Digital book publishing: Penguin publishes deluxe eBook teacher's edition of Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men' ; NOOK and Kobo both commit to the ePUB3 standard; 360 Sound enhanced eBook comes in two flavors, and with problems

Penguin Group released an enhanced eBook edition of John Steinbeck's classic Of Mice and Men, designed to be "the ultimate teacher’s guide for student discussions."

Of Mice and Men: Teacher’s Deluxe Edition includes video clips of student's offering their own perspectives on the themes of the book, as well as instruction on how to project the eBook for use during classroom discussions.

The eBook is priced at $11.99 and is available for the iPad, B&N's NOOK Color, Google Books for the desktop, and the Amazon app for any iOS device.

Additional materials include an audio interview with actor James Earl Jones describing his experience performing in the Broadway version of the play, an introduction and suggestions for further reading by Steinbeck scholar Susan Shillinglaw, the Robert Burns poem from which the novel’s title derives, and Steinbeck’s 1962 Nobel Banquet Speech.

Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men remains one of America's most widely read and taught novels. An unlikely pair, George and Lennie, two migrant workers in California during the Great Depression, grasp for their American Dream. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfillment of their dream seems to be within their grasp. But even George cannot guard Lennie from the provocations, nor predict the consequences of Lennie's unswerving obedience to the things George taught him.

Penguin Group’s CEO John Makinson was an early supporter of Apple's tablet plans, stating that the publisher "will be embedding and streaming audio, video and gaming in to everything we do. This will present us, and the platform owners with technology challenges," Makinson said, referring to the original iPad.

Penguin's app team, though, appears new to submitting apps for Apple's iBookstore as the name of the eBook contains a typo and there are no screenshots to accompany the enhanced eBook. An update, though, would correct this situation easily enough.

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Barnes & Noble looks like it will be supporting the EPUB 3 stamndard for its NOOK eBooks, according to a report on the Digital Book World website.

"We’re very supportive of open industry formats,” said Kashif Zafar, Director, NOOK. "We are in line to make sure migration happens successfully and effectively in the coming months and year. When the Nook Color came out we wanted to lead the way with picture book formats. NOOK is very supportive of open industry formats now that EPUB3 is maturing."

The move follows a similar statement from Jim Dovey, ePub Content Formats Evangelist at Kobo Inc. "Kobo is aiming to be the first company to support all of EPUB3," said Dovey back in December at a conference in New York.

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I've finally gotten a good chance to work my way through the enhanced eBook of 360: Sound: The Columbia Records Story. The eBook of author Sean Wilentz's history of the legendary record label was created using iBooks Author by Trailer Park Inc. (The original book was published by Chronicle Books.)

The eBook is priced at $14.99, and as I mentioned in my preview, is currently out of stock as a hardbound version over at Amazon.com, making the eBook option quite attractive.

The book is well worth the hefty download of 857 MB if you are interested in the subject. Columbia Records's history goes back to the early days of the industry, and the label, though sometimes prone to releasing mostly popular music, was also the home to Miles Davis and Bob Dylan, after all.

But Trailer Park has made a bit of a mess of its eBook efforts here. While the main eBook is certainly worth the price, the digital publisher has also released what it calls a companion book by Dave Marsh under the same name – and that eBook is a free download.

360 Sound: The Columbia Records Story, the Dave Marsh edition, is even larger, 1.09 GB, and comes with problems.

When the reader downloads the eBook, then installs it, the eBook immediately appears to begin downloading an updated version. This download has a tendency to stall and not complete its download. Readers have complained inside iTunes of having incomplete downloads and not being able to delete the book (or read it).

The problem is that an app, or book, or whatever, can not be deleted until it becomes a completed file. The trick is to get the app to finish the download, and at over one gig, that is quite a chore. I eventually was able to get the eBook to finish downloading the update and all appears OK for now.

But the whole mess begs the question: why would you release two eBooks with the same name, and give one of them away? Surely this is confusing readers and depressing sales.

In any case, here is a walk-through a very small part of the new eBook by author Sean Wilentz:

Scholastic report shows that eBook reading by children has doubled since 2010, while demand for more increases

The eBook revolution is still in its early days, so Scholastic's new national survey, Kids & Family Reading Room, which shows that the percent of children who have read an eBook has almost doubled since 2010 shouldn't come as much of a surprise. According to the study, 46 percent of children haven now read an eBook.

Half of children also say that they would have more fun reading it they had more access to eBooks, also a 50 percent increase.

The study reinforces what Apple has been preaching, that we are in the midst of a revolution in books used in the classroom. The advantages of digital books – the ability to issue electronic updates, low cost of distribution, interactivity – make them ideal for the classroom. The issue has been, and remains, eBook reader access. But more and more classrooms are found to have iPads and libraries are moving towards both eBooks and digital magazines (I hope to have a report on that subject by the end of the day tomorrow).

The study also found that if exposed to eBooks the demand for eBooks grows.

