Eric Staszczak, Samantha Sunne, Rob Abel

Eric Staszczak, Samantha Sunne, Rob Abel

J4992 Capstone

Mike McKean

5/15/2013

E-Book Development

Executive Summary:

The purpose of our research project for the convergence capstone was to look into what makes an effective and compelling newsbook and create an interactive multimedia experience for readers and viewers alike.

Digital newsbooks from various print media outlets have been around and circulating for more than a decade and have helped to package reporting, features, and long form storytelling into singular media packages. The idea behind such a product was that newspapers especially have an opportunity to take in-depth special reports especially and repackage them into a format that is much more reader-friendly, more consolidated, and more permanent.

By and large, these books have been made as .pdf files for consumption on pretty much any e-reader, mobile device, or desktop computer, and they have been effective to an extent. They are able to bring in the text and images, as well as interactive graphic elements into a cohesive unit, but there is a drawback in that other media such as audio, video, or animations have to be hyperlinked and taken into proxy browser or program to run. And while it may appear to be a minor detail to some at first, it actually is a noticeable drawback. The best news experience, especially considering the reasons for the newsbook’s existence in the first place, is to take all these elements from stories that often are distributed piecemeal over a weeks or months-long time period, and collect them into one single resource.

So, using the fairly new iBooks Author software provided by Apple, we were able to put together interactive newsbooks that function as they should: they tell the story in a variety of media without ever making the consumer have to really work at it. Through our learning and familiarization with the software throughout the semester, we each made an iBook version of a serial special report called “Dividing the Waters,” published in 2003 by the Rocky Mountain News. The text, images, graphics, video, and audio from the series are all embedded within the book and can be played directly through the book without having to launch another program. The primary drawback is that iBooks can only be read on iOS devices. The ubiquity of the iPad, though, makes this a bit less of a concern, but it would be advantageous to see what other types of e-book publishing exist to circumvent the issue.

We believe the books we put together would be fit for publication on the iBooks Store and by the given media outlet at hand. Our initial hope was to have content from either the Center for Public Integrity or the Associated Press from which to put together the book, but the advances for the material were not made in time for us to work on it. But our work with “Dividing the Waters” is an example of the type of story packaging the Missourian could definitely do with things like the blight saga. Additionally, the iBook could have potential as a way to package stories for convergence reporting where text is the main element. Students could embed their multimedia elements and bring everything together into a cohesive experience. There is a load of untapped potential here for use in our newsrooms and classes and we believe editors should consider putting this budding technology to use.

Research:

Roger Fidler, with his expertise in the digital newsbook field, actually had a few published articles that we looked to for some guidance and understanding about the topic in general. He gives a broad overview of the purpose of newsbooks and how they should ideally be used in this piece from 2005 published by the Nieman Foundation at Harvard. He points out one of the crucial reasons these even exist in the first place, and also why we’re doing this project when he explains, “Few people (me included) can find the time to read these extra long stories in print on the days they are published, no matter how interesting or useful they might appear. Moreover, the newsprint used by most newspapers today does not have a long shelf life and it does not appeal to the majority of those who have gravitated to the Internet for their news and information.” And that was one of our primary reasons outlined in the executive summary as to why this project is significant.

His arguments about the lackluster web design for these stories is a bit dated, considering the successes of projects like Snowfall or this recent Washington Post newsbook (that is also in downloadable format). But it still holds true in many cases, especially with long reads and with sites and media organizations that stick to antiquated styled. The newsbook is definitely a better alternative to a long scroll of text that refuses to engage the reader or consumer.

He also emphasizes that quick turnaround is necessary to make newsbooks marketable and worthwhile products for consumers. Because they are often packaged weeks or months after the content makes its initial run, there is little incentive to revisit, even if it is in a better package. Fidler argues that the books need to be published and be available at the same time the reporting is published on the web and in print. And because technology like iBooks Author exist these days, “one experienced editor/designer could repackage a typical special report in the newsbook format in two days or less.”

One of the articles we looked at actually came from Poynter in the last few days, but gave interesting updated perspective on the use and success of newsbooks today. It discusses some of the qualms Roger raised in his article from eight years ago and indicates that there have been substantial improvements and functionality in the medium, especially when they are produced in-house. “‘We think [ebooks] are ideally suited to the rhythms of a newspaper, where we are writing the first draft of history every day,’ Vince Bzdek, deputy national political editor and lead for ebooks at The Washington Post, said in an email. ‘Ebooks are like the second draft, so [it] feels like a natural fit for us.’”

But the article also says that there is a place for newsbooks to be used as repackaging tools for stories previously reported on, or to create anthologies of reported material on a particular topic. Snowfall was repackaged as a newsbook and was successful in that it kept the outstanding interactivity of the web version, but also included bonus material not included in the original run of the story. Additionally, it mentions that when the Post produced a comprehensive newsbook titled “The Hunt for Bin Laden,” they were able to put it together in-house in the matter of a month, rather than the year or so that it would take to get it ready and published in physical book format.

