Sometimes you just have to cry when you read news announcements from companies in the outdoors industry. So many of them just don’t get the digital world.
Take for example the latest news from Cicerone. Over on their blog they announce what at first sounds like they have joined the 21st Century and started making the books they publish as ebooks (read their blog post here). They go one step further and announce that there is a special offer on as well for those that buy a physical copy of the book for getting 50% off the ebook version.
Great news you would think. At last I can take the book with me on my portable device like my iPhone/iPod Touch or maybe Android based phone. Or maybe use my Kindle or iPad if I had one (the two market leaders I believe when it comes to ebook readers). But NOOOOOO. Cicerone have gone with an Adobe ebook format that is not available on any of the platforms that most people would have. Oh they can be read on a pc/laptop or Mac and some minor ebook readers that no-one has even heard of (apart from the Sony ebook reader).
Why the feck did Cicerone go with a format that is so limited? With in what a couple of months, the iPad has become the number one ebook reader on the market (can’t back that claim up, but considering that in that time they have sold over 2 million iPads, I would place good money on the fact that they have out sold most of all the other ebook readers added together). And from the 21st June when millions of iPhones get iOS4 on their phones the ibook marketplace makes the Apple ibook market probably one of the largest potential ebook marketplaces out there.Kindle is second place, and has Amazon behind it. Plus with Kindle if I buy a book from Amazon I can read it on the Kindle itself, or using the free Kindle app on my iPhone/iPod Touch,iPad, Android phone.
Ebooks have been around for a few years now. But it has only been in the last couple of years that they have really taken off. And that has mainly been thanks to Amazon pushing the format with the Kindle. Reading on a laptop or PC just hasn’t proved popular with the general public or even techies. It’s been the specific devices like the Kindle that made it a pleasurable experience. People want to be able to sit in bed, on the beach, out in the garden and read, not be tethered to a desktop pc or a laptop with a couple of hours battery life.
I think I know why Cicerone went with this format. It is so they don’t have to give a cut to Apple or Amazon. If Amazon or Apple sell the book through their stores, then they take a percentage of the sale, with Apple I think it is approx 30%. But in doing so Cicerone have cut themselves off from possibly the two largest ebook markets out there.
Granted Adobe may bring out a client for Android at some point. But I can not see Amazon or Apple letting them in to play on their platforms.
I don’t want an ebook on my PC/Mac. I want it with me on my portable device, whether that is an iPad/iPhone or Android phone.
Cicerone prove once more that they just don’t get it. Their previous effort of the iPhone app they released was a missed opportunity, and now this. Whoever is advising them on their strategy really needs to be given the boot.
So until I can get the Cicerone books on my portable devices then they won’t see any of my money, I’m not touching them with a barge pole, and I’m the target market. And my recommendation to others would be to make sure that if you are considering the ebook edition from Cicerone that you confirm that it will be readable on the devices you intend to read the book on.
They don’t have to share anything with Apple. They could just provide an ePub format and users can sync via iTunes. You need the free Stanza ebook reader for iPhone/iPod but at least you then get the ebook on your mobile device. It even works on Android phones and if they provide a Mobi format it’ll work on the Kindle too. I suspect they’re more concerned with DRM than providing a book in electronic format for all platforms. Funny how the DRM paranoia doesn’t translate into the hard copy world. You never see books with spiky covers designed to trash photocopiers! But that’s what you see all the time in the digital world. Suppliers are more concerned with stopping people doing things with the ebook, than, well, reading it on their device of choice.
Alistair, see if it was DRM then Apple have that answered as they implement FairPlay as their DRM with EPUB. IIRC Amazon own Stanza as well the Kindle. But it is still a great tool as you pointed out.
But great points and thanks for the comment
Thanks for this article Darren, very interesting.
I’m not into mobile/portable devices at all generally but I’m keeping a watchful eye on eBook readers and guess what: despite the hard and well documented lessons of computing history, the whole proprietary format shambles repeats itself yet again – only it’s even worse this time. Have you seen the Wikipedia table showing the multitude of formats against the support by eBook reader devices?. Stupidity beyond belief.
