Re: 2 questions about a reference eBook

Janet Liebsch wrote:

> I'm new to all this so apologize in advance if I post something I 
> shouldn't, but wondered if I could get some feedback. My hubby and I 
> self-publish a reference book that helps families and businesses 
> prepare for and respond to most types of emergencies and natural and 
> man-made disasters. A majority of our sales are in bulk to government 
> since we customize our products and discount them 75% off list.
> 
> My discussion topics / questions are…
> 
> #1) We recently started offering our 284-page paperback and 298-page 
> eBook direct to consumers but, since there's a LOT of formatting, 
> bullets, etc, we only offer our ebook in PDF. Is PDF-only a real pain 
> for ebook readers

Yes. In fact, I don't consider PDF an e-book format at all. It is a
desktop publishing format, a print mastering format, or a POD format,
but it is not an e-book format.

When someone offers me a PDF formatted file I assume that s/he intends
for me to print it out. When someone offers me a PDF file for sale, I
factor in my cost to print and bind it as part of the total acquisition
cost.

The advantage to PDF is that if you are using it as your master format
for pre-printing or printing on demand you can offer it for sale on its
own to a certain segment of the public. You probably won't get as many
sales as if you had offered it in a real e-book format, but you're doing
it at virtually zero incremental cost. You have to ask yourself how many
more sales you could expect if it were in a real e-book format, how much
it would cost to convert it to a real e-book format, and then whether
the increased sales justifies the increased cost.

> and, if so, do you have a preferred format?

XHTML is well-documented, simple enough for novices to use, widely
implemented, the basis for almost all other e-book formats, easily
repurposed, and powerful enough for almost all presentational requirements.

The one thing we _do_ know about the final form factor of an e-book is
that we don't know what the final form factor of an e-book will be
(unless we restrict the form factor artificially, like PDF does). Your
book may be viewed on a 2.8 inch PDA/Smart Phone screen, a 6.4 inch
Kindle reader, a 12 inch laptop screen in landscape mode or a 22 inch
wide screen, flat-panel monitor in portrait mode. Depending on how deep
you want to penetrate the market, you need to pick a format that can
accommodate some portion of this range. XHTML can support all of these
form factors; PDF -- not so much.

I will concede that, theoretically, there may exist a document which can
be expressed in PDF but which cannot be adequately expressed in XHTML --
I just haven't encountered it yet.

> Also ~ some officials have scolded us saying we have TOO much 
> information in our book. Well, yeah - we do have a lot of data in 
> it ... but it's a reference tool that could save a life.
> 
> #2) Do you find large reference manuals too cumbersome to use as an 
> ebook? (We have hundreds of web links in it so feel ebook is a 
> compliment to our paperback, but it may not be too practical during a 
> time of crisis [i.e. no power]!)

Comparing e-books to dt-books is very much like the proverbial apples
and oranges. Dt-books are durable and reliable. E-books are convenient
and accessible. E-books will never be as good as dt-books when judged by
those properties that dt-books are best at, just as dt-books are not as
good as e-books when judged by those qualities which e-books are best at.

_During_ an emergency a reference that is durable and reliable is _much_
more important to me than one which is convenient and accessible.
_Preparing_ for an emergency the relative importance is probably reversed.

I think Ms. Young's analogy to the cookbook is an apt one. Many
cookbooks have been published using heavy, plastic-coated paper in a
loose-leaf format. A single page can be removed and used in the kitchen,
and that page is fairly resistant to common cooking hazards. But when it
comes time to _discover_ a recipe I may want to try, having an
electronic format is vastly superior.

In fact, I'm discovering that my two favorite cookbooks are
epicurious.com and foodnetwork.com. I search, compare and review recipes
on line. When I select a recipe, I print it. If it's successful, I put
the print-out in a plastic sleeve and add it to my loose-leaf binders;
if it is not, it goes into the fireplace.

When it comes down to it, I think that large reference manuals are
probably too cumbersome _not_ to be used as an e-book. Part of the
perception that large e-reference books are cumbersome may arise from
the mistaken belief that PDF is an e-book format. In fact, PDF combines
the _weakest_ qualities of e-books with the _weakest_ qualities of
dt-books. PDF documents are not durable or reliable, neither are they
particularly convenient, accessible or repurposable.

Most people tend to see books as serial in nature; that is,
understanding the contents of page one is important in understanding the
contents of page 298. Reference books also tend to be serial, but the
serialization occurs in segments rather than the entire document, and a
serialized index provides an entry point into the segments.

Now I think that most communication is somewhat serial in nature, so you
probably can't create a document which is not serialized to some extent.
But with electronic documents the segments can be much smaller, and
combined together in varying ways.

Look at your reference work as layers of information. At the highest
level you probably have a table of contents. You could then have a layer
which is introductory. You could have a layer which is explanatory. And
you could have a layer which is highly detailed. Which layer I would
need to descend to would depend on my prior knowledge. For example, you
might need to tell an individual that in case of an earthquake, the
first thing you should do afterwards is to cut off the natural gas
source where it comes into the building. I know where my gas meter is,
and how to turn the valve; I don't need any more information than that.
But someone else might need more detailed instructions, how to find the
meter, how to recognize the shutoff valve, etc. A hierarchical,
tree-type structure can get me quickly to the data I need, in the detail
I need it, without unnecessary distraction.

The Department of Homeland Security is one of the greatest government
boondoggles of the past 50 years. Money now being spent on detecting and
preventing "terrorism" would be much better spent on emergency
preparation and response, because what we would need to do after a
"terrorist" attack is almost identical to what we would need to do after
a hurricane, high-rise fire, or bridge collapse. Homeland "security"
would be better served by more, and better trained, firemen, not more
airport screeners.

Given these commonalities of emergency response, by decomposing your
book into the smallest possible segments, and stringing those segments
together in different ways, it is possible to create an e-book which can
appear to the end user as "What To Do in Case of a Wildfire" or "What To
Do in Case of an Earthquake" or "What To Do in Case of a Flood" or "What
To Do in Case of Pandemic Bird Flu" or "What To Do in Case of a Nuclear
Attack" (bend over and kiss your rear-end goodbye). A good e-book should
be repurposable enough to do all of these things. And, like a loose-leaf
service, it can be easily updated as new information or procedures come
to light.

These types of things play to the strengths of e-books. I would think
that the best strategy is to create an e-book which takes advantage of
the best of the e-book format, and create a dt-book which plays on the
strengths of paper. Don't look at it as one book in two different
formats, look at it as two books, which just happen to contain much of
the same information (and if you have referenced from the e-version to
the dt-version, the e-version can be considered an unusually powerful
index into the dt-book).



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