RE: EPUB usage

Are there any significant retailers that still require plain old EPUB 2’s from anyone???

 

Even KindleGen accepts EPUB 3 files!


I know some retailers require EPUB 3 to have NCX but that is not a “plain old EPUB 2”. And given that millions (?) of reading systems are in customers hands that have EPUB 2 only support baked into their ROM, it’s not shocking to me (and it hasn’t been 7 years since EPUB 3 was approved, it’s only been 5.5 years – that is within the life span that consumers expect their devices to work and of course there was a big delay in EPUB 3 supporting in reading systems after the completion of the spec, and thanks to Adobe DRM and RMSDK issues there are *still* people selling new EPUB 2 only dedicated eReaders, and building new EPUB 2 only mobile apps, today!

 

In hindsight perhaps the biggest mistake we made in EPUB 3, from a practical perspective in terms of adoption timeline, was to not just stick with NCX, kludgy though it was, at that could have eased the transition and as it seems that most of the proposals for PWP/EPUB4, and Readium’s new Web Pub serialization, have JSON for the document skeleton, inc. navigation, anyway so it may be that the Nav Doc is not only not the past/present but not necessarily the future either (I was beating the drum to double down on the HTML5 <nav> element for PWP/EPUB4 rather than <spine> and friends, but that seems to be a minority opinion and Hadrien ultimately did convince me it wasn’t the best technical solution, albeit it required a very long discussion at a Parisien bar so I’m not sure I can enumurate all his arguments… 😉 ). But this is maybe an object lesson (no pun intended) that going for technically superior solutions or chasing “alignment” for its own sake (the main reason to choose <nav> over NCX) is not necessarily the win, if the real goal is (as I believe it should be) to maximize real-world adoption.

 

--Bill

 

From: Bill Kasdorf [mailto:bkasdorf@apexcovantage.com] 
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2017 10:23 AM
To: Siegman, Tzviya - Hoboken <tsiegman@wiley.com>; Johnson, Rick <Rick.Johnson@ingramcontent.com>; Cristina Mussinelli <cristina.mussinelli@aie.it>; public-publishing-sc@w3.org
Subject: RE: EPUB usage

 

I would also add that it is hard to imagine that any of the main conversion vendors who produce EPUBs don’t produce EPUB 3 routinely. I’m speculating, of course; at Apex, we not only always recommend EPUB 3s (although customers do spec EPUB 2, in which case we do EPUB 2) but have the generation of EPUB 3s built into prepress workflows for customers for which we provide those services. I can’t imagine the other big conversion/prepress houses don’t do the same.

 

The only possible justification I can see for sending plain old EPUB 2s out into the world is that there are still retailers requiring it. How hard can it be for them to adapt? I don’t mean that I would expect them to implement every feature of EPUB 3 (though of course I would like them to); I just mean supporting EPUB 3s that have the same functionality and features their current EPUB 2-based systems support, with the one significant functional difference being using the nav instead of the ncx. That describes many thousands of novels and other trade books, and even many scholarly monographs and professional books. What could be holding that back?

 

Maybe it’s that they’re reluctant to say they accept EPUB 3 without implementing all or most of the things EPUB 3 does that EPUB 2 doesn’t do. But is admitting they can’t do everything EPUB 3 enables any worse than saying they can only accept EPUB 2? This is relevant to our ongoing EPUB Grid / epubtest.org discussion because it supports the pivot away from emphasizing what RSs _don’t_ do, which the current [old] Grid has had the effect of doing.

 


Bill Kasdorf


VP and Principal Consultant | Apex CoVantage


p:

734-904-6252  m:   734-904-6252

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ORCiD:  <https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7002-4786?lang=en> https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7002-4786

 

 

From: Siegman, Tzviya - Hoboken [mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com] 
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2017 9:34 AM
To: Johnson, Rick; Cristina Mussinelli; public-publishing-sc@w3.org <mailto:public-publishing-sc@w3.org> 
Subject: Re: EPUB usage

 

It's disheartening for a few reasons. The EPUB 3 spec is now 7 years old (I think). Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and swallow the one time cost of revamping the workflow for the good of the world.  When I did it for Wiley, it cost my time plus a few thousand dollars. It is not that expensive, especially if content is simple. (I am once again realizing that I could go into consulting and make a lot of money).