• Eighty percent of kids who read ebooks still read books for fun primarily in print.
• Fifty-eight percent of kids age 9-17 say they will always want to read books printed on paper even though there are ebooks available (a slight decline from 66% in 2010), revealing the digital shift in children’s reading that has begun.

"We are seeing that kids today are drawn to both print books and ebooks, yet ereading seems to offer an exciting opportunity to attract and motivate boys and reluctant readers to read more books," said Francie Alexander, Chief Academic Officer, Scholastic. "While many parents express concern over the amount of time their child spends with technology, nearly half do not have a preference of format for their child’s books. The message is clear – parents want to encourage more reading, no matter the medium."

A side benefit to eBooks, according to the study, was that eBooks are better than print books when attempting to read without revealing what they are reading to their friends. Peer pressure to not be the "smart kid" apparently still exists!

Preview: 360 Sound: the digital advantage

While catching up with my industry reading I decided to concentrate on book publishing. I just don't write enough about eBooks, especially now that it seems that both newspaper and magazine publishers have a huge opportunity to begin book lines thanks to the rise of both Kindle Editions and the Apple iBookstore.

But, like the magazine and newspaper trade industry journals, the book publishing journals seem to get a kick out of dissing all things digital, proclaiming that the eBook industry has peaked, or is limited in some way. Two articles, one one a U.S. site, the other a U.K. site, said basically the same thing: the decline on eBook sales at some retailers shows that the eBook craze is over. (No links, they don't deserve the traffic.)

Well, it was good for a chuckle. But it was also sad to know that is the way some think.

I see no reason to try and refute such an argument. The authors simply did not seem to really be familiar with the format. To them, an eBook is simply a digital reproduction of a work of fiction, something read on a Kindle, for instance. It is certainly that – but boy is it also much more.

And that is why eBooks are here to stay. Take, for instance, 360 Sound: The Columbia Records Story. The enhanced eBooks was created using iBooks Author and was released into the Apple iBookstore on October 1, 2012. The eBooks costs $14.99 and weighs in at 857 MB - quite a load.

The author is Sean Wilentz, and the publisher of the hardcover book is Chronicle Books. Interestingly, Amazon lists the publication date of six weeks after the eBook appeared in Apple's iBookstore. The hardcover price is listed at $45, but Amazon is selling it for $29.70 – but there is one problem, it is out of stock. The eBook, of course, is very much available inside Apple's iTunes store.

There is no Kindle Edition of the book, and if you think about it, that makes sense – an eBook edition of this subject should obviously contain audio files, and hopefully some video, as well. Until Amazon creates its own version of iBooks Author publishers are stuck with ePub, PDF or other formats that really don't quite match what iBooks Author promises – though book apps are another thing altogether.

The iBooks Author version of 360 Sound was published by Trailer Park Publishing out of Hollywood, California. It lists Penguin, Simon & Schuster and Hachette among its clients. It also lists Apple.

I haven't opened up 360 Sound yet, but I assume it will be a good read, and a good example of an enhanced eBook – and I really wish the publisher would have sent me a promo code! But one thing I am absolutely sure of is this: no print edition about the music business will ever really be superior to what a digital edition, created by a good publisher, can offer. I still love print books, as do consumers, but don't tell me digital is going away. It just is silly.

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When I took the position of publisher of two b2B titles at Reed Business Information, one of the things that came with the job was management of a book line for one of the brands.

The magazine had published a few titles over the years but while the book line contributed a few dollars to the revenue line it contributed even more the to expense line. One of these expenses was storage.

When I investigated the business as it had been conducted I found that the publisher would order up the printing of a minimum number of books and would then store them at the printer until orders came in. Since the printer required that a certain number of books needed to be printed it was inevitable that the books would begin to pile up.

A trip to the printer found pallets of books, rotting in storage. The publication dates seemed ancient to me, which meant that recycling the titles appeared to be the best solution.

We may have published a couple new titles that first year, but otherwise the business went away. I researched whether we should resurrect the book line, and even started to get enthusiastic about the possibilities.

But if I were in charge of that B2B title today I know I would be certainly thinking about digital books. All the things that seemed to be an argument against book publishing – minimum press runs, storage, packaging, shipping – would not be a factor today.

First look: The Seattle Times Pictures Of The Year | 2012

Thanks to a tweet I was referred to a story that appeared on paidContent.org concerning the new eBook published by the photography staff of The Seattle Times, which then led me to download the eBook for myself. For anyone looking to create their own eBooks for sale within the Apple Bookstore this is a good example to look at.

Sold under the name Photo Staff of The Seattle Times, the eBook was created using Apple's own free software solution, iBooks Author. The software package, like any new software, takes a little time to get used to, but does produce an attractive eBook. What the staff of The Seattle Times has produced may be fairly simple, but it is attractive, professional in appearance, and worth purchasing. No, it doesn't have the fancy animations found in some textbooks Apple has promoted, but it a major step up from a simple Kindle Edition.

The Seattle Times Pictures Of The Year | 2012 is priced at $2.99 and appeared in the iTunes store on December 12. Because the staff used iBooks Author the book will have a little icon displayed in the Book Description and should appear in the section Apple uses to promote eBooks made with their solution. Unfortunately, I did not see the book there (which is why I missed it when launched), hardly a good way for Apple to encourage new publishers.