I notice that the Cicerone blog is closed to user comments – have you contacted them referencing this post?.
We are after a reader based on e-Ink and at the moment the stumbling block for us is the physical size of the page area, it’s really small.
Geoff, thanks for the comment. I haven’t contacted them about the post. As for the switching off of comments on the post, well it’s their right to do so. However it does show a lack of engaging with their community. For a publisher I would of thought community building and engagement is what they would want to do.
Interesting to see your thought on the reader front, hadn’t thought that they were not big enough. Have you looked at the full kindle range available? Although officially I think we only get one of the range outside of the US, there is the DX and the Kindle 2 in the US.
Darren, since you’ve given this topic a start it would be a great service if you’d chat with Cicerone to find out for sure why they’ve done what they’ve done and what their plans are for the future. It doesn’t do to be too critical of traditional publishers—especially smallish ones—who are trying to come to grips with the new environment and the shift of their income stream from the familiar and more or less reliable to the iffy. You’re absolutely right that movement to better formats is inevitable. Unless they’re blind and deaf, they know it, too. So what’s up? I doubt the answer is simply that they’re blind and deaf.
Now then, the Kindle DX looks more like it.
I wouldn’t buy one just yet, there is more research to do and I need to look at the competition. The biggest single issue to sort out is whether I can put my own eBooks – from whatever source in whatever format – directly onto the device without any dependence on wireless technology (e.g. via USB).
If it won’t accept other formats, I need to verify that eBooks can be converted to a format that it will accept (maybe that solution, whatever it is, will work for Cicerone books).
Geoff, look at the Stanza software (mentioned by Alistair in the first comment above) for generating and converting between formats. I would be surprised if this would work with the Adobe format as that will have DRM which would be a hard thing to convert, or get round.
Mark, thanks for the comment. I have now contacted them pointing them in the direction of this post. Hopefully they will respond.
Darren and all contributors
I guess you can say we are still waiting for you to contact us, but a week has gone by and we can’t find any record of you getting in touch, so I will respond to the thread. If you have then please let me know and we will go find out how and why we have lost it.
Its good that you have picked up on it and we do appreciate that there are limitations to what we have done so far. But bear in mind that its a several year process to get to where you might like us to be, and also that we started long before iPod formats were clear (only over the last 6 months or so).
So, why Adobe Ebooks and not some other format? Its more to do with what is practically possible and more immediately useful to users than anything else. Its do-able at a reasonablish price. It links closely with allowing users to look inside all books through our website (as we as the Google and Amazon search/look insides that we support). Next I think you have to ask what a user might want the information for, and we have made the downloads fully printable so users can take a few pages they need, if this is their preference. In setting how users can use the files, we have sought to give the same experience as buying the book physically, as well as protecting both authors copyright work and ourselves. So books can be printed in full (a limit of a couple of prints per week) but not copied at all.
So a few questions:
What do you think of the DRM approach?
What would you actually use digital version of a guidebook for?
I would welcome your feedback.
Next why not some of the other formats? For this I am afraid you have to go into the details a bit, as they seriously affect what is going on. Whilst users can quite rightly say that is our problem, not theirs, it will inform debate to appreciate the technical issues. After all I have yet to find ANY half decent pictorially based books in EPub, so we aren’t alone wrestling with this. NB Mobi, Kindle et al are derivatives of EPub.
To create an EPub is a greatly different process from an Adobe EBook. In order to get a apparently simple improvement, re-flowable text, it is necessary to go through a range of conversions to make a solid product. So far we are only partially satisfied with the results from the most reputable converters. Even then it deals poorly with images as these cannot be re-sized by the machine.
A simple conversion of everything would cost many tens of thousands of pounds and then be no use for any other purpose and need redoing every time a book is amended. To really get the best from the situation, its necessary to almost totally reconfigure the way books are made into something publishers amongst the blog users will understand as an xml work-flow. At the moment, its the work of several years and six-figure sums.