It finally raises an interesting point about the competitiveness of the e-book and e-reader/tablet market we’ve seen in recent years. “There’s a lot of room for growth in the ebook market. News organizations face new competition from publishing houses, as well as independent ebook producers,” article author Taylor Miller Thomas says. Some of that growth has included published fiction and cookbook recipes in e-book form from the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

In quicker references to pricing and affordability of the newsbook platform, there is a lot to love. For instance, the New York Times store, sells the newsbooks it’s published over the past few years for either $1.99 or $2.99 per book, including Snowfall, which is the price of many of the applications that many mobile device users buy and never really touch again. They are also cheaper than the standard e-book of any genre, giving them an edge in cost-effectiveness and accessibility for users.

People at magazines and newspapers believe that publishing content through iBooks Author could be a helpful and advantageous endeavor as well. In a Macworld article that came soon after the announcement of the software launch a little over a year ago, writer Jason Snell explained how the process could help streamline publishing efficiency and cut costs for publications as a whole. “I look at iBooks Author and wonder if it might be, even now, an alternative for publications that don’t want to build an app—or feel that the app they can afford to build won’t be very good,” Snell says. “What if periodical publishers could get access to Newsstand by publishing issues using a tool more like iBooks Author, to a standardized format? What if people could buy subscriptions to magazines and newspapers in the iBookstore? Instead of building an expensive container, we could spend our money on the stuff we put inside that container.”

And while he may be referring more to subscription services and digital editions of papers and magazines, the idea holds true for newsbooks. They offer, especially through iBooks Author used in an in-house setting, a cheap, quick, impressive, and effective manner in which to enhance news publishing efforts.

Comparing iBooks Author to other Programs

iBooks Author was fairly simple to use although many of its functions were very limited. In reality it was a little more complex than a Microsoft Word or one of the later versions of Pagemaker with the capabilities that were comparable to a sample or trial version of Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop. iBooks Author is a plausible and efficient way to quickly publish longform journalism in several multimedia formats and it is a cheaper option than using Illustrator or Indesign as it is free. The learning curve is fairly short and as long as one has determined the layout and ordering of the content everything is essentially “plug and chug” as far as inserting the content is concerned.

If one wanted to use complex interactive graphics for example one couldn’t simply import the same file from another suite and expect it to function the same in iBooks Author. To use an interactive graphic in iBooks Author one would have to recreate it again in the suite by importing the layers individually and in a roundabout way organize the layers in such a way that the interactive portions were hidden over an invisible button that was placed by a text version of “click here” or something similar to replicate the experience. There also isn’t an option to use Flash GIF images in the iBooks because iPads are not compatible with Flash formats. Finally the finished product can only be used on Ipad but that could be seen as an advantage if one were looking to create exclusive content for make users or just a separate experience for the iBook and an eBook. There were no options to create any actual graphics in iBooks Author.

The simplicity of the program made iBooks Author a good medium for publishing textbooks as the widgets favor simple text, photo, video, and audio with room for a few other interactive qualities. If someone is not looking for a lot of bells and whistles then the of a website but wants something that is more interactive than a PDF file then iBooks Author is the way to go. Its relative simplicity and low costs makes it a superb alternative to Illustrator or Indesign.

iBooks Author for news books

IBooks Author would be a good tool for newsbooks because it is easy to use to to repackage and sell news in its major formats, television, radio and print. All of which can be easily uploaded and managed using iBooks Author. This can be used to show a particular stations coverage of certain historical events or it could be used to show how multiple media outlets covered an event across numerous platforms. Investigate pieces and long text stories also would work well as iBooks.

One of the greatests strengths is that the books could have several visual components that make

them more interactive than looking to an encyclopedia or newspaper archives for information on historical events or news. iBooks Author provides a way to preserve, repackage and distribute news coverage. A staff of one or two people could easily take learn to repackage news on a regular bases in the form of an iBook and release annual summaries of a stations best coverage or more in depth packages to provide content for more exclusive followers of their coverage. Both of which could provide potential revenue streams and once a station has a set of basic formats and templates that it would like to use then it will eb very easy to create a steady stream of iBooks.

Work Summary: Eric

The journey from relative ignorance to learning how to successfully put together an iBook was a fascinating one for me. From the onset, there was a factor of intimidation in having to consistently be using a program that none of us, including our mentor, had neither expertise nor real experience in. But luckily, after we had gotten the iBooks Author software installed and had our first meeting with Roger, we began to go over the layout and functions of the program from what Roger was familiar with and from various tutorials we had shared.

Roger assigned us, as a way to beef up our skills during the wait for content from CPI or AP, to design a work portfolio using the elements available in the program. So, for about a three-week period, we spent time exploring the program and testing our skills in layout, design, usability, and interactivity, culminating in portfolio iBooks of select works from our reporting/production experience. We met every Monday to go over our progress, discuss any troubleshooting that needed to be attended to, and get critiques from Roger on how we can design more evenly, streamlined, and elegantly.

In the midst of all this, my computer ended up crashing, forcing me to work on procuring a laptop that had an updated operating system to allow me to run iBooks Author and other software. This took about a week, as the one I was originally lent wasn’t new enough. At the end of the week, Amy Simons and Mike McKean were able to get me a MacBook Air from Justin Giles’ office. Not having a computer for five days set me back a bit from my pace, but I was able to catch up on work over the weekend and have my portfolio finished on time.