I was not surprised to see that the staff decided to lock in the eBook into landscape orientation only. I did this myself with the first book I've produced, a vacation eBook for the family. Most pictures are naturally in landscape, especially when shot with professional DSLR cameras. But portrait shots can be accommodated in number of ways. One way is to simply let them be shown in landscape – sideways, in other words. I don't like this solution, but this eBook used that at least once.

Another way to handle it is to make the photo less than full screen in height, and then let the photo fill the screen upon tapping. Another way, not employed here, is to have the thumbnail be in portrait, then let then link it to another shot seen in landscape (sideways). None of these options are optimal, but they are not that annoying, either.
Obviously, the star of any eBook will be the photography, which is why the platform is perfect for the subject. The idea of publishing a first eBook of photos is a great way for any newspaper to start, and the costs are minimal.

Unlike the developer program, which costs $99 per year, Apple does not charge to set up an account to sell eBooks. But each book published, if one charges for the book, requires an International Standard Book Number (ISBN). The cost for a single ISBN is $125. One can also buy a block of 10 ISBN numbers for $250, which would cover you should you decide to publish your eBook in a format other than IBA, the iBooks Author format.

The obvious downside to using iBooks Author is that the eBook produced can only be sold in Apple's bookstore. Many independent publishers are struggling with the question of whether they should produce an ePub book instead so that the distribution is wider. But for early experimentation, especially in the area of photography, textbooks, and the like, iBooks Author seems to be a good solution.

If there is any disappointment with the platform it is simply that, while there were a few add-on programs created immediately after its release, these have been reduced to a trickle – and are rarely of much help anyways (just some new templates that really aren't that much different from what you get with Apple). Also, Apple has not brought eBooks created with iBooks Author to the iPhone – why is really anyone's guess.

The one thing to be pointed out with the eBook from The Seattle Times is the decision, which I like, to not use Apple's chapter mechanism to create a new chapter for each month. Instead, this eBook contains only two chapters: one for the monthly content of photographs, the other for the credits.

Update: I left out one detail from my original post: the size of the download. At just over 500 MB one might think that the eBook is too large. I'm not sure that is the case. First of all, Apple has a 3 gig limit on eBooks, this is far short of that. Plus, with over 100 photos and 12 videos in the book, one would expect it to be large – and besides, the download (and installation) was very quick.

I think the real issue here is the storage level of most tablets. If Apple really wants to sell interactive eBooks, movies and more, it will have to supply more storage in its iPads - cloud storage is not the solution, or at least the total solution. I'm constantly having to dump great apps such as Played in Britain simply because of space limitations.

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Here is a brief walk-through video of a portion of the new eBook:

Bookseller, tablet maker Barnes & Noble reports dismal holiday sales as revenue falls 10.9%, NOOK sales decline

The book retailer Barnes & Noble this morning reported dismal holiday sales in a stark report that has to make investors and industry observers worried about the company's future.

The bookseller's retail segment, the company's bookstores and BN.com businesses, saw revenue fall 10.9 percent to $1.2 billion. Store sales fell 8.2 percent which the company blamed on store closings, as well as lower online sales – an area of concern when online sales elsewhere are at record highs.

But the worst news involves NOOK sales, which the company said declined 3.1 percent in the holiday period.

"We entered the holiday with two great new products, NOOK HD and NOOK HD+, both highly rated media tablets of phenomenal quality," William Lynch, CEO of Barnes & Noble, Inc., said in the company's announcement.

"NOOK device sales got off to a good start over the Black Friday period, but then fell short of expectations for the balance of holiday. We are examining the root cause of the December shortfall in sales, and will adjust our strategies accordingly going forward."

The company revised its NOOK Media revenue forecast to "approximately $3 billion, with earnings for the unit around the same levels as fiscal year 2012 when the company reported losses. The company's fiscal year ends at the end of April.

In fiscal year 2012 Barnes & Noble reported total revenue at $7.1 billion, and EBITDA at $171.4 million, which was up 5 percent over fiscal year 2011 levels.

Penguin Group settles with the Justice Department while litigation continues against Apple and Macmillan

Another major book publisher has settled with the Department of Justice, this time it is Penguin Group. A proposed settlement has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, if approved would end any litigation concerning Penguin.

The DOJ had previously settled claims with Hachette Book Group Inc., HarperCollins Publishers L.L.C. and Simon & Schuster Inc.

"Since the department’s settlement with Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, consumers are already paying lower prices for the e-book versions of many of those publishers’ new releases and bestsellers," Jamillia Ferris, Chief of Staff and Counsel at the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division said in the department's announcement. "If approved by the court, the proposed settlement with Penguin will be an important step toward undoing the harm caused by the publishers’ anticompetitive conduct and restoring retail price competition so consumers can pay lower prices for Penguin’s e-books."

