Transformation: making a ruckus
Covers the emerging digital book including ebooks and epub.
Earlier this week I spoke several times at UKSG about how to make an ebook WITHOUT being a coder or an indesign expert.
You can view the slides and notes on my Google drive.
Related posts to help you are ebook testing, uses for ebooks or get in touch if you need any help!
My old pals at Jisc Legal have produced a 6 min video explaining what Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) issues need to be considered when doing 3D digitisation. The video is embedded below and they have produced a transcript on their page.
3D Digitisation and Intellectual Property Rights from JISC Legal on Vimeo.
Danah Boyd is a name you probably come across if you scratch the surface of how people use the web. Danah has just released a book called Its complicated: The social lives of Networked Teens which of course i’ll read. Interestingly she has released a free PDF version at the same time and explains why in What’s Behind the Free PDF of “It’s Complicated” (no, no, not malware…).
As I have an interest in how folks make modern day books and how the web affects this ecosystem, this is like gold dust! Also i’ll admit that I was planning on waiting to buy this book as I have such a backlog and i’m a slow reader. But reading the blog post I can see why buying now helps Danah, so i’ll be heading over to grab a copy as soon as i’m done typing this.
Finally, its worth noting the cost of the ebook kindle version is slightly more expensive than the print version if you buy it from the Guardian. I can only guess that cost and value are at play here… which to buy…
There are many types of paper and paper-size to choose from when printing a paper book. The same myriad of choices applies to digital books except instead of texture and paper-weight, we’re concerned with what device and software the reader may choose to read your book.
If I had all the time in the world and I was producing a fairly simple digital book which didn’t require format specific features I suggest ensuring my digital book was produced in all of these formats:
Tip: if I was to distribute any of my own books I’d plump for giving ALL of the above to the reader in one bundle. This way they get the choice of their preferred format. I guess an issue for a small number of readers is they’ll receive a zipped bundle and have no clue what to do next. I didn’t say it was fool-proof.
Why is there more than one format I hear you cry? The market for selling ebooks is fierce and each major provider wants you to lock-in to their ecosystem, hence a fragmented market and a high number of file formats.
The key to producing our book fairly painlessly for each format is to plan early and use a workflow that doesn’t rely on any one particular format. The nerds of this world call this being ‘device agnostic’. Essentially write the book using whatever your preferred writing tool is and then have a workflow that makes it straight forward to produce for the context and constraints you have.
If I wanted to sell my digital book and I happened to know that all my potential customers used Amazon then I would likely produce this format first. If I wanted the book to open in say five years time I’d go for epub and PDF.
At the time of writing in early 2014, the format with the most advanced features that are implemented by a reading device is the apple ibooks format. It has some pretty impressive features for adding interactivity that may be essential for the success of our book. In which case your workflow for ibooks will split off and tackle those issues. Just be careful that you don’t go so far down that road that you can’t make a good experience for the other hobbled formats. By this i mean that readers and/or software for displaying epub, kindle and PDF don’t yet support any of the advanced feature support you’d like. Things change with each new reader software release though so the future could brighten up any day. If you need to use a feature e.g. video support, check if its supported in your primary testing kit.
Where in your organisation does social media responsibility reside?
And do you have other hubs for social media other than the core team?
(And what are the strategies behind?
Hello,
Social media lives within the content strategy, and is the equal responsibility of all staff and volunteers at Bristol Museum Service. My role, along with 1 marketing officer is to support (highlight the opportunities, training, guidelines etc) any individual and/or team.
Anybody can contribute to the official social media channels and are encouraged to think about why, how and when to use social media to support a project or theme of activity.
Our evaluation officer then evaluates our effort and we can then use the Build, Measure, Learn loop to improve.
We then have around 5 staff spread across the service who act as ‘champions’ helping their areas and feeding back to the folks interested in digital.
The content strategy is to whisper, shout, inform, engagement, promote, listen, experiment and interact in accordance with our mission.
