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blatherskiteI'm creeping painfully slowly towards finishing my book on writing for science journals, stealing time from work and family responsibilities wherever I can, and starting to build the reserve of enthusiasm I'll need to create the 3rd edition of my book Effective Onscreen Editing. To prepare myself, I've been pondering some of the problems related to this book and how I'm going to solve them. Along this intellectual journey, I've been pondering what I've begun calling "Book 2.0".
Let's start with a definition: Book 1.0 is what you can pick up in any bookstore today. It includes both paper, whether hardcover or soft, and the first generations of e-books, which are finally becoming usable but remain primitive compared to what they'll eventually become. Book 2.0 is my name for something different: a hybrid of printed material and online material, with the mixture chosen based on the communication problems the author is trying to solve and a careful consideration of which medium has or media have the strengths require to solve a given problem. In short, the goal of Book 2.0 is to combine the strengths of each medium so as to compensate for the weaknesses of the other media. To make this more concrete, here are some of the problems I'm trying to solve and my first thoughts about solutions.
Problem: "link rot". Web sites come and go, and the location of even static material changes as Web site managers revise and fine-tune the information architecture, or just get bored with the design and start over from scratch. Thus, any links hard-coded in a printed book become obsolete quickly. I've seen suggestions that more than 50% of the links in a typical journal article will be gone within 2 to 3 years. I see the same problem with maintaining external links for my own Web site.
Solution: To solve this problem, I'll continue to include Web links in the printed book and e-book, but will also make them available to readers as clickable links on a dedicated Web page for the book. (In the upcoming journals book, each chapter begins with a note that directs readers to the book's Web site.) Through a contact link at the top of the page, readers can notify me of any broken links, which I can rapidly fix (assuming the information is still out there somewhere). For the journals book, I've already moved most of the online material to a couple Web pages. You can see version 1.0 of these pages here:
Software links
Web links
Please remember that these and the linked pages are version 1.0; for example, the book's main Web page is placeholder text that needs to be updated before it goes live.
Problem: convenience of reading
Solution: Printed books are still more usable than e-books, and will be for some time. Paper is a medium that has evolved for more than 2000 years, and although there are still some tweaks that could be made, it's a largely mature technology that functions brilliantly. I'll also provide an EPUB or PDF versions of my books (see my previous blog post about the relative merits of the two formats for details), since many readers prefer reading on their tablet or phone. But I don't think I'll ever completely abandon the printed form. (Among other things, a bound book is an artefact in a way that an e-book will never be; it provides a tangible legacy of the author's thoughts.) Where Book 2.0 comes in is stripping out the parts of the information that work less well in print and e-book and moving them where they work well. For example, in my book on editing, all of the software instructions could be moved onto the Web, since readers can display them in a window beside Microsoft Word as they work. This is far more efficient and effective than trying to pin down an opened 500-page book with your elbow and moving your eyes back and forth between the book and the screen while trying to wrangle Word.
Problem: high cost of both color and black and white graphics
Solution: Color is prohibitively expensive to print for most self-published authors, but costs nothing to publish online, other than download costs. Similarly, including any significant quantity of graphics (even black and white ones) in a printed book greatly increases the length, and thus increases the printing cost. Again, publishing these graphics online is essentially free. So one of my strategies will be to move most or all of the graphics online. An initial criterion is that anything you might want to read while using software belongs online so you can display it beside the software. Web links also meet this criterion: they're useless while you're reading a printed book, but very useful while you're sitting in front of your computer with a Web browser open.
Footnote: Books have the unassailable advantage of being readable without an Internet connection or access to electrcity. For the forseeable future, a lack of convenient net access or an inability to recharge a tablet or phone will exist in at least some situations. So there's nothing to be gained from moving the entire book online. Not yet, anyway. Maybe when everyone has free 24/7 satellite Internet connections everywhere from downtown New York to Denali National Park.
Problem: never-ending changes in software
Solution: In my editing book, the biggest problem I face is how the software differs between Mac and Windows versions, and how both versions change with each new release. A swag (scientific wild-ass guess) suggests my editing book is up to 20% longer (thus, 20% more expensive) than it needs to be purely to account for these differences. More seriously, this makes the instructions in the book obsolete within months of releasing the book. The editing principles and strategies remain valid, and will change little from edition to edition, so they can remain in the printed and e-book versions of the book for years. But instructional graphics, screen captures, movies, audio narrations, and other media belong on the Web. This will let me update this part of the book however often I want to account for changes in the software without obsoleting the printed and e-book versions. So my preliminary plan is to set up separate Mac and Windows sections of my site, and separate subsections for each version of the software. As the software evolves, I can simply add a new set of graphics and other media to the Web site.