The settlement requires Penguin to "terminate its agreements with Apple and other e-books retailers and will be prohibited for two years from entering into new agreements that constrain retailers’ ability to offer discounts or other promotions to consumers to encourage the sale of the Penguin’s e-books," the DOJ announcement said.

The actions by the DOJ are widely seen as a big boost to Amazon.com and a defeat of efforts by book publishers to maintain higher prices for eBooks.

12 Apps of Christmas: January gave us iBooks Author

The Twelve Days of Christmas runs from Christmas Day to the evening of January 5th, or Twelfth Night. But TNM's 12 Apps of Christmas, which begins today, will look at significant media apps released this year – one per month. We start today with January and continue the series through New Year's Eve.

In January of this year Time Inc. was able to announce that it had completed its goal of launching tablet editions for all of its magazine titles with the release of an iPad app for Fortune Magazine.

One week later the Bonnier Technology group released an app for American Photo which completed its task of releasing tablet editions for its four titles. The group, at that time led by Gregg Hano, was the one part of Bonnier committed to using the Mag+ digital publishing platform. Later in the year Hano moved from Bonnier to Mag+ to become the new CEO and TNM interviewed him in April.

But the biggest news of the month came from the education event for Apple which saw the release of its free software iBooks Author (Mac App Store link).

After a short time to play with the software I wrote a post calling iBooks Author a "potential game changer" in a rare use of a terrible cliché.

The software package remains full of potential, and hundreds, probably thousands of people are using the software to create interactive books to be read using Apple's iBooks reader software.

But like many of Apple's products, one really doesn't know how committed to the software the company really is. The software is currently on version 2.0 which means it has received a major update since its January launch. But the software gets only infrequent updates and the fact that the software can not support other platforms remains an issue.

Nonetheless, the introduction of iBooks Author still remains a big deal for media companies, and the major objections many had to the software, its licensing agreement, proved to be a non-issue.

iBooks Author is very easy to use and after only a few weeks of working with it the designer finds they have mastered much of the tricks and quirks of the software that any art director will tell you lie within any design software package. Within minutes I produced the simple sample book you see above in the animated GIF.

This summer, however, I first used iBooks Author in a more serious fashion. My family and I went to Greece for vacation and while there, equipped with four iPhones, went on a photo shooting spree. Upon our return I gathered up the photos and produced a print photo book using iPhoto as I would usually do.

But once that book was completed and printed by Apple I realized that I could use iBooks Author to produce something much different. The result was an interactive book that contained not only photographs, but video, as well.

Despite being available for a year, however, iBooks Author has not become a standard due to its inherent limitations. Despite its ease and powerful multimedia capabilities, the authoring tool only works with Apple's iBooks. As a result, media companies using the authoring package are having to make a choice: do they launch for iBooks only? reformat and use another package for Kindle Editions? or use a completely different authoring tool to create cross-platform eBooks?

It's a tough choice, but meanwhile many magazine designers hold out hope that Apple will release a version of iBooks Author that will help them create interactive magazine editions. After all, who can beat the price Apple charges for its own design took – free.

'Played in Britain: Modern Theatre in 100 Plays' brings theatre lovers six decades of British theatre history

The theatre, the theatre, what's happened to the theatre? (Hey, it's Christmas season so why not start a post with a quote from White Christmas?)

Well, if you want to know what's happened to the theatre* in the U.K. you now have a brilliant new app thanks to The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). Played in Britain: Modern Theatre in 100 Plays is one of those tablet apps that makes you wonder exactly what those tech writers are talking about when they dismiss tablet publishing. Are they downloading apps like this one? Probably not.

Built using the Mag+ digital publishing platform, this iPad app presents six decades of British theatre history – from 1945 to 2010 – and is filled with a ton of photography, audio and video content. The free app lets you sample the material, but a theatre lover will want to download the complete app, which when loaded on your iPad will take up a bit over 800 MB of spacer. The cost is $11.99 and is an in-app purchase. That price might seem steep by app standards, but have you gone to the theatre lately?

The app is introduced by Simon Callow – American audiences will recognize him immediately from the films Four Weddings and a Funeral and Shakespeare in Love, though he has long and distinguished career in the theatre having been appointed a 'Commander of the Order of the British Empire' for his services to acting in 1999.

"The app gives the V&A an opportunity not only to expand our audience, but to bring together our vast collections of photographic stills, audio-visual material and production photographs. All this is viewable in extraordinary detail, and in just a few simple swipes," said Malcolm Sutherland, responsible for digital projects and apps at the V&A.

The press announcement for the app from Mag+ gives an idea of what you will find inside:

• over 600 images, including the work of acclaimed theatre photographer Douglas H Jeffery
• embedded videos
• audio clips and narration by the plays’ original cast members and other actors
• click-through web browsing critic interviews
• unique essays written by V&A experts
• original first night reviews from the Guardian and Telegraph newspapers
• original cast lists and interviews with cast members
• long-form pages dedicated to each play

"We want to encourage more heritage organizations to capture new opportunities and new audiences through digital publishing," said Gregg Hano, CEO of Mag+. "The V&A has discovered that experimenting with Mag+ to create iPad apps not only produce beautiful results to be proud of, but gives more freedom, without the burden of costly resources."

