Re: EPUB 3 Justification

“believe we must present the industry with a clear and compelling set of use cases, and arguments (some carrots, some sticks), and help them understand how to get from where they are, to a better place… and which target is the ‘better place’ (and when).”

Indeed this should be the intent.
My experience in world of DAISY standards always compels me to see beyond standards, towards adoption.
We created DAISY 1.0, then DAISY 2.02 and then DAISY 2.02. Organizations kept on following it. But then DAISY 3.0 was created which was a game changer, really advance standard, on which basis EPUB 3 was also improved.
But adoption got a set back. Standard came out in 2005 along with up gradation scripts. But the first production tool came out in 2008, and it was DAISY Consortium tool, we created it to promote DAISY 3, because uptake was not satisfactory.
Even in 2010, the most advance production houses were using just 30% of the advancements that DAISY 3 brought in.
We heard the same argument, why we need to up grade to DAISY 3 when the needs of our users are met by DAISY 2.02. Some say that we did really good job with DAISY 2.02, some say that we stepped too much ahead of time and people were not prepared for the advancements, but the fact is that adoption was below the expectations.

And many production houses continue the same argument for EPUB 3, why we need to move to EPUB 3 when all capabilities are already provided by DAISY standard.

My technical mind is completely in sync with the path of WP/PWP/EPUB 4, it is the right step to make the web oriented standard that implements all features of EPUB 3. 
But my manager’s mind is asking is it giving significant benefit to the community in 2020. Next month we have DAISY board meeting, and the perspective of the board is, what is our community and our organizations getting from all this great work? As head of operations and strategy I need a compelling argument for the board. I know that long term vision is all the publications will work natively in the browsers, but that future looks 5 or 6 years away. (I think Hadrien also pointed to this in recent email).

If we have a long term roadmap in mind (including post 2020 vision), it would be great to know.

With regards
Avneesh
From: Johnson, Rick 
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2018 20:30
To: Avneesh Singh ; AUDRAIN LUC ; Ric Wright ; McCloy-Kelley, Liisa ; W3C Publishing Business Group 
Subject: Re: EPUB 3 Justification

We have many ‘battles’ that need to be fought, and prepared for as we try to move industries:

-from EPUB2 to EPUB3

-from EPUB 3.x to EPUB 3.2

-from EPUBX to WP/PWP/EPUB4

 

Do we really feel like we can craft a compelling message for all three of these at the same time? I do not, and believe we must present the industry with a clear and compelling set of use cases, and arguments (some carrots, some sticks), and help them understand how to get from where they are, to a better place… and which target is the ‘better place’ (and when).

 

Rick Johnson | Vice President, Product Strategy

VitalSource Technologies, LLC

get.vitalsource.com 

 

 

From: Avneesh Singh <avneesh.sg@gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, May 24, 2018 at 5:58 AM
To: AUDRAIN LUC <LAUDRAIN@hachette-livre.fr>, Ric Wright <rkwright@geofx.com>, "McCloy-Kelley, Liisa" <lmccloy-kelley@penguinrandomhouse.com>, W3C Publishing Business Group <public-publishingbg@w3.org>
Subject: Re: EPUB 3 Justification
Resent-From: <public-publishingbg@w3.org>
Resent-Date: Thursday, May 24, 2018 at 5:56 AM

 

Sure Luc it is true that today’s need its EPUB 2 to EPUB 3.

My comment was on basis of PBG discussion on compelling reason for publishers to move from EPUB 3 to WP/PWP/EPUB 4.

 

There is a nice use case document that lists all kinds of use cases. I was wondering which of these use cases give a compelling reason for traditional publishers to move to WP/PWP/EPUB 4, apart of well known use case of scholarly publishing.

 

It may help in decisions in PWG. 

 

With regards

Avneesh

From: AUDRAIN LUC 

Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2018 18:02

To: Avneesh Singh ; Ric Wright ; McCloy-Kelley, Liisa ; W3C Publishing Business Group 

Subject: Re: EPUB 3 Justification

 

Dear Avneesh,

 

I have the feeling that today the battle is for EPUB3 vs EPUB2.

If EPUB2 keeps the majority of produced files for simple books, we will be far from acceptance of WP/PWP/EPUB4.

On the contrary, IF EPUB2 become a real minority, it should be more easy for publishers to move to EPUB4.

 

Not to speak of a11y also…

 

Kind regards,

Luc

 

 

De : Avneesh Singh <avneesh.sg@gmail.com>
Date : jeudi 24 mai 2018 à 13:27
À : Ric Wright <rkwright@geofx.com>, AUDRAIN LUC AUDRAIN LUC <laudrain@hachette-livre.fr>, "McCloy-Kelley, Liisa" <lmccloy-kelley@penguinrandomhouse.com>, W3C Publishing Business Group <public-publishingbg@w3.org>
Objet : Re: EPUB 3 Justification

 

Looking ahead, it may be helpful if we can also list similar compelling reasons for encouraging publishers for moving to WP/PWP/EPUB 4 from EPUB 3/EPUB 2.

