My Grand Theory About What E-Publishing is

A book is a book, no matter how you read it.

I'm not sure I'm following what is an 'interactive element' in books.

Would turning the page in a physical book be considered an interactive element, which is something an ebook doesn't give you? (I'm not sure I buy that but I don't have an ereader so I can't comment on the physicality of 'turning a page' on, say, a kindle or a nook)

What about links/hyperlinks (forgive me the ignorance on proper terminology) within an ebook, like an active table of contents that you can click in an ebook and it takes you to the correct chapter? Or links within the books taking you to webpages? Couldn't that be considered interactive?

Or is this taking us down the path of soon being able to embed videos into the ebook? (Don't know if the technology is there or will be any time soon but I think it's safe to say that someone, somewhere, is thinking that very thing right now)

Trying to figure out how the difference between movies and plays would translate to paperbooks and ebooks...and I'm not sure there can be a satisfactory one.

Hmm. This discussion is feeding into things I've been mulling over. I think the e-book format is somewhat constrained by Kindle, which was deliberately designed to cross people over from paper books. It does that very well in some ways. (I had no intention of switching, got a Kindle as a present, and got converted.)

OTOH, it's not great for illustrations and graphs and such. I can see a future - and not a very distant one - in which e-readers are much more similar to tablet computers. In fact, a lot of people use their i-pads in just such a way... like the woman who sat next to me on a plane the other day.

Once you go *there* it makes sense for e-books to be more like websites/ blogs/ powerpoint presentations, only adapted into longer narrative structures.

I don't expect lots of embedded links. My experience both as a reader and a blogger is people usually resist clicking on links; it pulls them out of the narrative. But I do think they'll have some. They already have active TOCs and searchability. I can see references in non-fic books being live links.

I don't think the OP's comparison of theater and film is entirely off the wall, if the implication is that the "book" will gradually morph into something different from what it is now - that gradually, e-books and paper-books will diverge. There'll probably be room for both in the new eco-system. IMO.

I'm kind of hoping that e-books don't turn into orgies of multimedia and flashy graphics and interactivity. We already have computer games for that. I want my books to stay books, regardless of whether they're in paper or electronic format. Sometimes I enjoy using my imagination.

Given that we have several generations now that have grown up with video games, I can see a definite place for true interactive reading experiences. Might be a terrific way to handle some text books.

For example, in a history book about the Civil War, the reader would o click a link that would take him or her to a video re-enactment of President Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address. Or, the reader could click a link to bring up a map of a battlefield or a video of the fight between the ironclads. The possibilities for using this technology to really engage a student are extensive.

The Kindle Fire and the top of the line Nook are already serving to bridge between strictly eReaders and tablets.

For reading novels, however, I agree with The Otter. For the same reason I don't care for heavily illustrated fiction. I like to use my imagination too although, in fiction, I wouldn't object to links at the back of the book (sort of like author notes) that might provide additional information about an historical event in the story or other data.

EngineerTiger said:

For example, in a history book about the Civil War, the reader would o click a link that would take him or her to a video re-enactment of President Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address. Or, the reader could click a link to bring up a map of a battlefield or a video of the fight between the ironclads.

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I used to have an encyclopaedia on several CDs that did this around 1998. You could click on links and it would open videos, or you could switch to a purely visual mode and navigate through a kind of first-person view of a gallery lined with still frames representing articles and media content.

It's a shame that approach didn't take off. It was pretty fun to use.

EngineerTiger said:

Given that we have several generations now that have grown up with video games, I can see a definite place for true interactive reading experiences. Might be a terrific way to handle some text books.

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I am still holding out hope, that I'll see a fully functional holodeck in my lifetime ... then again, that might just be the Star Trek Fan in me.

Bearilou, the things that Engineertiger and Gilead envision above are almost the exact same things that, as Medievalist pointed out, were being discussed way back in 1994 (and even before that). That is, almost 18 years ago.

The idea that you can click on this link and it will play this video, or click on that link and it will play this music within the text of a book is not new by any stretch. Interactive games have been using it for years as well.

The actual practice, where it all comes together in a seamless manner and music plays on cue, video pops up without delay, and everything comes together to form a virtual stage play in a book has not yet, IMO, been accomplished.

I think what some people are looking for is virtual reality in book form rather than the experience of the book itself. You 'walk' through the book, looking at the scenes, watching characters interact with each other, hearing and watching and viscerally trying to experience the sights and sounds of the characters rather than reading the text.

In other words, a holo deck experience without the holo deck interaction.

Personally, I think this would be boring, but that's just me.

The idea has been around for almost 20 years or more. It's not new. Virtual reality has come a long way, but there's no way I'm going to prefer walking through the woods in VR with Davy Crockett fighting Indians to reading about it in his biography.

Even the Wii with its supposed underwater and woods explorer programs don't come close to full- immersion VR or even the type of immersive interaction that MMORPGs are capable of these days and MMORPGs are light years ahead if interactive books.

if the text is strong enough, the reader wont want the interactive visual element.
might come in as a learning tool for language books, text books etc, which would be fine.

I worked for a company back in the '80s that was looking at doing similar things in the very infancy of desk top publishing so yes, the concept has been around for some time. Prior to that, we were writing audio/visual lessons with scripts and projectors.

I don't advocate it for fiction at all. I prefer to read a good story that triggers my imagination as, I believe, most readers do.

It will take another couple of generation of devices to make things seamless (think technological generations here which can happen within a few years or even months) but, for text books, this may be an excellent method to engage students and guide them to explore at their own pace and paths that pique their curiosity.

EngineerTiger said:

The Kindle Fire and the top of the line Nook are already serving to bridge between strictly eReaders and tablets.

For reading novels, however, I agree with The Otter. For the same reason I don't care for heavily illustrated fiction. I like to use my imagination too although, in fiction, I wouldn't object to links at the back of the book (sort of like author notes) that might provide additional information about an historical event in the story or other data.

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I agree - but the graphic novel is already with us. I can see some form of e-book taking this a few steps further, so we have a reading experience that is somewhat akin to videogames, and to film, and to books. Whether we'll actually call it an e-book or give it a different name is a different matter.

Keyan said:

I agree - but the graphic novel is already with us. I can see some form of e-book taking this a few steps further, so we have a reading experience that is somewhat akin to videogames, and to film, and to books. Whether we'll actually call it an e-book or give it a different name is a different matter.

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Graphic novels are already on the iPad, along with comics.

Maus was a CD-ROM in 1994.

In 1968 Alan Kay created the concept of the Dynabook, which he took with him to Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. The Dynabook, which hasn't been fully implemented yet, comprises much of the interactive functionality being discussed here. Kay's work influenced the design of the first Macintosh and virtually everything that has come since then.

These things you're all discussing.

http://youtu.be/hi_DNHWlnB8

They're called Visual Novels, and have been around for a while.

Paul said:

if the text is strong enough, the reader wont want the interactive visual element.
might come in as a learning tool for language books, text books etc, which would be fine.

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Geeze.

Guys. This is not new. Really, not new. I was working on products like this in the 1990s.

They're still used today.

And production / software companies are still making more.

Apple's iBooks Author is exactly for this specific market, the textbook market. It's downright nifty, though the books only work on an iPad 2 or the new iPad.

Medievalist said:

Graphic novels are already on the iPad, along with comics.

Maus was a CD-ROM in 1994.

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I used to have a few issues of a Mac magazine on CD that included a few things created on Hypercard.