First E Ink Magazine Cover Coming in September

(Mac Slocum, July 21, 2008)

Esquire will use E Ink technology to declare "the 21st Century Begins Now" on 100,000 flashing copies of its September issue. David Granger, Esquire's editor in chief, discusses the first E Ink-driven magazine cover with New York Times:

... on its own, the magazine will run out of juice after 90 days. Mr.Granger knows some will see the cover as a gimmick -- but he says he thinks the technology behind it, which has been used for supermarket displays but never embedded in a magazine, speaks to the possibilities of print.

Update 7/23: Folio says Esquire's E Ink edition sell for $5.99, two dollars more than the usual cover price.

Creative Cost-Cutting Strategies

I was reading the August issues of Book Business this weekend, and I found James Sturdivant's article on "creative cost-cutting strategies" very interesting and timely. Here is a summary of the methods he suggests:

1. Think beyond the printed page: as paper prices keep increasing, think multimedia to keep page count down. Also, maximize efficiency with templates and paperless workflows.
   
2. Bringing printing in-house: several publishers, Harlequin included, have invested in technology to handle some of their own printing. If this is not an option, investigate "gang printing" and consolidated trim sizes to cut costs.
   
3. Jobs returning to North America: given the increasing cost of fuel, printing overseas isn't always the cost-saving measure it used to be. In addition, look into using lighter paper and better monitoring of inventory for further cost-savings.

The full article is definitely worth reading and can be found on their website (see link above).

What's next?

I was catching up on my blog-reading and two entries especially caught my eye.

One was about Harlequin's "enriched editions" on the TOC blog.

Unmasked ... has been enriched with interactive buttons that hyperlink to Web sites containing photos, historical commentaries, illustrations, sound effects, maps, articles and more ... The interactive buttons have been designed to be unobtrusive, so if one prefers not to access the bonus material, the reading experience remains uninterrupted.

I can't say as this surprised me, since it's been discussed at industry forum and is the next logical step for e-books. The next probably will be options such as posting notes and questions to groups, e-mailing reviews to websites, maybe even chatting with other readers. Who knows where e-books can go once you connect them to the World Wide Web.

The other entry was on Joe Wikert's blog about DailyLit. DailyLit, as the name implies, allows you to sign up for "daily" chunks of books delivered directly to your in-box. As Joe blogged, this is a cool idea and a great way to learn on the go. So I checked out the website, was about to sign up...then I stopped.

Although I still carry around a book with me wherever I go, I rarely pick it up during the week since I'm trying to stay on top of e-mail and blog-reading, thanks to my BlackBerry, while commuting. So why, after spending too much time staring at a screen at work, then spending most of my time to and from work staring at my BlackBerry screen, would I want to read a book on it? That's why I haven't even contemplated buying a Kindle, and that would be way more eye-friendly than this.

But maybe it's just me. Although I appreciate where the industry is going and think it should offer the reader all platforms to choose from, I just think getting more e-mail is not the answer. Check it out and let me know what you think.

POD for Magazines

I rarely blog about magazines since I've spent most of my career working with books, but I recently read an interview about MagCloud that I found interesting. What is MagCloud, you may ask: it's the magazine's answer to POD.

MagCloud is an HP Labs research project evaluating new web services that will provide small independent magazine publishers, online content owners, and small businesses the ability to custom publish digitized magazines and economically print and fulfill on demand.

To read the rest of the interview on Mr.Magazine.com, follow this link.

Next Generation E-Reader

While several different technology companies are working on foldable and/or more user-friendly e-readers (see my previous post and the this New York Times article), Harlequin has gotten ahead of other publishers with its offering of an enriched "e-dition."