There are good reasons for scholarly publishing that have been discussed in PWG calls. It would also be good to list down the reasons for traditional publishing industry that do not have scholarly publications as their main business model. 

It may help in planning of the new specs.

 

With regards

Avneesh

 

From: Ric Wright

Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2018 22:28

To: AUDRAIN LUC ; McCloy-Kelley, Liisa ; W3C Publishing Business Group

Subject: Re: EPUB 3 Justification

 

This thread smells like the basis for a nice white paper, to me.

 

Ric

 

 

From: AUDRAIN LUC <LAUDRAIN@hachette-livre.fr>
Date: Wednesday, May 23, 2018 at 6:27 AM
To: "McCloy-Kelley, Liisa" <lmccloy-kelley@penguinrandomhouse.com>, W3C Publishing Business Group <public-publishingbg@w3.org>
Subject: Re: EPUB 3 Justification
Resent-From: <public-publishingbg@w3.org>
Resent-Date: Wed, 23 May 2018 13:28:23 +0000

 

Dear Liisa,

 

In Hachette Livre we have identified these pros for EPUB3 vs EPUB2 :

  a.. Formatting quality with CSS3 
    a.. Text typography more similar to paper quality
  a.. Any glyphs on the planet (Unicode support) 
    a.. Any Unicode scripture : not only latin characters (we do have French books with greek, chinese, etc glyphs)
  a.. Better user experience 
    a.. Popup footnotes (no loss of the reading context)
  a.. Better structural semantics 
    a.. EPUB3 has more informations on the nature of the HTML chunks 
    b.. This enables business cases for chapter selling (Sigil has a menu entry for that)
  a.. Accessibility is EPUB3  
    a.. DAISY Consortium has developed EPUB3 with IDPF for accessibility 
    b.. DAISY tool Ace work only on EPUB3 
    c.. I am surprised that there is no legal obligation in US, in Europe the European Accessibility Act will be adopted this year and include e-books
  a.. Complete acceptance from all retailers 
    a.. Yes we checked it in 2015 !
  a.. Open source DRM LCP 
    a.. LCP will be available only on EPUB3
  a.. Open source reading system eco-system  
    a.. Readium 2 is an open source SDK that works on EPUB3
  a.. It is affordable 
    a.. Starting from their existing workflows, Hachette Livre suppliers have switched in 2016 to EPUB3 at NO COST
  a.. EPUB2 production forbidden 
    a.. For all Hachette Livre group imprints, we do not accept any EPUB2 files any more since April 2018
 

As for costs :

  a.. Open source is cost saving in the eco-system 
  b.. We had no increase in cost production from our suppliers 
    a.. It took me sometime to write and test the new specifications
  a.. Accessibility is a market opportunity  
    a.. Visually impaired people are willing to benefit from the end of the book famine.
 

Hope this helps,

Luc

 

Luc Audrain

Head of Digitalization

Hachette Livre

Mobile : +33 (0) 6 48 38 21 41

 

 

De : "McCloy-Kelley, Liisa" <lmccloy-kelley@penguinrandomhouse.com>
Date : mercredi 23 mai 2018 à 13:32
À : W3C Publishing Business Group <public-publishingbg@w3.org>
Objet : EPUB 3 Justification
Renvoyer - De : <public-publishingbg@w3.org>
Renvoyer - Date : mercredi 23 mai 2018 à 13:33

 

Hello colleagues-

 

I need your help with something. I have an imprint with client publisher who is still producing EPUB 2. We have been working with all of our clients to get to 100% EPUB 3x for newly produced ebooks. But this particular imprint doesn’t see any value in changing their workflow to do something different than what they are currently doing. 

 

  a.. <!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]-->We note that their ability to control navigation would be better.
    a.. <!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]-->They say that their books are relatively simple and retailers are interpreting the ncx fine
  a.. <!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]--> We note that they would have more robust formatting options. 
    a.. <!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]-->Again, the content is simple and what they have is fine
  a.. <!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]-->We note that this is where the marketplace is going. 
    a.. <!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]-->They want to know if any retailers have given a date when they will stop accepting EPUB2
  a.. <!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]-->We point out that it would make their books accessible. 
    a.. <!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]-->They say that no one is requiring this and it isn’t a legal obligation in the US
 

These rebuttals are pretty legitimate. This all goes to the PR campaign for supporting and getting wide adoption for EPUB 3x that we were discussing a month or so back. 

 

What other arguments are there? How do we convince people to adopt the latest generation of ebook formatting so that we can all move beyond the limitations of EPUB 2?

 

Thanks for any advice you can offer. 

 

Best, 

 

 

Liisa McCloy-Kelley

VP, Director Ebook Product Development & Innovation, PRH

lmccloy-kelley@penguinrandomhouse.com