The app is to be found in the Education category, but it would feel comfortable in Books (and Entertainment, too, I would think).

* For the sake of consistency, I chosen the British spelling of theatre. I thought about spelling it both ways randomly in this post just to mess with TNM readers, but then thought better of it.

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This walk-through video is a bit different. Because so much material is contained this app, a description of what you will find seemed insufficient, and a standard two minute video would not do, either.

So, instead, what you'll see here is the promotional video from Mag+ that quickly tours the app, followed by a closer look at just a small – tiny, really – portion of the app.

Played in Britain is one of those app, like Above & Beyond: George Steinmetz or The History of Jazz, which showcases what the tablet platform can do.

For those looking into the Mag+ platform for use themselves, this is an app that will make an art director's jaw drop and ask "you can do that?"

KIDS DISCOVER: another fantastic new iPad app from the studios of Joe Zeff Design

As I have written before, a new application from the studios of Joe Zeff Design is always a cause for celebration. Yesterday I discovered, thanks to a blog post on the company's website, that a new iPad app, KIDS DISCOVER, has been released into the Apple App Store, and it does not disappoint.

Joe Zeff Design is the studio some of the best apps available: Above & Beyond: George Steinmetz and more recently BAMM.tv. To learn more about this creative firm I recommend the interview with Joe Zeff conducted by Pedro Monteiro which appeared on this site back in May of last year.

The new app is designed for kidsdiscover.com, a publishing firm with the mission "to expose kids to all the wonders in the world—science, space, nature, history and culture—in one easy-to-understand, beautiful publication." Now they have an interesting new app for the iPad.

The free app's business models is simple: download the app and gain access to one of the "issues" contained within the app free of charge. The free issue is Galaxies and needs to be downloaded once the app is installed. It weighs in at 392 MB due to its interactivity and animation.

Then, assuming you are happy with what you see – and most will be, that's for sure – then two other "issues" are available now for downloading at $2.99 a piece: Antarctica and Washington D.C.

The user can also choose to buy a monthly subscription at $1.99, this will gain you access to the other issues, as well as those coming soon: Cells, Weather, Oceans, Ancient China, Lewis & Clark, and Simple Machines.

The video below ends with the credits found in the new app, but the Joe Zeff Design blog provides a little more information:

Christopher Holewski was the project lead at Joe Zeff Design, collaborating with Ed Gabel, who created many of the computer-generated animations. Kids Discover involved its top people: Publisher Judith Princz, Director of Digital Development Ted Levine and Editor Jennifer Dixon.

The result is a wonderful app that should educate and entertain at the same time. It is safe to say that the apps developed by Joe Zeff Design are among the few applications that have a permanent place on my own iPad (though I must admit that means burning up quite a bit of storage space).

I guess the only other detail to mention is that the app was created using the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite.

Here is a little circular walk-through the app, from Index to some of the sections and back again:

Disney releases a series of Wreck-It Ralph! digital books and game apps for iOS in time for the holidays

With the holiday shopping season upon us smart publishers are making sure that they have app products available for new owners of tablets and smartphones. For parent thinking of buying their children and teenagers an iPad (lucky kids) one would want to think about adding a few apps to that digital device.

Disney Publishing has launched a couple of new book apps in support of its Wreck-It Ralph franchise, as well as a game.

The game is simply called Wreck-It Ralph and is priced at $1.99. Games, being outside the domaine of TNM, we'll concentrate on the digital books.

Wreck-it Ralph: Hero's Duty Interactive Comic is the comic prequel to the Wreck-It Ralph! movie and is priced at $1.99. The app is universal, perfect if you've decided to buy an iPod touch, for instance. It is simply constructed and works exclusively in portrait orientation.

The app was recently updated to fix some bugs, but the update did not include support for the iPhone 5 – probably because it was designed and developed over the summer before the iPhone 5's launch. As it is, the app weighs in at 95 MB, a typical size for a digital book of this length.

The Big Kahun is Wreck-It Ralph Storybook Deluxe. It, too, is a universal app, but this one really works best on an iPad tablet. The app costs $6.99 and weighs in at 262 MB, so you know there will be a lot content here.

The digital book features read-along text and full narration, as well as six clips from the movie.

The other half of the app is the game side, which means that the app will have shelf life.

Disney warns App Store customers that the app is not compatible with the iPhone 3GS or 3rd generation iPod touch – though, as I said, this one is especially good for new tablet owners.

Disney now has exactly 100 apps in the Apple App Store for the iPhone, and 106 designated for the iPad (obviously, some of these are universal apps). A parent can find book and game apps in a number of categories including Education, with prices from Free to $6.99, with the majority of them in the $1.99 pricing slot. Disney has also launched the Wreck-It Ralph game for the Android platform, though these two apps seen here are missing from the platform, though I did see three Kindle Editions from Disney Book Group for the Wreck-It Ralph franchise on Amazon.com.