Footnote: I've thought of password-protecting these pages, and may still do so, but I'm currently thinking that I won't do this. The information will be useful without the book, but so much more useful with the book that I'm hoping readers will be willing to buy the book to get the full benefit. So I'll consider this a form of free advertising.
Problem: text-only descriptions of procedures are ineffective
Solution: Apart from the problem of having to look back and forth between a printed book and the software, users of textual procedure descriptions face the problem of having to translate between abstract words and the literal images they see on the screen. This is at best inefficient, and for some readers, it seems to actually prevent comprehension. It's far more effective to create annotated graphics that resemble what the software's user will see on the screen. See my article Integrating text with graphics in procedures for some examples of the possibilities. For what it's worth, I've used this technique successfully for English and French audiences of forestry workers who had to use a complicated datalogger computer and who had no patience for conventional printed manuals.
Problem: speaking into a vacuum
Solution: Authors want to be read, but most of us also want to chat with our readers. Social media is something I'm just starting to wrap my head around, but I'm thinking of ways to create a forum for discussing specific subjects in my books. (I already use this technique for my fiction by directing readers to a blog entry for each story or novel where they can leave comments.) The main thing that's been stopping me thus far is fear of how much time this could end up consuming if a book becomes popular. As an interim step, each Web page has the Contact link prominently displayed at the top of the page. Readers can write to me with suggested additions, corrections, and other commentary, and the information that is relevant to the overall audience will get added to an errata and additions Web page. That content will eventually find its way into the next edition of the book. Time permitting, I'll start exploring this approach to find ways for more direct interaction.
As you can see, this strategy creates a physical anchor (the printed book) around which a cloud of other assistive technologies (e-book, static Web page, annotated graphics, etc.) nebulously hover. It's not a book, as such; it's Book 2.0. As I discover the problems with this approach and begin to solve them, and as new technologies emerge that improve the communication, the design will evolve into Book 2.1 et cetera. Book 3.0 will be a seamless integration of all these technologies, possibly based on Microsoft BookBrain software or Apple iMind hardware implants. We're not there yet, but it will be interesting to see it happen.
Thoughts, suggestions, and criticisms? Tell me by responding to this blog post.
Let's start with a definition: Book 1.0 is what you can pick up in any bookstore today. It includes both paper, whether hardcover or soft, and the first generations of e-books, which are finally becoming usable but remain primitive compared to what they'll eventually become. Book 2.0 is my name for something different: a hybrid of printed material and online material, with the mixture chosen based on the communication problems the author is trying to solve and a careful consideration of which medium has or media have the strengths require to solve a given problem. In short, the goal of Book 2.0 is to combine the strengths of each medium so as to compensate for the weaknesses of the other media. To make this more concrete, here are some of the problems I'm trying to solve and my first thoughts about solutions.
Problem: "link rot". Web sites come and go, and the location of even static material changes as Web site managers revise and fine-tune the information architecture, or just get bored with the design and start over from scratch. Thus, any links hard-coded in a printed book become obsolete quickly. I've seen suggestions that more than 50% of the links in a typical journal article will be gone within 2 to 3 years. I see the same problem with maintaining external links for my own Web site.
Solution: To solve this problem, I'll continue to include Web links in the printed book and e-book, but will also make them available to readers as clickable links on a dedicated Web page for the book. (In the upcoming journals book, each chapter begins with a note that directs readers to the book's Web site.) Through a contact link at the top of the page, readers can notify me of any broken links, which I can rapidly fix (assuming the information is still out there somewhere). For the journals book, I've already moved most of the online material to a couple Web pages. You can see version 1.0 of these pages here:
Software links
Web links
Please remember that these and the linked pages are version 1.0; for example, the book's main Web page is placeholder text that needs to be updated before it goes live.
