Transcript Publishing houses

ID: Paper 18
The digital book in Italy.
Current situation. December 2005.
The publishing trade online.
Francesca Vannucchi
Introduction
• This research studies the evolution of the printed book into the
electronic book.
• The printed book and the e-book have two different processes of
production, but also two different processes of distribution,
preservation and fruition.
Book
E-book
Introduction
• The purpose of this study is to start a research about the distribution
of the e-book through the new technology of the communication
and its social perception.
• In this first step, this research has looked at the production of
the e-book on the Internet. It shows some experiments of several
publishing houses, that use the power of the Internet system to
propagate their production of the e-book.
• This study works in the context of research of Italian Institutes which
deal with cultural statistics, such as ISTAT, EUROSTAT, AIE,
Editrice Bibliografica, ANEE/Assinform, CENSIS, Demoskopea,
Doxa, Osservatorio permanente europeo sulla lettura
[Permanent European Reading Observatory] of Siena University.
Although in Italy an observatory
of statistical data on e-books do not exist.
The book and the e-book
• The format, type and use of book show various social trends and
their way of being represented. The digital book represents the
changes happening in society through new media.
• The distribution of books and e-books and their circulation in Italy
and in the European Union represent one of the important elements
of a research about European lifestyle and the transmission of
ideas.
This research started from a hypothesis that
the studies about the processes of production, distribution
and use of books allow us to reconstruct the changes of an era.
The book and the e-book
• The printed book is still an important instrument of knowledge in
society and it is variously fed by the different policies that European
countries have adopted.
• It is an example of technological use to transmit ideas,
information and knowledge over long distances.
How does the digital book fit in this context?
What is its role and its function?
E-book
The techniques change.
• Production avails itself of a methodology closely linked to the
Information and Communication Technology.
• Then distribution happens through the world wide web.
• For the preservation, besides the physical structures, such as
libraries, there are digital archives, accessible from our own
personal computer.
• Reading is carried out on-screen. Users withdraw gradually from
traditional fruition on paper and they tend to print digital products
after the process of downloading.
Multimedia publishing trade
• In the sector of multimedia publishing trade, contents are processed,
preserved, transmitted and visualized on electronic support,
characterized from the integration of the text, sound, image,
animation and video.
• They are hypertextual products, organized in a non-sequential
manner, contrary to traditional books.
• They are interactive products, whether they are used through the
web or on hardware, such as floppy-disks, CD-ROMs or DVDs.
• The use of electronic hardware is made possible from digitalisation
of contents. This process allows the making of offline and online
multimedia products.
Multimedia publishing trade
There are some differences between the offline
and online multimedia publishing trade.
• An important difference is that at the moment publishers of online
multimedia products don’t make their investment back from this
activity.
• On the contrary the offline profits feed their production economically
and instigate the growth of this industry.
• Moreover the online publishing trade is still characterized by the
hypertextuality instead of by the multimediality. The introduction of
animation, sound and video depends heavily on the technological
advances.
Multimedia publishing trade
Particularly it depends on the development of broadband,
that at the moment doesn’t allow us to transmit files that are too big.
• Thus techniques of data compression reduces the size of images,
sound, videos and animations, but it doesn’t reduce their quality.
Although, some standards of compression cause the loss of some
data during the course of decompression.
• For this reason many sounds and videos are published in
streaming. That audiovisual files are transmitted in real time via
Internet, but they don’t need to be saved on the personal computer.
• A characteristic of online multimedia publishing trade is that it is not
static. Documents published on the Internet could be replaced and
modified suddenly, leaving open the problem of authenticity.
Multimedia publishing trade
• Thus it is impossible to understand which document is the original.
All versions of a document published on the Internet could be a first
copy, also because when a document is modified the previous
version could be lost easily.
• Another characteristic of a text published online is its potential
dynamism. It can move within a fixed space, in order to emphasize
the meaning of it.
• An important characteristic of the multimedia products is the
interactivity. It breaks the flow of the narration of a hypermedial text
and allows for the personalization of the text, according to the
requirements of the user.
• In this case the notion of time is modified, compared to the notion of
time in a static text, printed on a piece of paper. And it appears
spread around the non-finite space of the web.
Multimedia publishing trade
• The thread of narration follows various directions, induced or
deduced, fixed from a subtended architecture, composed of
hypertextual links, that give the user the illusion of freedom of action.
• On the contrary this is always anticipated by the author during the
planning of the product (and this is true above all in the case of the
offline multimedia products).
• The contents published on a book are characterized by their
sequence. It means that a text has a beginning, a development and
an ending, according to a diachronic development.
• Some artifices, such as the flashback, introduce a break in the
sequence of the chronology of the story (varying in length). In this
case the narration continues in a past time, compared to the
narration in course.
Multimedia publishing trade
• Some game-books for children call to mind the articulated structure
of the web pages. A part of the development of the narration is
determined by the reader, who can choose the continuation of the
story during the reading, through various choices of ways, fixed into
the narration in position established previously by the author.
The content printed on paper is static, fixed and finished.
The content published on a web page is dynamic,
changeable and in potentially continuous evolution.
In which way do the publishing houses conform to
the changes brought about by the web?
• The use of digital technology in the publishing trade sector, with
techniques such as “print-on-demand” and products such as the ebook, has changed the process of production and distribution,
bringing about a new kind of publishing, that is offline and online
multimedia publishing.