These digital books and games consistently are receiving high marks from users, though since they tend to have lots interactivity, a parent should make sure they are not trying to load these onto older iPads or iPhones. Each app description will give the downloader a warning about compatibility.

McGraw-Hill to sell its education business to Apollo Global Management, rename itself McGraw Hill Financial

Back in the early nineties I was recruited to McGraw-Hill to run a trade publication. My own impression of McGraw-Hill was that it was a publishing giant, but I was wrong – the company, instead, saw itself as a financial services company burdened by a portfolio of publishing titles. Slowly the company has transformed itself by selling off much of its portfolio including BusinessWeek, and today its education division.

Today McGraw-Hill announced that it had sold off its McGraw-Hill Education business to investment funds affiliated with the private equity company Apollo Global Management, LLC. The sales price is $2.5 billion.

"After carefully considering all of the options for creating shareholder value, the McGraw-Hill Board of Directors concluded that this agreement generates the best value and certainty for our shareholders and will most favorably position the world-class assets of McGraw-Hill Education for long-term success," said Harold McGraw III.

The sale will now allow McGraw-Hill to rebrand itself as McGraw-Hill Financial with expected revenues of $4.4 billion annually. Total revenue for 2011 was $6.246 billion. The company's leading brand names will be Standard & Poor's, Platts and J.D. Power and Associates.

The company still has some divisions that will be hanging on including McGraw-Hill Construction which includes the Dodge products, Sweets, Engineering News-Record and Architectural Record. This is the division I worked for back in the early nineties. One could visualize the company retaining this division as part of its financial services repositioning, though a sale to another PE is not out the question either (and has been expected by some observers).

McGraw-Hill has been a major player in the education market – both in pre-K to 12 and in higher education. But the textbook field is in transition to digital media and McGraw-Hill has been slow to adjust, and in fact has lagged behind many other media companies in this regard.

ProCon.org to unveil new microsite tomorrow examining the issue of tablets versus textbooks in the classroom

The nonprofit public issues website ProCon.org has created a microsite to look at the issue of tablets in the classroom versus the continued use of printed textbooks. The microsite will be officially unveiled to the public tomorrow via the public issuing of a press release.

The new microsite, Should tablets replace textbooks in K-12 schools?, runs through the arguments both for the use of tablets, as well as the advantages of printed textbooks, provides an historical background section, as well as videos, photos and footnotes.

In favor of tablets are such factors as 1) Tablets help students learn more material faster; 2) 81% of K-12 teachers believe that "tablets enrich classroom education."; and 3) Tablets can hold hundreds of textbooks on one device, plus homework, quizzes, and other files, eliminating the need for physical storage of books and classroom materials. Fifteen separate arguments are made in favor of tablets in the classroom.

In opposition are such arguments as 1) Handheld technological devices including tablets are associated with a range of health problems; 2) Using tablets is more expensive than using print textbooks; and 3) Tablets have too many distractions for classroom use. (citing the use of apps). Seventeen arguments in total are made in opposition.

The ProCon.org website contains 43 different Pro-Con microsites on issues deemed controversial such as Standardized Tests, Elections and Presidents, Social Networking and Alternative Energy. (One assumes this new one makes 44 such sites.)

The organization says its mission is "Promoting critical thinking, education, and informed citizenship by presenting controversial issues in a straightforward, nonpartisan, primarily pro-con format."

Kobo updates its iOS and Android reading apps

Toronto-based Kobo Inc. today updated its apps for both Apple's iOS and Google's Android platforms.

The universal iOS app update includes support for the new iPhone 5 and iPod touch with its larger screen. There are also new reading menus on the iPhone app, as well.

For the most part, the app update improves loading times, bookmarks and general performance improvements, as well as fixes bugs.

The Kobo blog highlights the improvements to the Android app, as well: "Along with Fixed Layout ePub support, we’ve jammed in more amazing features to make the reading experience even better. Selecting text is a breeze and now you can highlight in four different colours for colour coded notes."

Kobo will be releasing a new 7-inch tablet later this month called the Kobo Arc. The tablet will sport a display with a 1280 x 800 HD resolution display at 215 ppi, a 720p front-facing camera for video calls, and a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor with 1 GB of RAM.

The tablet will run Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and Kobo promises a software update to 4.1 (Jelly Bean) "within a few months time." The tablet will be priced at $299.99.

Kobo last month acquired the digital publishing platform Aquafadas, a French company. One way Kobo could encourage developers to think about their platform would be to offer the Aquafadas tools for free for apps to run on their tablets, but to date there has been no word of any move in this direction.

Apple unveils updates for both iBooks and iBooks Author

As expected, Apple today unveiled updates for both iBooks and its software program iBooks Author. Because the new iPad mini will sport the same resolution display as the second generation iPad, there is no need for a major revision of either program due to the new iPad.

So the updates for both programs will probably be quite a disappointment for many eBook developers. The biggest change that could have occurred to iBooks Author would have been support for the iPhone and iPod touch, but Apple did not add that today, and as a result continues to be missing a major opportunity.