 

It matters because those of us who have switched to EPUB 3 are still required to hang on to remnants of EPUB 2, like the ncx file. When I have to troubleshoot, I have to figure out if the retailer is using the nav or still hanging on to the ncx for old time's sake. It also means that the one retailer that isn't EPUB can happily assume that EPUB 2 is forever. 

 

****************************

Tzviya Siegman

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

111 River Street, MS 5-02

Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774

201-748-6884

tsiegman@wiley.com <mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com> 

  _____  

From: Johnson, Rick <Rick.Johnson@ingramcontent.com <mailto:Rick.Johnson@ingramcontent.com> >
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2017 9:17:30 AM
To: Siegman, Tzviya - Hoboken; Cristina Mussinelli; public-publishing-sc@w3.org <mailto:public-publishing-sc@w3.org> 
Subject: Re: EPUB usage 

 

Yeah, we are mostly EPUB 3, with the exception of trade titles used in things like Literature classes.

 

 

Rick Johnson | VP of Product Strategy

VitalSource Technologies

rick.johnson@vitalsource.com <mailto:rick.johnson@vitalsource.com> 

 

 <https://www.vitalsource.com/> 

 

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail message including attachments, if any, is intended for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential, privileged, and/or proprietary material. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited.  If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message.

 

 

From: "Siegman, Tzviya - Hoboken" <tsiegman@wiley.com <mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com> >
Date: Thursday, June 15, 2017 at 8:57 AM
To: Cristina Mussinelli <cristina.mussinelli@aie.it <mailto:cristina.mussinelli@aie.it> >, "Johnson, Rick" <Rick.Johnson@ingramcontent.com <mailto:Rick.Johnson@ingramcontent.com> >, "public-publishing-sc@w3.org <mailto:public-publishing-sc@w3.org> " <public-publishing-sc@w3.org <mailto:public-publishing-sc@w3.org> >
Subject: RE: EPUB usage

 

Thanks, Rick. That is really interesting. Do you happen to have info on EPUB 2 vs 3? I seem to recall that VitalSource entered the game after EPUB 3, so I suspect you skew heavily toward EPUB 3. 

 

This article [1] by Ben Dugas of Kobo is related and a little disheartening. (If any of you want to write for EPUBSecrets, contact Laura Brady.)

 

[1] http://epubsecrets.com/from-inside-the-epub-ingestion-factory.php

 

Tzviya Siegman

Information Standards Lead

Wiley

201-748-6884

 <mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com> tsiegman@wiley.com 

 

From: Cristina Mussinelli [mailto:cristina.mussinelli@aie.it] 
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2017 8:41 AM
To: Johnson, Rick; public-publishing-sc@w3.org <mailto:public-publishing-sc@w3.org> 
Subject: Re: EPUB usage

 

Thank you very interesting!

Cristina

 

 

 

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Da: Rick <Rick.Johnson@ingramcontent.com <mailto:Rick.Johnson@ingramcontent.com> >
Data: giovedì 15 giugno 2017 14:23
A: "public-publishing-sc@w3.org <mailto:public-publishing-sc@w3.org> " <public-publishing-sc@w3.org <mailto:public-publishing-sc@w3.org> >
Oggetto: EPUB usage
Rinviato da: <public-publishing-sc@w3.org <mailto:public-publishing-sc@w3.org> >
Data rinvio: giovedì 15 giugno 2017 14:23

 

I’ve shared these numbers with you before (for 2016), but I just ran the 2017 ones, and I thought you would all appreciate them.

 

-Rick

 

EPUB vs. PDF usage on the VitalSource platform

 

In 2016

Top 25 titles: 24 EPUB, 1 PDF

Top 50 titles: 46 EPUB, 4 PDF

Top 100 titles: 77 EPUB, 23 PDF

Top 250 titles: 141 EPUB, 109 PDF

Top 500 titles: 233 EPUB, 267 PDF

 

 

In 2017 (to date)

Top 25 titles: 25 EPUB, zero PDF

Top 50 titles: 48 EPUB, 2 PDF

Top 100 titles: 81 EPUB, 19 PDF

Top 250 titles: 159 EPUB, 91 PDF

Top 500 titles: 239 EPUB, 261 PDF