Publishing houses
So for in 2006 there have been 4,456
publishing houses with websites.
Source: Data processing by I siti delle case editrici italiane, in Wuz, Cultura
& Spettacolo, http://www.wuz.it/Directory/tabid/81/id/8/default.aspx 26th
May 2006.
• In these last ten years the number of publishing houses with a
website has grown substantially.
In 1995 there were 14 publishing houses
with a website, in 1999 388, in 2000 475.
Source: Data processing by Il futuro dell’editoria in rete. La presenza delle
case editrici su Internet: editori vs fornitori?, edited by Giovanni Peresson Paola Mazzocchi, Ufficio Studi dell’Aie, April 2000, p. 2,
http://www.aie.it/mercati/visualizza.asp?ID=20 26th July 2001.
Publishing houses
• Inquiring into the presence of publishing houses on the Internet, it
notes that the majority of them use the web above all as an
instrument of communication, particularly as an instrument of
advertising communication.
The website becomes a virtual shop-window,
hypertextual, sometimes multimedial.
• On this subject, an example is the publishing house Adelphi
(http://www.adelphi.it). It shows the latest books, the catalogue, the
informative services (such as events, interviews, etc.). It publishes
the original sounds of works, poems and editorials by authors. It
publishes reading passages in original language as well as
translated, which are often downloadable.
Publishing houses
Other publishing houses use their website as a virtual bookshop.
• They enable the purchase through their website.
• Other publishing houses use virtual bookshops, accessible through
links provided on their web pages.
Only a small minority of publishing houses
distribute e-books through the Internet.
• In the majority of these cases they sell them. Sometimes they
distribute e-books free.
Publishing houses
• On this subject, an example is the publishing house Laterza
(http://www.laterza.it), which distributes e-books about the
technology of the web, that are free to download
(http://www.laterza.it/internet).
• The philosophy under this service, as their authors said, is that the
e-book and the printed book are not competitors: “The online
text enables direct access to the quoted resources and it can take
advantage of images, but also animation or short films. The printed
text can be read wherever, carried and underlined. But through the
online version whoever wants to value the interest and the good
quality of a text, can do so before the purchase.” (Marco Calvo,
Fabio Ciotti, Gino Roncaglia, Marco Zela, Avviso ai (ciber)lettori,
http://www.laterza.it/internet/home/index.htm 26th March 2006).
Publishing houses
• The fruition of an electronic text can be difficult, because the
mediation of the screen still represents an obstacle for the reader,
used to skimming, underlining, touching and carrying the “object”
book.
• Moreover the printing of the e-book (when it is possible) can be
more expensive and of an inferior quality.
• In spite of this, undoubtedly the benefit of the electronic text is
the speed of finding and consultation.
• In the case of Laterza, after the electronic consultation, the book can
be bought through the link to the electronic bookshop, Internet
Bookshop Italia (http://www.internetbookshop.it).
Publishing houses
• Another interesting example is the site of the publishing house
Mondadori. It also has the section about the e-book
(http://www.ebook.mondadori.com/ebook/index.jsp). The ecatalogue (http://www.ebook.mondadori.com/ebook/catalogo.jsp)
lists the publications and the latest books, subdivided in genre:
Classics and Poetry, Italian fiction, Foreign fiction, Essays,
Children’s books among others.
• In the “Free” sector it is possible to download various kinds of ebooks for free.
In this context, what are the authors doing?
• There isn’t statistical information about this subject yet. But it is
possible to observe the activities of authors who are testing the
powers of the web to distribute their own products.
Authors
• An example is the experiment of Marco Calvo, Fabio Ciotti, Gino
Roncaglia and Marco Zela, already cited
(http://www.laterza.it/internet/autori/index.htm), who offer their
publications in two formats, the e-book and the printed book.
These publications can be downloaded into HTML and Microsoft
Reader formats.
The advantage of their fruition through the web is remarkable.
Above all if we consider that some of these publications
are discontinued and for this reason not available.
• Thus the e-book doesn’t take the place of the printed book, but it
supports it in the process of transmission of knowledge. It meets
different necessities and demands, compared to the printed book,
which otherwise couldn’t be satisfied.
Authors
• Another example of an author who uses the power of the web is
Carmen Covito.
• On her website (http://www.carmencovito.com/index.html) she
publishes some already printed stories in a new version, with text
and sound. These call to mind the experiments that were carried
out in the past through the radio and also the talking books for
children on cassette or record.
• A sector of this website is dedicated to the e-book
(http://www.carmencovito.com/e-book.html), of which she explains
the process of production on the basis of her experience.
Carmen Covito personally tested the production of two e-books.
Authors
• She published two collections of stories, entitled I racconti di “Scrivi
Pompei 2003” and Racconti dal Web. For the latter there is an
English version, entitled Tales from the web. These e-books can be
downloaded in two formats, Microsoft Reader and PDF.
• The author takes the reader on her journey of discovery of the ebook and shows the reasons why she started this experience. She
shows an important difference between the printed book and the ebook, that is “self-publishing”.
Also in this case the e-book is not a competitor of the printed book,
but it can support the traditional publishing trade,
solving the difficulties of new authors in publishing
their pieces of work or, if these are printed, avoiding
the cost that the publishing trade demands for their publications.