The biggest problem with iBooks Author is simply that it does not play nice in the sandbox. Developers of eBooks want to sell their books inside Apple's iBookstore, but they also want to sell them as Kindle Editions, and other formats.

But while there are good technical and commercial reasons why iBooks Author will not support these non-Apple platforms, the fact that a developer will need another solution in order to get their books onto an iPhone means that iBooks Author is solely lacking as a design platform.

The good news, as mentioned above, is that because the new iPad mini is essentially a second generation iPad, but smaller, means that no new platform has been introduced today to complicate things even more.

Update: the updated iBooks Author is now live and is being labeled as 2.0. The update can be found in the Mac App Store and is 219 MB.

What's New in Version 2.0
• Create new gorgeous portrait-only books
• Embed custom fonts into books for complete control over text appearance
• Add even more interactivity with new Scrolling Sidebar and Pop-Over widgets
• Support for mathematical expressions with new native equation editing using both LaTeX and MathML notation
• Automatic optimization of media for iPad
• Improved support for embedded audio, including the ability to play an audio file by tapping an image
• Improved publishing workflow, including automatic sample book creation and pre-publish checking
• Additional Apple-designed templates
• Version numbering for books
• Enhanced to take advantage of the Retina display on the new MacBook Pro
• Performance improvements
• Usability improvements

Here is Tim Cook introducing the newest version of iBooks Author, that should be available for download in the Mac App Store this afternoon:

The Chicago Tribune launches an eBook collection with partner Agate Digital with titles available across platforms

The Chicago Tribune launched an eBook series with Agate Publishing. The Chicago Tribune Ebook Collection features material from the Tribune's news and features stories and will be available through as Kindle editions through Amazon, for the NOOK through Barnes & Noble, through the Apple bookstore and as ePub from Agate Digital.

A check of the Apple bookstore shows that many of the titles have not yet gotten through Apple's system, but the titles are currently live inside Amazon's online store. The titles can be found as being authored by "Chicago Tribune staff."

Titles include Capone: A Photographic Portrait of America's Most Notorious Gangster and Charlie Trotter: How One Superstar Chef and His Iconic Chicago Restaurant Helped Revolutionize American Cuisine.

"The Tribune’s vast archive of excellent reporting and photography are a perfect vehicle for experimenting with ebooks," said Doug Seibold, president of Agate, in the announcement for the series. "We’re able to publish ebooks at a very fast clip that are affordable and easily accessible to a wide range of readers, and we look forward to bringing out many more such books."

The base price for most of the ebooks is $4.99.

Kobo acquires French digital publishing platform Aquafadas

In an interesting move into the digital publishing production market, Kobo, the Toronto based eReader company, best known for its association with Borders, has acquired Aquafadas, a French digital publishing platform.

This is a very exciting day for both Kobo and Aquafadas,"said Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis, in the company's announcement. "Digital Reading is rapidly evolving now to new rich media categories. This transaction will strengthen both Kobo’s and Aquafadas position in our current markets and allow us to accelerate the growth of rich media with the Aquafadas Digital Publishing system."

The Aquafadas system is similar to Mag+ in that it involves an InDesign plug-in. But today's announcement put eBooks front and center.

Kobo is in a far weaker position than Apple, Google, Amazon or Barnes & Noble's NOOK platforms. But today's move has international implications, and serves to diversify the company. (Kobo also announced today that its self-publishing platform, Kobo Writing Life, will now be available in German, French, Italian, Portuguese and Dutch, in addition to English.)

Users of the Aquafadas system would naturally want to know if their platform will continue to be available.

"Thanks to this acquisition, publishers who use Aquafadas Publishing System will benefit from an easy, scalable, solution that will provide access to a new distribution channel in addition to other channels: Kobo’s platform and its 10 million registered users," said Aquafadas CEO Claudia Zimmer. "We will benefit significantly from this partnership and amp up development to deliver more innovative tools. By working together to further enhance the Kobo product line-up the creation of rich-media content, Kobo and Aquafadas will take digital reading to a new level."

(I found it interesting that Aquafadas did not send out a notice to its users this morning about this acquisition, though the company is featuring the news on its website.)

Media app updates: newly redesigned player for PBS for iPad gets thumbs up from users; OverDrive updates media console app; Mag+ Reviewer updated

You can bet that sometimes developers think that users inside the App Store are some of the most negative people in the world. It feels this way because of all the negative reviews that get thrown at some apps.

But sometimes I think users are incredibly generous, ignoring the minor flaws of some apps because overall the app begin offered is very good.

Take the newly updated app PBS for iPad. Last night the app was updated to improve the performance and design of the video player – and, obviously, for a television network, the video player is by far the most important element of the app.

The newly redesigned video player on the PBS app is better, and reviewers are giving the app five-star reviews this morning.

But I immediately noticed something weird about the updated app. Something that I always ignored because maybe, just maybe, the fault lay with my iPad.

When I tapped on a television show and the video player came up, the player was upside down. A turn of the iPad and all was right. But at launch the damn thing was upside down. Was this just happening to me? No one was mentioning it in iTunes.