In 2014 I hope to have social media / digital engagement specifically highlighted in all new job descriptions.
From: Museums Computer Group [MCG@JISCMAIL.AC.UK] on behalf of Kajsa Hartig
Sent: 05 December 2013 17:33
Subject: [MCG] Where does social media reside in your organisation?
On 28th October 2013 the Bristol vision institute hosted the annual Richard Gregory lecture in the Wills Building, University of Bristol. The talk was titled ‘Better than being there – Being there better, How technology is shaping the future of media’.
Matthew Postgate has the job of shaping and leading research and development for the BBC. His talk covered the approach the BBC is taking to embracing emerging technologies, practices and coping with the challenges that brings for a global organisation. Here are my notes:
Yesterday I was invited to speak at the Arts and Library Society annual conference. I spoke for 40mins about how staff and students have been self-publishing and the need for libraries to add ‘self-publishing’ to their long list of topics requiring support.
I see self-publishing as an opportunity for libraries to really shine in their support for staff in particular. To quote Craig Mod:
The way books are written has changed.
The canvas for books has changed.
The post-published life of a book has changed.
I enjoyed the talk and hope that my hopping around style of delivery still gave a sense of the topic.
I was lucky to also see a few of the other talks and it really opened my eyes to publishing in the arts and museum arena. I think i’ll be hanging around some of the museum curators to see if I can get my hands stuck into a new pet project!
The slides can be found on Google Docs (the PPT is busted) below and if anybody needs me to add some context just get in touch.
David Hopkins @hopkinsdavid is a learning technologist, biker, and popular blogger. When you want to know about something about e-learning, check David’s blog first – don’t waste your time. We talk about David’s new book, QR Codes in Education, the writing process, making ebooks, and our lofty dream to make more books to which end the score is David 1 – 0 Zak.
Length: 42mins
[soundcloud params=”auto_play=false&show_comments=false”]https://soundcloud.com/zakmensah/002-david-hopkins[/soundcloud]
http://www.guykawasaki.com/ape/ is a great beginners guide to self-publishing and covers many of the issues around the current ecosystem and pricing.
http://craigmod.com/journal/post_artifact/ Craig Mod produced this must read essay about the new ecosystem for authoring. Start with this essay then read every other essay too!
http://calibre-ebook.com/ The first tool that many of us will use to make an ebook. Use it and ensure you test widely.
http://www.zakmensah.co.uk/2012/10/02/ebook-testing-kit/ My testing tips and tools for ensuring a good reader experience.
Zak and Hayley Atkinson talk about self-publishing students and the challenges of making your own books.
22mins
[soundcloud params=”auto_play=false&show_comments=false”]https://soundcloud.com/zakmensah/001-hayley-atkinson[/soundcloud]
http://ebooksinlearning.wordpress.com/
The blog that Hayley uses to showcase some of the recent projects at Leeds on using ebooks with students.
https://twitter.com/ebookslearning
The best way to get in touch with Hayley is via her twitter account.
http://www.apple.com/uk/ibooks-author/
Hayley and the students are using Apple ibooks author to self-publishing their own books.
http://calibre-ebook.com/
For non Apple users, Calibre is probably the best tool to get you started with making your own books.
http://validator.idpf.org/
If using the epub format make sure you check it validates as this is required by many of the ebook online shops and helps reduce the chances of errors for the reader.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
Using Creative Commons licensed materials is a free and legal way to use third-party text, images, video and audio. Always link back to the source so that others can also share the material and why not consider sharing some of your own materials using a Creative Commons license.
Today in Going global on our digital journey The Guardian announced it will soon move from its current .co.uk web address to guardian.com.
The interesting part is that only 1/3 of the visitors are from the uk and it ‘s a bold move to now address this global opportunity. If a service realises their core audience has changed, many would just bury their head in the sand with that news. It is great to see The Guardian draw a line in the sand and hop over it.