Masaaki Hagino and Daihei Shiohama, Voyager Japan: experimenting with interactive media for 30 years. Voyager japan is a digital publisher. As a digital publisher it is important to have an alternative point of view it is only through digital publishing that this can be done. First ebook we did was Jurassic Park which was recorded on a 3.5 inch floppy disk. Can find all the elements of current ebooks (annotations, etc.) back in the Jurassic Park book. Used Hypercard on Macs to publish ebooks even though they had no programming skills. Epub 3 will make a big difference in publishing in the Japanese language. For us the most important spec is in page progression direction. This will allow Japanese books to do right to left and many other features unique to the Japanese language.
Brad Inman, Vook: this is a period of experimentation. Last year had 25 titles, now have 400 and producing about 100 a month. Moving company to NYC. Moving to era of curated media which is a big opportunity for publishers. Seeing a reaction in the post PC world to a plethora of uncurated media, especially on the internet. Social media is an example of how people want curation. In that case the curators are their friends. Tablet is the change that will revolutionize books. Enables people to read in a way that is familiar and comfortable. Lessons: art of mixed media. Device allows us to experiment and don’t know that right mixture is. We know it works in instructional area. Great sales. Works also in history and entertainment. Had great experiences in marketing catalogs.
Peter Balis, John Wiley & Sons: unfair to say that publishers produce enhanced ebooks only to make more money. In fact publishers must experiment and try new technology to find what that ultimate interactive reading experience will be. Majority of enhanced ebooks are like real-time market research. Some lose money. To make an enhanced ebook we had to assess how people learn: auditory, visual, tactile. To do a good job have to make a product that is not passive, but active in a way that connects the reader to the teacher. An enhanced ebook must make a book better. It will cost more to produce and must increase the book’s value. One real Wiley enhanced ebook, Knitting for Dummies: print list $21.99, ebook price $14.99, enhanced ebook price $16.99. Able to show stitching in a way that can’t possibly do in a static ebook. Some cookbooks sold more in an enhanced version than it a plain vanilla version. One problem is that it is difficult to identify enhanced books on an website like Amazon or B&N. The workflow that goes into an enhanced ebook is very complicated and takes a lot of people with a complex underpinning.