So I closed down the app, a hard close so that the next time the app would open at launch instead of where I left off.

Once again, when a program was initiated, the player opened upside down. Strange.

Yet all the reviews inside iTunes, with one exception from someone complaining about ads, were positive. You see, sometimes, users can be pretty generous.

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OverDrive, a digital distributor of eBooks and audiobooks, has updated its iOS apps, called OverDrive Media Console.

This is one of those apps that I kick myself for not checking our more often.

The app gives readers access to eBooks from public, school and college libraries. At launch it requires you to log in using an Adobe log-in, though you can cancel this out.

The app is really just a gateway as it takes one to the website of the library. so its usefulness can certainly be questioned. But thousands of users have found the app and generally have given it high marks.

Today's update adds support for the new iPhone 5 and iPod touch models, a swell as introduces a new audiobook player.

Most recent reviews have complained about the app's performance, so this new update may address some of their concerns.

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Users of the Mag+ platform will want to update their Mag+ Reviewer app today. The newest update brings the app up to 4.0.2.

The update is to fix some bugs and to correct the layouts of older issues.

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia releases three new food iPad apps in partnership with Happy Studio

A series of new apps from Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSLO) blur the lines between eBooks and interactive apps. The new iPad apps, all built in partnership with Happy Studio would, in the print world, all be books, but in the digital world can be seen as either an eBook, a special issue digital magazine, or a stand alone app. They are, in other words, their own kind of new media.

The three new apps are Martha Stewart Makes Cookies, Martha Stewart Makes Cocktails, and Smoothies from Whole Living. Each is built upon the same idea as a previously released app, also built in partnership with Happy Studio, called Martha Stewart CraftStudio.

Each of the three new tablet apps are built to be used in landscape, which is the way most iPad cover/stands will hold the tablet for viewing while cooking.

Each of the app descriptions say that the apps are free of charge for a limited time. Looking at the previously released CraftStudio app, the business model here may be to view the apps as starter apps that will allow MSLO to later add modules for sale to owners of the app. CraftStudio is currently a paid app ($4.99) that also has individual in-app purchases available for $1.99 a piece.

The older app has received very good reviews from users inside the App Store, so the model seems to be working.

The cookies app is a very large download, 555 MB, and the app description warns potential downloaders that they should be on a WiFi connection when downloading. Inside the app are two additional "books" that can be downloaded, as well. For now both new modules are also free of charge. The Sugar & Spice Cookies section is sponsored by McCormick's (a company, that I'm told, is investing heavily in digital media).

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One feature that I failed to capture in the video below is the built-in timer feature, which if you think about it is pretty cool (seen at left, click picture to enlarge).

The app is, as you will see, very well done. But what I think MSLO sees it that the concept can be repeated many times with different themes.

The issue for publishers is whether the idea of launching an app that is free upon launch will be a profitable business model, or whether apps such as these only serve marketing purposes – in this case, promoting the Martha Stewart brand.

Nature Publishing Group releases a natively designed tablet edition for Scientific American; also a first eBook released as a Kindle Edition, iBook and a NOOK book

In late December of 2010 Nature Publishing Group released a special edition app for its title Scientific American. That app, Origins & Endings, was, I thought, just a teaser for an app edition for the magazine itself.

A year and a half later that app, Scientific American, has finally been released and it was certainly worth the wait.

Both existing print readers, who will be not forced to pay again to access the digital edition, and new readers will find the tablet edition well designed, easy to read, and a joy to navigate. The editors have gone out of their way to make sure readers new to the iPad will be able to move around the articles.

The free app can be found inside the Apple Newsstand with annual subscriptions priced at $34.99. Individual issues can be bought at $5.99, but the app comes with a free preview issue, July, which will allow readers to get an idea of the quality of the production work inside (as well as the editorial content, of course).

In addition to the new tablet edition, the editors of Scientific American have also published their first eBook: The Science of Sports. The new digital book has been released simultaneously as a Kindle Edition, an iBook, and as a NOOK book – all three priced at $3.99.

Here is a brief look at the July issue of Scientific American, available free inside the new iPad app:

Amazon updates its iOS Kindle reading app

Like Kobo before it, Amazon has issued an update to its iOS reading app. The Kindle app, with an equally ridiculous app name, was updated to bring allow for the reading of eBooks more enhanced that the usual text only products.

By the way, that dreadful app name, in full, is Kindle – Read Books, Magazines & More – Over 1 Million eBooks & Newspapers. Any longer and it would have to be broken up into paragraphs.

The app description breaks out the improvements made of the app into separate device categories:

iPad users:
- Read children’s books, comic books, and graphic novels with beautiful layout and full color. Over 1000 children’s titles are available including Brown Bear and Curious George and comics such as Batman and Superman.
- Improved reading experience on iPad: Smaller margins and a cleaner look help you focus on the author's words.

iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch:
- Search: Quickly locate your content by searching for a title or author.
- Google and Wikipedia: This update fixes an issue that prevented lookup of words on Google and Wikipedia.