9 Things You Should Know About ePubs
1. What is ePublishing?
Electronic publishing, or ePublishing, includes the digital publication of books and articles, as well as the growth of digital libraries. The term ePublishing has been used to describe the development of new forms of production, distribution, and user interaction in regard to computer-based production of text and other interactive media. There are two forms of ePublishing: The first is an eBook and the second is Digital Publishing. Basically, an eBook is most commonly referred to as an ePub because “.epub” is the most common file format. An eBook allows for text flowing and is compatible with more electronic devices, though it has limited interactivity. Digital Publishing offers more opportunity for interactivity; layouts stay consistent and documents are designed for specific devices. Below is a comparison chart.
| Feature | eBook | Digital Publishing |
|---|---|---|
|
Readers |
Numerous readers
|
Single-Folio or Multi-Folio Viewer App |
|
Devises |
Large device base |
One device (documents are sometimes |
|
Interactivity |
Limited |
Broad interactivity |
|
Similar to |
Book with images |
Magazine or brochure with interactivity |
|
Layout |
Changes based on device |
Allows for sophisticated layout since it is designed for the devise type is fixed within the layout |
|
Content |
Can be selected, copied and pasted into other applications |
Is fixed (without special programming) |
|
Bookmarks |
Yes |
No (not without special programming) |
|
Make notes |
Yes |
No (not without special programming) |
|
Video |
Very limited |
Mp4 video |
|
File formats |
.epub - an open source ebook format |
Single-Folio or Multi-Folio Viewer App |
|
Digital rights management |
You or a third party |
Distribution channel like |
|
Examples |
ePubBooks |
Horse Link |
2. How does it work?
Distribution usually relies on the Internet, and ePubs may be read on computers, smart phones, iPads and other portable electronic devices. eBooks require a reader. Digital Pubs are app based. Additionally, there are many non-network electronic publications such as Encyclopedias on CD and DVD, as well as technical and reference publications available for mobile users.
3. Who is doing it?
- Electronic publishing has become common in scientific publishing for peer-reviewed scientific journals.
- Electronic publishing is increasingly popular in works of fiction.
- Google has launched Google Books, aiming to compete with Apple’s iBooks.
- E-books are now being loaned out by libraries.
- Some of the world’s major print publishers have been developing policies to move over to e-books.
- Magazine companies have a free app for devises that enables you to purchase electronic versions of the publications. Other magazines like Time and Martha Stewart Living have their own unique app.
4. Why is it significant?
- Electronic publishing provides wider dissemination. No postage is needed. It’s green, less expensive to produce, and less expensive to purchase.
- Electronic books are easy to purchase late at night, or even while waiting in line at the DMV.
- Publishers have less risk when publishing books by new authors and it also makes it easier for authors to self-publish and even sell their own eBooks on their own website or with a cooperative distribution group.
- Many leading periodicals are now offering subscriptions for electronic editions.
- Over 200 new electronic “readers” were launched in late 2010 for reading e-books.
5. What are the downsides?
For 2 to 5 years, there will be instability in the field as the change from traditional publishing to electronic publishing occurs. Some well-established publishers will resist change, and as a result, will lose market share. Some publishers will disappear, taking their authors with them. However, some will adapt and be just as strong as ever. Apple, Google, Amazon, as well as other big players in the e-book market will continue to compete and as a result compatibility between formats will be inconsistent for some time. Therefore, reader-dependent formats will continue to be an issue for universities attempting to adapt to these new technologies until one format becomes the most accepted standard.
6. Where is it going?
- ePubs will continue to generate strong interest for consumers and will become increasingly more available for educational purposes as well.
- The technology will transform reading experiences into interactive events. Rich interfaces that include multimedia and collaborative elements will extend the readers experience.
- Journeys through real and imagined worlds will be taken within the company of other readers.
- See The Future of the Book produced by design firm IDEO: http://vimeo.com/15142335
7. What are the implications for teaching and learning?
- Business models are emerging that may lower costs for students.
