Apple, Publishing &Textbooks
January 20th 2012 22:37
Apple has plans to change the way textbooks are sold - forever. Like everything else Apple has done, however, it's all going to be done Apple's way, and stuff everyone else. And of course, you'll only be able to use Apple products to access these textbooks....didn't that kind of monopoly annoy everyone in the past in relation to Microsoft? How come it's taken this long for people to start complaining about Apple's monopolistic approach to everything digital?
There have been a lot of comments about the textbook issue - for example, from Audrey Watters
See, you can’t really say that you’re going to “change everything” when it comes to textbooks and announce that your partners are the 3 companies who already control 90% of the textbook market. You can’t say that you’re going to disrupt the textbook industry by going digital when Pearson – one of those big 3 and, indeed, the largest educational company in the world — made over $3 billion from digital content last year alone.
Or you can see a different overview at the Wall Street Jounral
The Vook people take a different approach to publishing, one that in my opinion is the way to go. It doesn't tie people frustratingly to one device or one system all with its own in-built 'widgets'. In an age of choice, Apple's approach seems odd, to say the least.
When people write a book, they want that book to be available everywhere. Not just on one platform or device. They want as many people to be able to read their book as possible. Which is why this is announcement has us so happy at Vook. Our platform allows you to build and create files in ePub and Mobi, for Amazon, BN, iBooks, Kobo and others. Vook is not a proprietary format, though we can produce those files. We serve as many of the distributors as possible, bringing your content—and making sure it looks great—to the vast diversity of existing devices and platforms.
And The Australian points out that Amazon already has far more textbook content available than Apple's 'handful' -
T]he real winner may be Amazon, whose Kindle Fire tablet costs 60 per cent less than an iPad 2. There are already far more textbook titles available for the Fire, direct from Amazon or through publisher-supported start-up CourseSmart.
Finally, Ed Bott at ZDNet comes out with some strong words:
Over the years, I have read hundreds of license agreements, looking for little gotchas and clear descriptions of rights. But I have never, ever seen a legal document like the one Apple has attached to its new iBooks Author program... He goes on....I have never seen a EULA as mind-bogglingly greedy and evil as Apple’s EULA for its new ebook authoring program. [EULA means End-User License Agreement.]
Thanks to The Passive Voice for bringing together these various articles - it's a site I've only just discovered, and sends out an email update every day (which is, every day, full of several summaries of articles...so don't take it on unless you've got time!
Incidentally, for a final word, one that didn't come from The Passive Voice, there's Seth Godin saying Apple didn't make publishing easier He differentiates between printing a book (which is what many people can now do digitally) and 'curating' a book, which is what publishing really means. While he appears to approve of Apple's new plans, he rather undercuts what they're doing, I think, in his comments about curation.
PS I've just come across this quote from The Scholarly Kitchen:
The publishers’ dream of creating content once and having it run everywhere is just that, a dream. We will all be nostalgic for Microsoft soon, which for about a decade or two essentially developed and controlled a standard for all computing. Those days are gone. There will be some publishers who will develop products for all available platforms (at great expense) and others who will focus on one platform alone (giving up a big piece of the market). But these are difficult days for publishers because platform wars have come to the book business.
There have been a lot of comments about the textbook issue - for example, from Audrey Watters
See, you can’t really say that you’re going to “change everything” when it comes to textbooks and announce that your partners are the 3 companies who already control 90% of the textbook market. You can’t say that you’re going to disrupt the textbook industry by going digital when Pearson – one of those big 3 and, indeed, the largest educational company in the world — made over $3 billion from digital content last year alone.
Or you can see a different overview at the Wall Street Jounral
The Vook people take a different approach to publishing, one that in my opinion is the way to go. It doesn't tie people frustratingly to one device or one system all with its own in-built 'widgets'. In an age of choice, Apple's approach seems odd, to say the least.
When people write a book, they want that book to be available everywhere. Not just on one platform or device. They want as many people to be able to read their book as possible. Which is why this is announcement has us so happy at Vook. Our platform allows you to build and create files in ePub and Mobi, for Amazon, BN, iBooks, Kobo and others. Vook is not a proprietary format, though we can produce those files. We serve as many of the distributors as possible, bringing your content—and making sure it looks great—to the vast diversity of existing devices and platforms.
And The Australian points out that Amazon already has far more textbook content available than Apple's 'handful' -
T]he real winner may be Amazon, whose Kindle Fire tablet costs 60 per cent less than an iPad 2. There are already far more textbook titles available for the Fire, direct from Amazon or through publisher-supported start-up CourseSmart.
Finally, Ed Bott at ZDNet comes out with some strong words:
Over the years, I have read hundreds of license agreements, looking for little gotchas and clear descriptions of rights. But I have never, ever seen a legal document like the one Apple has attached to its new iBooks Author program... He goes on....I have never seen a EULA as mind-bogglingly greedy and evil as Apple’s EULA for its new ebook authoring program. [EULA means End-User License Agreement.]
Thanks to The Passive Voice for bringing together these various articles - it's a site I've only just discovered, and sends out an email update every day (which is, every day, full of several summaries of articles...so don't take it on unless you've got time!
Incidentally, for a final word, one that didn't come from The Passive Voice, there's Seth Godin saying Apple didn't make publishing easier He differentiates between printing a book (which is what many people can now do digitally) and 'curating' a book, which is what publishing really means. While he appears to approve of Apple's new plans, he rather undercuts what they're doing, I think, in his comments about curation.
PS I've just come across this quote from The Scholarly Kitchen:
The publishers’ dream of creating content once and having it run everywhere is just that, a dream. We will all be nostalgic for Microsoft soon, which for about a decade or two essentially developed and controlled a standard for all computing. Those days are gone. There will be some publishers who will develop products for all available platforms (at great expense) and others who will focus on one platform alone (giving up a big piece of the market). But these are difficult days for publishers because platform wars have come to the book business.
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