Waving goodbye to Achilles

Following a year of further rapid development since the last blog in Spring, we are transferring our blog posts to a new site and hibernating the achilles publishing brand. To follow what we are doing now, including sight of our new novel out on Amazon – Rhapsody of Restraint, then go to creativepubtalk on http://www.creativepubtalk.com

Au revoir Achilles for now!

What is Google Books about?

A number of people have been asking us recently about Google Books, what is it and how can I access it and is it a force for good or evil. At this point we are not going to go into the myriad of past and existing arguments here, especially over the intricacies and morals of copyright and ownership, which have been running for a long time from publishers, authors and other vested interests in the book business. Suffice it to say for us is that Google Books is here, and is going to stay although a lot more work on rolling it out to become more searchable friendly certainly needs to be done. It is the most significant online resource channel to provide access to a digitised host of fascinating scanned and physically difficult or unobtainable out of print and out of copyright books, which previously would have been buried forever in the mists of time. Achillespubtalk understands the concerns of some publishers – but I have to admit, now it is up and running, we like delving into it.

Buried in the mudpool

Well it has been rather a long time since a post emerged from the Achillespubtalk keyboard. We have only just surfaced again having been down in the mud pool continually fighting the enemy – austerity, budget cuts and diminishing work in the consultancy business. It has been a tough year amongst the steam and heat but we have beaten back the marauders and holding our ground, whilst many around have been perishing in droves. Being fleet of foot, like our namesake, is an essential skill in this rapidly changing digital publishing landscape where the concept of traditional customers, marketing and business models are rapidly dissolving in a turmoil of change. But we are doubly excited about the opportunities and are honing up our sword blades again for the next phase of digital book explorations. So keep tuned in again – we did purchase an iPad amongst other playthings and have plenty to say about that for starters.

iPad launch – facts and fiction?

Well the hype and media furore went into overdrive yesterday as the first lucky US punters were filmed in the Apple Shop as they got their hands on a treasured iPad purchase.  A couple of things struck me:

• How civilised and good humoured everyone was following that long wait in a huge queue, unlike the rabid Xmas sales frenzies here in the UK where people can be trampled to death casually walking past.
• How everyone interviewed evangelised on the coming of the end of the mouse-laptop-PC world as we know it, although I assume they missed out the guy who has already sold his kit on eBay for a mega mark-up before he had got to the exit door
• How very few women were in the queue to be an immediate adopter. Does this indicate anything, or have they not yet got over sanitary and Apple misogyny connotations?

The reviews continue extremely encouragingly, bar the maniacs who can’t live without Flash and cameras. Personally, as a start-up ePublisher, I can’t wait to get my hands on an iPad and test out my creative skills with doing some enhanced digital content. Sadly we may be waiting a long time in practice before iPads become available in the UK. No prices have been announced although the rumours circulating yesterday in the Apple Shop in Norwich are pointing to the end of April for purchase – we shall see, we have been disappointed before by Amazon. There is a serious danger of iPad eBook and Book Apps opportunities faltering in the same way as the unwarranted Kindle delay significantly contributed to the UK eBook market being 2 years behind the US presently; thankfully the industrious work from John Lewis, Waterstones and the Sony eReader prevented a catastrophe of hardware and content dearth. Although it would be nice to get the same models in the UK as the US (yet again)!

All this will change overnight with the iPad. I do believe a significant and global revolution in digital books is upon us all, in the same way the iPhone and iTunes have changed the music industry and that publishing and the traditional outmoded print business model will change forever. However whilst all the focus and attention is on Apple right now, it is instructive to draw breath and peer into the future because if the iPad is such a technological discontinuity as predicted then the look-alikes and next-stagers will emerge very quickly – especially with the fast advancements in plastic electronics. So I don’t think the iPad will dominate in the same way as the iPhone did and that we won’t have long to wait for the multimedia touch screen colour eReader using eInk which really does weigh less than a paperback and costs less than $100

Time for the Geeks to relinquish control

Whilst we are all seeing an increasing consumer buy-in to eBooks, there remains general unease about how far, when, or of even if that critical mass and tipping point of eBook versus the printed word will occur. But it isn’t all about the ongoing march of the next big thing technology to provide the compelling reading experience. Good old fashioned serious attention and real empathy to the overall customer access experience, for the service and product, which Apple has shown works stunningly well to good profitable effect, will in my view swing the day to digital. A recent experience convinced me.

I decided a couple of days ago to download the newly released Ian McEwen novel, Solar, as an ePub book for my Sony Reader, from the new WH Smith UK Bookseller site, who are offering a lot of nice prices. Opening the account and paying the money was easy, the ecommerce link to back office was fine. Only getting the download was a nightmare. First off was the download itself appearing as a 1Kb ACSM file which then went into an ePub folder automatically but, when I clicked on it, nothing whatsoever happened.  Had I been ripped off? And no detailed help on the WH Smith site or a phone/email contact point for problems (What!), except a PhD style FAQ on the purpose of Adobe Digital Editions as a mandatory DRM gatekeeper etc. And what about the ACSM file? – In fact what is an ACSM file? I had never seen one before, certainly not when I had downloaded eBooks previously elsewhere for the Sony eReader. Thank goodness for Google, there is always a forum and yes I was one of many with the same problem and I learned that the ACSM file is a process trigger, recognised by Adobe Digital Editions to first access the full ePub file. Now I won’t get into the pros and cons of DRM here and the barrier effect. However Adobe Digital Editions is not, so they say, exactly the most user-friendly piece of software around, which I find amazing as a situation not yet remedied by Adobe, considering how much commercial ePub content is presently dependent on being accessed through it. I reasoned there was therefore something wrong with my own Digital Editions. On looking at my version it then demanded an update – OK fair enough, then clicking on that update the system demanded Adobe Flash, which wouldn’t download and when Flash was installed anyway and kept forcing a switch to my Firefox browser rather than using the default Explorer 8! In the end I had to delete Firefox, which seems to have a queasy relationship with Adobe and Flash, then downloaded the new version of Digital Editions and clicked again on the ACSM file and low and behold it worked and ePub Solar blazed into life and made a quick download straight into my Digital Edition Library. Phew … cracked it two hours later … only to find that my Sony Library to which I then need to copy and paste the DRM ePub file from the Digital Editions Library wouldn’t  accept my EReader until it too was upgraded to the next version. By midnight, a bottle of wine drunk, ground teeth and prizewinning persistence, Solar was nicely sitting in my eReader, ready for some bedtime pleasure but gosh what a performance!

