Penguin Reinventing Books Via iPad

This is something that, as a writer, has been on my mind for quite some time now. While Amazon’s Kindle is definitely a quality device, and as a book reader, very good, it does little more than actually present the equivalent of the print copy of a book. Yes, I’m well aware that you can buy books/magazines/blog content on the device, and I’m also well aware that it has a web browser on it, but let’s be honest: as cool as the Kindle is, it doesn’t have the horsepower or the display to do real multimedia content. The iPad, however, does. And Penguin, one of the big publishers, is looking to take advantage of that.

Perhaps this is an editorial best left to a writing website, but I’ll try to quickly sum up my feelings on what this means for the publishing industry, especially from the perspective of someone trying to break into it.

Going back to the Kindle again for the moment, you have a device that, aside form being electronic, still upholds the old ways. As said, the lack of true multimedia being displayed on that e-reader means it’s really a glorified book, just one that has a bunch of books in one (as many and you can shove into memory). The interesting thing about the Kindle is that the Kindle store allows aspiring authors to publish their own content without having to go through the traditional publishing channels.

Instead of getting an agent (which is its own problem) and submitting manuscripts and waiting and hoping, an author can upload their manuscript to Amazon, and almost like magic, have it posted to the Kindle store. Should someone stumble upon it and buy, the author would be getting a more significant percentage of the revenue thanks to publishers being greedy bastards that pay very little (yeah, I know, they have expenses). Of course, one may look upon this as little more than glorified vanity publishing, and perhaps it is, but the point is that this is still, at its core, a writer doing what a writer does best: write.

However, the iPad is going to change all of that. If you don’t believe me, take a close look at that image that fronts this article. You don’t see vibrant color or pictures like that on a Kindle. And if you think that it’s going to stop there, you’re surely mistaken. CEO of Penguin Books, John Makinson, has this to say about where his company is going with publishing on the iPad:

“We will be embedding audio, video and streaming in to everything we do. The .epub format, which is the standard for ebooks at the present, is designed to support traditional narrative text, but not this cool stuff that we’re now talking about.”

Do you understand the dilemma now? For those who aren’t writers, here it is in a nutshell: anyone hoping to avoid going through traditional publishing means now not only has to be a graphic artist, a musician, and a designer, but they also still have to be a writer and marketer (did I forget to mention that unless you’re Stephen King or James Patterson you have to do your own marketing? Whoops.).

It’s exciting for the consumers, and as a reader, I am very excited to see what books are going to look like in a few years. Will the new R. A. Salvatore book have video of Drizzt fighting? Will Jim Butcher’s new novel have Harry spouting wisecracks while solving mysteries? This is exciting and bordering on science fiction, but it’s going to be reality thanks to the iPad.

But as a writer, I can’t help but be worried that, once again, the aspiring author is still struggling to get a handhold in the industry. It’s not all bad because not every book will get this premium iPad treatment, but it’s still an interesting thought.

Perhaps I’ll expand upon this later, but it’s something to chew on for now. At the very least, I’m eagerly anticipating the iPad (yeah, I’m one of those guys. Perhaps that’s an editorial for another time as well).

If you’re looking for a little more about what Penguin is planning on doing, check out paidContent:UK, via MacRumors.