Problem: convenience of reading
Solution: Printed books are still more usable than e-books, and will be for some time. Paper is a medium that has evolved for more than 2000 years, and although there are still some tweaks that could be made, it's a largely mature technology that functions brilliantly. I'll also provide an EPUB or PDF versions of my books (see my previous blog post about the relative merits of the two formats for details), since many readers prefer reading on their tablet or phone. But I don't think I'll ever completely abandon the printed form. (Among other things, a bound book is an artefact in a way that an e-book will never be; it provides a tangible legacy of the author's thoughts.) Where Book 2.0 comes in is stripping out the parts of the information that work less well in print and e-book and moving them where they work well. For example, in my book on editing, all of the software instructions could be moved onto the Web, since readers can display them in a window beside Microsoft Word as they work. This is far more efficient and effective than trying to pin down an opened 500-page book with your elbow and moving your eyes back and forth between the book and the screen while trying to wrangle Word.
Problem: high cost of both color and black and white graphics
Solution: Color is prohibitively expensive to print for most self-published authors, but costs nothing to publish online, other than download costs. Similarly, including any significant quantity of graphics (even black and white ones) in a printed book greatly increases the length, and thus increases the printing cost. Again, publishing these graphics online is essentially free. So one of my strategies will be to move most or all of the graphics online. An initial criterion is that anything you might want to read while using software belongs online so you can display it beside the software. Web links also meet this criterion: they're useless while you're reading a printed book, but very useful while you're sitting in front of your computer with a Web browser open.
Footnote: Books have the unassailable advantage of being readable without an Internet connection or access to electrcity. For the forseeable future, a lack of convenient net access or an inability to recharge a tablet or phone will exist in at least some situations. So there's nothing to be gained from moving the entire book online. Not yet, anyway. Maybe when everyone has free 24/7 satellite Internet connections everywhere from downtown New York to Denali National Park.
Problem: never-ending changes in software
Solution: In my editing book, the biggest problem I face is how the software differs between Mac and Windows versions, and how both versions change with each new release. A swag (scientific wild-ass guess) suggests my editing book is up to 20% longer (thus, 20% more expensive) than it needs to be purely to account for these differences. More seriously, this makes the instructions in the book obsolete within months of releasing the book. The editing principles and strategies remain valid, and will change little from edition to edition, so they can remain in the printed and e-book versions of the book for years. But instructional graphics, screen captures, movies, audio narrations, and other media belong on the Web. This will let me update this part of the book however often I want to account for changes in the software without obsoleting the printed and e-book versions. So my preliminary plan is to set up separate Mac and Windows sections of my site, and separate subsections for each version of the software. As the software evolves, I can simply add a new set of graphics and other media to the Web site.
Footnote: I've thought of password-protecting these pages, and may still do so, but I'm currently thinking that I won't do this. The information will be useful without the book, but so much more useful with the book that I'm hoping readers will be willing to buy the book to get the full benefit. So I'll consider this a form of free advertising.
Problem: text-only descriptions of procedures are ineffective
Solution: Apart from the problem of having to look back and forth between a printed book and the software, users of textual procedure descriptions face the problem of having to translate between abstract words and the literal images they see on the screen. This is at best inefficient, and for some readers, it seems to actually prevent comprehension. It's far more effective to create annotated graphics that resemble what the software's user will see on the screen. See my article Integrating text with graphics in procedures for some examples of the possibilities. For what it's worth, I've used this technique successfully for English and French audiences of forestry workers who had to use a complicated datalogger computer and who had no patience for conventional printed manuals.
Problem: speaking into a vacuum
Solution: Authors want to be read, but most of us also want to chat with our readers. Social media is something I'm just starting to wrap my head around, but I'm thinking of ways to create a forum for discussing specific subjects in my books. (I already use this technique for my fiction by directing readers to a blog entry for each story or novel where they can leave comments.) The main thing that's been stopping me thus far is fear of how much time this could end up consuming if a book becomes popular. As an interim step, each Web page has the Contact link prominently displayed at the top of the page. Readers can write to me with suggested additions, corrections, and other commentary, and the information that is relevant to the overall audience will get added to an errata and additions Web page. That content will eventually find its way into the next edition of the book. Time permitting, I'll start exploring this approach to find ways for more direct interaction.
As you can see, this strategy creates a physical anchor (the printed book) around which a cloud of other assistive technologies (e-book, static Web page, annotated graphics, etc.) nebulously hover. It's not a book, as such; it's Book 2.0. As I discover the problems with this approach and begin to solve them, and as new technologies emerge that improve the communication, the design will evolve into Book 2.1 et cetera. Book 3.0 will be a seamless integration of all these technologies, possibly based on Microsoft BookBrain software or Apple iMind hardware implants. We're not there yet, but it will be interesting to see it happen.
Thoughts, suggestions, and criticisms? Tell me by responding to this blog post.