Why and how book content will live natively on the open web.

1. opening
the
book
(or authoring for discovery)
--
hugh mcguire
--
pressbooks.com
librivox.org
@hughmcguire

3. a) why will this happen?
b) how will this happen?

4. and...

5. c)
WHAT IS THE
BUSINESS
MODEL?

6. A.
Why

7. 1.
What is a “book” ?

8. "A book is a discrete,
collection of text (and other
media), that is designed by an
author(s) as an internally
complete representation of an
idea, or set of ideas; emotion
or set of emotions; and
transmitted to readers in
various formats."

9. 2.
What is the difference among
different kinds of “books” ?

10. The critical difference among print
books, ebooks and webbooks
is not
the guts of transmission technology
(print, typography, HTML, EPUB, Mobi, PDF)
but
what readers, publishers and others
can and cannot do
with each format.

11. Corollary:
There are many useful things a:
... publisher
... reader
... external service using an API
can do with webbooks that are just
not possible with ebooks.

12. 3.
What does information want?

13. “Information wants to be free!”
-- Stewart Brand

14. “On the one hand information wants
to be expensive, because it's so
valuable... On the other hand,
information wants to be free,
because the cost of getting it out
is getting lower and lower all the
time. So you have these two fighting
against each other.”
-- Stewart Brand

15. Information wants to be liberated?

16. “Information wants to be shared.”
-- Joshua Gans

17. Information wants to be used.

18. B.
How?

19. 4.
An example.
(OK not a Business Model, but an
example nonetheless)

24. For every book,
an easy online book creation tool:

25. For every book,
an easy online book creation tool (2):

26. For every book,
easily templated ebook & PDF output:
ibooks kindle print on demand

27. For every book,
a web version (public or private) - optimized
for all devices:
smartphones tablets laptops & computers

36. Bonus Data!

40. 5.
Some things this suggests:
1. a webbook can generate interest in ways that an
ebook cannot.
2. the ideas in a webbook spread far more quickly,
and far more easily than an ebook
3. a webbook is infinitely easier to find
4. a webbook comes with built in analytics!
5. I can see who is reading my webbook
6. I can optimize interactions on my webbook, in
ways that I cannot in an ebook … SEO, analytics,
email subscriptions
7. because of the direct connection to the reader,
webbooks can have different business models than
ebooks

41. 6.
How I think this will play out:

42. i.
creating an ebook is still “hard” ...
but online tools like PressBooks/Vook/
Atavist/Booktype make it (almost)
trivial, and free

43. ii.
As free & easy tools like PressBooks
become more widely known, and better,
the avalanche of books will be
overwhelming

44. iii.
Other kinds of book writing activity,
social and webby by nature -- think
Wattpad, Fictionaut, Figment -- will
gain relevance, meaning more and more
writing will be “out there.”

45. iv.
More ebooks means: each book is harder
to find, means: an arms race of
promotion/discovery techniques ...

46. v.
Which means ... those who connect with
their readers better will win -- and
one thing the web is great for is
connecting readers and writers

47. vi.
New kinds of authors and publishers,
with a different take on
business models ...
such as:
- give it away online, then sell it;
- sell it, then give it away online;
- subscriptions;
- advertising;
- underwriting;
- upselling;
- just pure art
... will embrace the web with their
book content.

48. vii.
University professors with scholarly
monographs to publish, the Boards of
Directors of university presses,
teachers, non-profits, writers of
abstract literary fiction will start to
ask:
Wait, is “business” the right “model”
for our books?

49. 7.
The problem of closed silos....
Retailers: Amazon/iBooks/Nook/Kobo etc
and
Production: PressBooks/Vook/Atavist

50. 8.
I forget what 8 was for.

51. 9.
In order to have new book publishing
business models that embrace the open
web we need open tools that are native
to the web, and flexible enough for
people to build on and experiment with.

52. 10.
Big announcement:
We are going to
open source
PressBooks
(Come talk to me if you are interested
in becoming a development partner.)

53. Contact:
w. pressbooks.com
e. hugh@pressbooks.com
tw. @pressbooks