What Publishers Need To Know About Making Enhanced eBooks
In one word: ePUB 3. This is according to Liza Daly, president of Threepress Consulting, in a presentation at Digital Book World today.
Her advice for 2011, is for publishers to learn about ePUB 3, which comes out officially this year. The reason? The program will make it simpler and easier for publishers to create cost effective enhanced eBooks in a format that can be sold in the iBookstore. And, as Daly stressed, publishers need to stand their ground against devices makers and retailers and establish a standard format for enhanced eBooks.
ePUB 3 will make it easier for embedding video, audio, and make it easier to design interactive experiences using Java script –the standard format for designing interactive experiences on the web. Daly tested the program with a public domain book and found it easy to make interactive and easy to export as a final format that worked in the iBookstore.
As she pointed out, with a standardized approach to laying out enhanced eBooks, design costs will go down and publishers will be able to experiment.