This is all decidedly non-trivial but is a route we have started down. We will have a small selection of books available in EPub formats by the early Autumn so everyone should be able to have a look then. The hindrance isn’t DRM, or Apple’s terms (although they might be). Its the quite large challenge of actually doing it. If it was easy, we would have done it already.
But I have a few questions…..
Are you going to take your iPad up a hill. Not sure I am. I have one and think its an excellent device, and have reader several books cover to cover on it. I am a fan. iPhone yes, I would take, but perhaps not not the bigger version. Also the computer screens are more than a bit challenging in the sunlight.
What would you want on a phone type device, just text or pics as well?
Only the iPad is in colour at the moment. I hear Amazon have a colour Kindle in mind, but this is probably years away. Would you want book content in black and white (assuming we could convert it all back, which is OK for pics but makes a mockery of maps unless they get totally redrawn)?
Is a conversion straight from the book really what users are likely to want. Maybe an electronic version can and should be different things. What would you like them to do?
What use would you make of the Google editions idea where there is an on line version of the book available for the user to buy and access, not a download. Would you like this from Cicerone?
The blog, I broadly agree that user comments will be helpful, but when you have dragged the porn out of it for the xth time, you will probably turn it off too. There are many ways to get in touch, email, contact through web site, even a Facebook group. We aren’t hiding.
Anyhow, I would welcome users comments, either through this post or to my via info@cicerone.co.uk.
Jonathan Williams
Publisher, Cicerone Press
Jonathan, firstly thanks for the comment. I will reply fully to it over the weekend. In the meantime, I did contact you by sending you a tweet on twitter.
My take on this, as a non-Apple/Kindle/Android user, is that the Adobe EPub format is EXACTLY what I want. Thinking about what I use Cicerone guides for, I can’t really see the benefit of putting it on a portable device like an iPad, I’d just take the guidebook. I can’t see me getting out my Kindle on the hill to check something from the book, I’d not even take the book with me most of the time, just a photocopy of the relevant pages. Or maybe a print out of the relevant pages. From the eBook.
Alternatively, if I were going on a longer trip and wanted to take the more than some copied pages – maybe the whole guidebook for reference – then the chances are I’m going to want to refer to the book pretty frequently. If I took my Kindle/iPad/iPhone (really? On a multiday trip?) I’m then going to need to work out how to charge the device, conserve battery life etc etc. I’d probably just take the book, or print lots of pages in a small font on both sides of the paper. From the eBook.
I honestly can’t see the problem with the Adobe format – I downloaded the software and some sample books, trying to find something wrong with it, and for the type of books that Cicerone publish I’m sorry, but I really can’t see your issue. I didn’t have to buy anything to view it on, the viewer software is free and I already own a computer, monitor and printer. I don’t want to have to buy ANOTHER device just to view the eBook, I’d rather buy a significant quantity of the books in hardcopy for the same money, at least I can use them out on the hill (plus they burn in an emergency
– try that with a Kindle).
Incidentally, I can view EPub files on my Symbian mobile with a piece of free software should I so desire. As Symbian has a 44% share of the smartphone market (BlackBerry/RIM has 19%, Apple 15%) according to Gartner, I reckon it’d be good business sense to supply to the biggest market segment.
I really hope you contacted Jonathan directly to address your concerns, and I look forward to you publishing the resulting conversation.
You can actually read ePub books on an iPhone/iPad using Stanza an excellent free eReader which I’ve used in the past. I’m not certain you can transfer the Cicerone books, haven’t tried yet but I kind of agree with Phil Turner.
On my WHW trip earlier this year I thought about ripping apart a physical guide book I had, scanning it and putting it on my iPhone but decided that it would be more faff on than it was worth.
Have you guys seen ExactEditions? (http://www.exacteditions.com)
They seem to be doing for print magazines what I’d expect from an electronic guide book – full colour and a cached local copy of the mag. They have a portable app too.
