. I think they have done well to convert a budget, but they should see those conversions as a version 1.0.
The books, when they are electronic, must be seen as software. The software is inherently affected by bugs, which are periodically arranged, and by its nature evolves adapting to the environment in which it works.
Stuff other than paper books, then? Different conceptions of culture traditional publishing? Questionable. The software bugs are similar to the presence of typos and inaccuracies in the paper book. Only change the refresh rate, which previously depended strictly on the reprint and is now more flexible.
The evolution is more complex affair: map the complexity of printing on the characteristics and limitations of the ebook readers is not correct. And certainly the technical knowledge and culture to acquire and integrate production processes are different and non-trivial. The idea that the books do not require programming is realized in a day.
The conclusions of Denckla, which I agree, however, remain indisputable. In 2015 the ebook should be thought with metadata, advanced typography and Unicode character set, instead of rasterized vector images. Constraints data from ebook reader should be considered so as to overcome limits, not as the lowest common denominator on which to sit.
It is time the ebook 2.0. If only because the low quality in the long run does not pay. If we want to sell e-books, you have to make them worthy of being purchased. And the way to get there is to start to consider them for what they are, ie software.
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