All this nonsense needs to end, with the Geeks and Adobe too taken out of the buying loop and the purchasing job handed fully to all eBookseller marketing and customer service teams – in the same way that Sky television got a grip of easy recording of programmes with its vastly improved SkyPlus HD box experience. Is this where Apple and its proposed iBook to mirror iTunes service cleans up again? You bet!

Out of the Stone Age with eReaders?

When Amazon announced that over the Xmas period 2009, they sold more downloaded eBooks than standard paperbacks, following the international expansion of sales of Amazon Kindles, then publishers could no longer remain unconvinced that eBooks were just a passing fad. The market in 2009 has been dominated by a small number of players in the supply of hardware, principally Amazon and Sony with the Cool-er eReader hot on their heels. What all these devices have in common is their use (provided by the same company) of a revolutionary electronic ink display which mimics paper, and without the need for power once text or images are displayed, to provide a crisp and clear read in direct sunlight on a screen the size of a paperback. This is in contrast to the backlit LCD and LED displays found on laptops and Smartphones. Reading extended text or books on LCD screens can be uncomfortable for many after 15minutes or so and virtually useless when outdoors, with tiny screens being a major irritation. eReaders make particular sense because they conserve precious space in overcrowded rooms or inside heavily packed suitcases and are great reading in bed.

 However the downside for users of the initial trailblazers, circa early 2007, was a feeling of a backwards crusade to the eReader equivalent of Windows 3.1 and the BBC Computer, with black & white only, no online access, a screen text refresh rate discerningly slow, clunky control buttons and a bewildering array of file formats fighting a VHS-Betamax style warfare all over again.

 Things did change significantly by 2009. With the introduction in the US of the Amazon Kindle linking directly to their online bookstore via an AT&T 3G mobile network, together with the UK available Sony PRS-500 with streamlined design, desktop computer synching like i-tunes, great screen and improved functionality then eBooks went rapidly onto the map. A moving out of the technological stone-age was beginning and Gutenberg began to decidedly stir. By late 2009, buoyed up with accelerating eBook sales, Sony introduced touch screen and faster processing, the Kindle was given a keyboard and importantly can now be bought and used worldwide, still with free 3G book purchase access and both devices can annotate notes and play music. Xmas 2009 will therefore be viewed as marking the real start of the eBook revolution. So what is 2010 likely to hold in store, which defines the bridging of this innovation discontinuity toward massive and sustainable takeoff?

 Tablets? Amazingly they are back again after their underwhelming launch in the early noughties by Microsoft, but are now benefiting with a potential technological revamp accompanied by the uplifting descriptor of “slates.” Apple is in the driving seat with their trailed launch of their enhanced iTouch device, drawing on the zeitgeist iPhone phenomenon. Now having had the benefit of the Steve Jobs laying of technological hands, the branded iPad, due for sale from March 2010 starting with the US market, is likely to double up as a serious all-embracing multimedia communications accessory and e-reader. Microsoft and HP remain hot on their heels with their own new tablet announcements already made and other manufacturers, having been waiting in the eReader wings, are likely to follow. This will provide an interesting pitting of Amazon against Apple for the walled-garden heart of the eBook market. Expect Amazon to react quickly with competitive ePublishing deals and Kindle apps. A defining differentiator will be price with the Kindle likely to remain substantially less than an Apple iPad and of course the LCD colour versus black and white e-ink screen technology will rumble onwards. Although Apple has not used OLED screen technology, the reader is likely to find the giant i-touch a satisfying screen experience, and e-ink has much to worry about. But e-ink colour will prevail in due course – the laboratory trials are encouraging.

Other New Technologies? At the 2010 CEL Show, a company called Plastic Logic fully unveiled their QUE, a device built by utilising revolutionary plastic semiconductor technologies developed from world beating Cambridge University research. This is moving the hardware towards the almost science fiction dream of computers looking and feeling like paper magazines, a key aspiration also of the iPad. Another device, the Skiff, has similar attributes and both will target the business reader who wants access to online newspapers and magazines in terms of screen size, portability, integrated multiple file handling capability and WiFi or mobile 3G communications. These devices will generate a significant amount of interest from publishers and eBook consumers if they really deliver what they promise in practice and become developing competitors of the iPad. The interesting question is how far the lack of the Apple stardust sprinkled into their sales pipelines will consign them to the technology graveyard or not.   

So 2010 will be a very interesting year and the likely serious breakthrough for eBooks and digital publishing with a very exciting acceleration of hardware choice and access capability coming to market. Is this the death of books? Gutenberg was an innovator of his time with a process which is likely to still stand the test of time despite the digital competition. But expect in five years time for the balance of sales of e-books and printed books to reverse. The other interesting question is what is Sony doing? Achillespubtalk is a happy user of Sony eReaders and looks forward to the next Sony forthcoming innovations.