I have a magazine sub that I read on computer using them (I pay for the mag and the digital version is free).
Ok, so this maybe isn’t the way forward for Cicerone but it does show what can be done with full colour/high quality print products.
Jonathan,
my natural tendencies would say no DRM, but I live in a real world and as long as the DRM does not stop me reading the book on the devices I want to read it on then I have no problem with it.
For me the digital version of an ebook has to be readable on the devices I use, which are iPhone and iPad.
You are right about the pictorial side of EPUB being weak. And they have discussed this on Macbreak Weekly in the recent past (last three months). There is no solution at the moment, on Macbreak Weekly they want Apple to add functionality to the existing Apple tool set (like iDVD,Pages) for producing EPUB media rich content. They also talked about maybe that an app is the solution. But they also cost to produce, but they do allow for a more media rich experience. I know that there are apps out there for books, like Crush It by Gary V. which includes the text of the book, but also audio and video along side it. But this all puts more work on the author as well as they will have to produce the extra content required.
At the moment I would of said that the Kindle variant is probably the best format to go for. Kindle reader software is on several platforms, and when the device is colour it shows images etc in colour.
For me the advantage of the Kindle and iBook formats is that I can make notes and bookmarks and have them sync across my reading devices.
Phil, Nokia may have that share of the market, but it is not where the money is. Nokia have dropped the ball on the smartphone market and an also ran. If Nokia was that worth while they would have an app store to match the iPhone and Android ones. But they don’t despite having had smartphones out for years. There is a reason why Symbian was open sourced, it was a last desperate act by a company that doesn’t get smartphones (Nokia do get “normal” phones). Where the money is whether you like it or not is on the iOS platform, followed by Android. They are the platforms where people are spending the money. Where the money is on ebooks, Kindle and iBooks. Just hope that Amazon puts the Kindle reader on the Symbian platform.
But this is all academic now, if I can print, I can print to a pdf format, and then put that into iBooks. I loose the note and bookmarking functionality. But it works as a temp solution until things catch up.
Steve, Stanza is a great reader and owned by Amazon now IIRC. So it will be interesting to see how that develops.
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Wow,
Great topic.
Not much to add. Excellent to see feedback from Jonothan.
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Darren and all
Many thanks for all the feedback here.
There are many great things about being involved with Cicerone. One is that people care enough about what we do to tell us what they think, good or bad. That’s really important to us. So many thanks and keep it coming.
Second (by a short head) is that I have to get out of the office and research things, so I will be away for a couple of weeks exploring a new part of the alps, so I won’t be able to respond for a while.
Back to the conversation.
Yes, the file DRM control should work so the proper user doesn’t even know its there but it prevents improper use. Accepting that nothing is unhackable but I would think that such people have better things to worry about than Cicerone.
We are working through the coding to see if we can deliver a pdf-type file safely to iPads. The screen is book size, so it suits guides fairly well, although it won’t have reflowable text. We would then be able to let users have the file with the printable AEB version, one for mobile use and the other available for printing (in a single purchase transaction, for a singe price). Purchasing would either be through the web site or iPad.
We should have about 10-12 ePub versions available for use at the end of the summer. If you look at the following link you will find a sample file. Please feel free to download and trial it in readers etc. (You can get in onto a iPad by dragging to iTunes synchronise and then it open through Apple’s iBooks programme). It should also open in on screen readers (Adobe etc). I am pretty encouraged by it, but please let me know what you think. Good on the devices, less so on a computer screen.
The link is:
http://www.cicerone.co.uk/static.cfm/cid/198/content/sample-epub-cicerone-guide
Couple more thoughts:
The Kindle App on the IPad is incredibly powerful. It has increased my reading (already high) by a factor of about 3 over the past month.
Not sure where Stanza are actually going. Have funny DRM, are owned by Amazon, and people have told me that images don’t come through. What sounds potentially promising may be less so. Let me know if I am wrong.
Right, off to explore some mountains. All the best and good walking/climbing to all.
Jonathan