- Modern electronic readers support note taking and research activities.
- Interfaces that include multimedia and collaborative elements will extend the learning experience.
- Read aloud feature are being introduced into eBooks - an audio track that is read aloud automatically at the same time as the associated words in your eBook are highlighted for children and accessibility. Apple introduced a new iBook feature it calls “Read Aloud,” which is similar to Nook’s “Read to Me” feature. They both provide human voice narration that syncs to the onscreen text - the feature currently is meant primarily for children’s books. www.teleread.com/epub/apple-explains-how-to-sync-narration-tracks-in-epub-files-for-ibookstore/
8. How do I create an eBook?
The most popular way to create an ePub is to use Microsoft Word and Calibre, Adobe InDesign, or Apple Pages. In all of these cases, you will need to generate a table of contents in your document, and verify that it lists only what you expect it to (for example, chapter titles, headings, and subheadings). You will also need to reformat any images, shapes, or other objects in your document to make them inline objects. Review your document to be certain that appropriate paragraph styles are applied to all chapters, titles, headings, and subheadings in your document.
Create an eBook from Microsoft Word
You can create a simple eBook from Word. Save the file in html format. Then import the html file into program called Calibre. calibre-ebook.com. The free Calibre app then allows you to convert your html file into an ePub file or number of other eBook formats including: CBZ, CBR, CBC, CHM, EPUB, FB2, HTML, LIT, LRF, MOBI, ODT, PDF, PRC**, PDB, PML, RB, RTF, TCR, and TXT. This process is great for producing a quick simple ePub file. However, Microsoft’s conversion to html is flakey and I produced better results when I went into the html code and adjusted it manually.
Tutorial
osxdaily.com/2010/08/12/convert-to-epub
Create an eBook from Adobe InDesign
If you want precision and quality, I recommend using Adobe InDesign. Like the other programs, there is set-up, but once done, it’s much more accurate. You can also export your file directly to an ePub format in InDesign. This is very convenient, because InDesign is pretty much mandatory in the publishing world; most people putting together books are probably already using it.
Tutorials
layersmagazine.com/creating-ibooks-epubs.html
www.lynda.com/InDesign-CS5-tutorials/to-EPUB-Kindle-and-iPad/75445-2.html
www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com/2010/05/html5-video-works-on-ibooks-on-ipad.html
Create an eBook from Pages
Apple’s Pages ’09 lets you export your documents in ePub format for reading with iBooks on iPhone, iPad, and other readers.
If you want to get the best document fidelity between the Pages and ePub formats, style your Pages document with paragraph styles and other formatting attributes allowed in an ePub file. Documents created in page layout templates can’t be exported to the ePub format. A sample document is provided on the Apple Support site that features styles and guidelines to help you create a Pages document that’s optimized for export to the ePub file format, which you can use as a template or a guide.
images.apple.com/support/pages/docs/ePub_Best_Practices_EN.zip
Tutorial
Other souces for creating ePubs
Aspose.Words Express
a free standalone utility to convert DOC, DOCX, RTF, HTML and ODT documents to EPUB
eCub
A free lightweight ePub publisher to create iBooks available for Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris.
Sigil
A free WYSIWYG ebook editor. Available for Windows, Mac and Linux.
ePubMaker
Convert Word doc and webpages to ePub
Epub2Go!
This free web site allows you to convert a PDF to an EPUB file
www.epub2go.com/Web/default.aspx
9. How do I create a Digital Publication?
Digital Publishing requires planning, time, work and coordination. It’s best to have a team of experts to produce content, video, interface design and programming. As the leader in publishing software, Adobe has just announced a new digital publishing suite.
Adobe’s Publishing Suite
www.adobe.com/products/digitalpublishingsuite
Adobe’s Workflow for Digital Magazine Publishing
blogs.adobe.com/digitalpublishing/2010/07/introducing_the_adobe_digital_magazine_workflow.html