ePub Books Blog

Frankfurt Book Fair 2009 and the rise of digital content

I’ve had a crazy old time since I returned home from the Frankfurt Book Fair last week so this is the first chance I’ve had to sit down and write a little about my time there, and an interesting time it was.

I again had the pleasure of having lunch with IDPF Executive Director, Michael Smith. There was no real agenda, it was just a chance for us to have a good chin-wag about ePub, how things are moving for the format and such other things. This year the IDPF held three sessions but due to my day job duties in London I only managed to attend one of his sessions; missing what I’m sure was an extremely interesting ‘EPUB Update and Tweaks and Tricks for EPUB on Devices’ session presented by Keith Fahlgren from O’Reilly – I’m wholey dissapointed about that.

Still, I did manage to attend the ‘New and Updated eBook Reading Devices’ which was rather interesting.

For this session there were four speakers; Michaël Dahan (Bookeen), Neelan Choksi (Lexcycle Stanza), Willem Endhoven (iRex Technologies) and finally Richard Siegersma (ECO Reader). All the speakers had some interesting things to say but a couple of points stuck out.

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Gulliver’s Travels ePub eBook – Test Release

Back in September I came clean about my ePub Books Project, a project to convert the .TXT eBooks from Project Gutenberg into the IDPF epub eBook format. After many months I have finally finished the conversion programming and I’m now preparing development of the epubbooks.com distribution platform, which will allow anyone to come by and download ePub books for free. I’m looking to go live by the end of 2008.

Although I am happy with the current formatting of the epub files I wanted to turn to you, the ePub community, and ask for your feedback in the hope that the improvements you submit will make these ePub eBooks even better.

ePubBooks.com eBook Features

• Linked Footnotes – each footnote number is a link, click on this to see the footnote. Click on the same number to go back to your original page.
• Images – Some titles will include images. Italicised image titles when available.
• Nicely formatted titles, subtitles, etc.
• Paragraph indents – Except on first paragraph of a chapter/section (more paper book like)
• Block Indents – Small left/right indents on block quotes, letters of correspondence, songs, etc.

This is just a small selection for some of the formatting features I’ve implemented.

Please Note: Not all features will show on every reader/device (Stanza on the iPhone does not use the files built-in CSS styles.)

Download the ePub eBook

The title I’m making available as a pre-release download is Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift – this has many features which show off my conversion. As this eBook contains images it is quite large, weighing in at over 5MB.

The test book has now been removed. You can find the final release here;

Gulliver’s Travels (Final)

All comments, on both the frontend formatting (indents, italics, etc) and the underlying code (OPF, NCX, XML markup) is very much appreciated.

This eBook can be read using Adobe Digital Editions, Stanza (desktop and iPhone version), Sony Reader (PRS-505 and PRS-700), BeBook and the FBReader.

Enjoy!

ePub Books attends the Frankfurt Book Fair 2008

I was very lucky this year to be able to attend the Frankfurt Book Fair. As it was only going to be a one day affair for me I choose Thursday, the day of the Digital Lunch: Digital Publishing and the EPUB Standard’ seminar.

Before the session got under way I had a quick look around the ‘Digital Market Place’ Hall and came across the iRex Digital Reader stand where they were showing off their DR1000 model. Along with having a basic reader they also have two models with a Wacom touch screen and one of those with Wi-Fi. All models have a 10.2 inch display (1024×1280 pixels) – so no need to go zooming in on your PDF files now. This looks a great piece of equipment. After checking out the iRex stand I then made my way down to the IDPF session.

There were four speakers at the Digital Lunch, Michael Smith (IDPF Executive Director), Michael Vantusko (Overdrive – unfortunately Steve Potash could not make it), Fionnuala Duggan (Random House Digital Group UK) and Robert Nell (Sony Reader).

Mike Smith got things started with an outline of the IDPF and the ePub format. He discussed the amazing sales figures we’ve been seeing in the eBook world and the uptake of the ePub standard from publishers and conversion houses.

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Digital Lunch: The IDPF at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2008

Next Monday will mark the start of the 2008 Frankfurt Book Fair. The IDPF will of course be attending, and also presenting a session entitled; Digital Lunch: Digital Publishing and the EPUB Standard.

Mike Smith (IDPF Executive Director), Steve Potash (Overdrive), Fionnuala Duggan (Random House Digital Group UK) and Robert Nell (Sony Reader) will be talking about the “effects on Publishers, Channels and Devices – Market Experience with the Sony Reader and other Software using EPUB”. eBooks is currently the fastest growing segment in the publishing industry and with sites such as Feedbooks.com delivering over 2,000,000 titles in the last few months alone, the ePub book format is set to dominate the eBook world.

If you’re going to be at the Frankfurt Book Fair then I recommend attending this session. This will be taking place at 12:00 o’clock on the Thursday (16th October) in Hall 4C, Alliance Room.

Digital Book 2008 review and the AAP’s letter of support

Two weeks ago the IDPF held their Digital Book 2008 conference at the McGraw-Hill auditorium in Manhattan, New York City. This was a one day conference held as part of the International Digital Publishing Forum’s (IDPF) spring education series, with the main focus being on the emerging global eBook market and adoption of the ePub digital publication standard.

Among the discussions were eBook standards, international digital publishing, the education market and new innovations. Publishers Weekly reported the main theme to come from the day was that the “Customer is King”. The internet has given eBook developers and publishers “unprecedented access to consumer feedback” which they need to listen to in order to grow the eBook market.
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Digital Book 2008 is being held today. Did you attend?

The one day IDPF Digital Book 2008 Conference is being held today in New York City, which is being sponsored by the likes of Adobe, OverDrive and Resetta.

Alas I did not have the opportunity to go myself but I will be on the lookout for any news or blog posts on the days events. Particularly on the seminars Publisher Experience and Workflow using the new IDPF “EPUB” Standard and eBook Reading Devices and Software.

If there is anyone out there who attended the conference and would like to share their thoughts on the day, for inclusion here on ePub Books, please contact me via the Contact page.

Digital Book 2008: Global eBook Market & EPUB

Digital Book 2008 is a one-day conference held in New York City on May 14th. The conference is hosted by the IDPF and is part of their spring educational series. This is considered the best opportunity of the year to network with the global publishing and online technology leaders in the digital books world.

If you wish to attend you must register, but be warned, the event has been sold out for the last five years!

At the top of the agenda will be the emerging global eBook market and adoption of the EPUB digital publication standard. Some of the highlights are;

• Publisher Experience and Workflow using the new IDPF “EPUB” Standard
• “EPUB” Update on eBook Reading Devices and Software
• Using Digital Book Technologies to Drive Sales and Create New Consumer Experiences
• eBooks in Education and Accessibility Initiatives

There are going to be some fantastic speakers including;

• Michael Smith (IDPF)
• Bill McCoy (Adobe Systems Incorporated)
• Peter Balis (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.)
• Garth Conboy (eBook Technologies, Inc.)
• Leslie Hulse (HarperCollins Publishers)
• Neil DeYoung (Hachette Book Group USA)
• Willem Endhoven (iRex Technologies BV)
• Martin Görner (Mobipocket.com)

– I wish I could attend myself!