Harlequin Launches Enriched Edition eBooks
Wednesday July 9, 8:30 am ET

Harlequin is the first publisher to release entirely enriched eBooks

TORONTO, July 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Harlequin Enterprises Limited (http://www.eharlequin.com/), the global leader in series romance and one of the world's leading publishers of women's fiction, announced today the launch of their Enriched Edition eBooks. With this launch, Harlequin becomes the first publisher to offer entire eBooks that are enriched with interactive buttons that hyperlink to Web sites with more information about the content.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080709/NYW026 )

The launch title, UNMASKED (http://ebooks.eharlequin.com/D0202CC6-7C9A-4669-AC03-444A8CBCC17B/10/126/en/ ContentDetails.htm?ID=3248E63E-7845-4356-B5CC-21B6FF6331D0) by Nicola Cornick (http://www.eharlequin.com/author.html?authorid=726), a Regency-set historical available from www.eBooks.eHarlequin.com, has been enriched with interactive buttons that hyperlink to Web sites containing photos, historical commentaries, illustrations, sound effects, maps, articles and more, bringing the world of the novel to life without the reader having to leave the computer or the current screen page. The interactive buttons have been designed to be unobtrusive, so if one prefers not to access the bonus material, the reading experience remains uninterrupted.

By exploiting the interactive possibilities inherent with eBooks, Harlequin is recognizing the opportunity for online reading to enhance the reading experience, evolving it above and beyond the replication of print books.

Harlequin will release select Enriched Edition titles from its many series and imprints, but chose to launch with a historical release since the period setting particularly lends itself to the enriched experience. Obscure period details, customs, terms and references become instantly accessible should the reader wish to learn more about the story's context.

Enriched Edition eBooks are available at www.eBooks.eHarlequin.com and are being sold at the same price as regular eBooks.

I'm actually surprised they haven't combined an audio feature with their enriched e-book, since that and/or video is the only thing left.

Although this "enrichment" of e-books was inevitable and the natural next step, what will it do to the next generation's attention spans and expectations? We've all probably read the Atlantic article about Google making us stupid; we've all seen the trend away from print-only models to print-and-ancillary/online. We've all accepted that the next step will be print-and-multimedia, but with this trend, will there be a publishing industry left, or will it be swallowed up in the entertainment industry as the line between the two blurs?

And as the public becomes used to more flash and interactive media, how many will choose to exercise their brain with the simple medium of the written word?

Trends in the "content" industry

In reading Book Business magazine's article on trends in the manufacturing side of the business, and a recent blog post about content tracking systems, I started thinking about other trends I've noticed and decided to share both:

1. The industry is "going green" and becoming more environmentally conscious.
2. Publishers are responding to higher paper costs and new technology by printing less: they print "just in time" and not "just in case" inventory (Book Business).
   
3. POD is fast catching up to standard print quality and becoming more economical and efficient (Book Business).
4. Content is king and having it multi-platform ready is the key.
5. With the advent of "social" marketing, publishers want their content to be widespread and copied to get the word out (O'Reilly's Tools of Change).
6. Consolidation continues: not only are companies merging, but they are also consolidating what vendors they use and internal processes to increase efficiency and cost savings.

This is not a comprehensive list, so what other trends have you noticed?

Full-spread E-Reader?

O'Reilly's Tools of Change blog reported today on a prototype e-reader, invented by reseraches from Berkeley and the University of Maryland, which further resembles a book. Not only does it have two screens--like a recto and a verso--but it allows you to detach the screens to better compare two different documents or you can just fold one screen behind the other. TOC even has a video of this prototype on their site, which has to be viewed to be believed.

What this prototype is trying to do, as explained by the YouTube video, is better mimic reading habits in an e-reader. With the two screens, it lets you better view more content, flip better, see an image across a spread, and more.

With the unbelievable leaps and bounds in iphone technology, I am sure that eventually "viewing" habits will overlap "reading" ones. For instance, the OnlineMediaCultist just blogged about how the next step will be Princess Leia popping out of your phone. As the video on his post demonstrates, this is possible nowadays with the "holo" text messaging feature of the iphone.

So will e-readers eventually have 3-d art that pops out at you? Will they have videos embedded into them as well? Will you be able to "record" comments instead of writing them? The possibilities seem limitless--or at least limited to the inventors' imaginations--given how far we've advanced.

But how will this affect production? We're all concerned with content being xml-ready so that it can be available for digital, whether online or via e-reader. What more will be necessary to get it "multi-media" ready? And whatever it will take, will have to start with editorial during the development and planning stage.

Any thoughts?