Why iBooks for Mac Matters (Goodbye, PDF!)

We folks who create ebooks have been waiting for iBooks for Mac for a long time as a testing tool. Copying EPUB files from one device to another is a hassle and being able to see a book right where you've created it is frankly, this side of wonderful.

But of course, we #eprdctn people are not at all the point. Apple's release of iBooks for Mac in its new Mavericks operating system is a huge step for ebooks and EPUB because it makes EPUB available where people want to use it: on their desktops. The fact that this is the very same format—and the very same files—that works in their ereaders and tablets is icing on the cake.

Have you ever tried to send someone an ebook? It's not fun. Most normal people out in the world have never heard of EPUB and if you start explaining how to download a Firefox extension or make them buy a program to open it, they'll smile (if you're lucky) and go do something else.

Up until now, if you wanted someone to be able to open an ebook easily, you sent it in PDF format. And frankly, PDF is a dead end. It works ok on a computer, but it's miserable for reading on smaller devices. (No apologies to you PDF folks, sorry, and don't flame me in the comments. I don't care that on some Android devices, a PDF is slightly readable. I want an open, universal, flexible, standard format, and that's EPUB.)

What's PDF's great advantage? After years of downloading Adobe Acrobat Reader, most people have it on their computers, and when they double-click a PDF, something miraculous happens: it opens.

The last Pew Research Center poll about ebook reading (April 2012) says that more people read ebooks on their computers than on any other devices. In fact, 42% of the Americans who had read an ebook had read it on their computers, similar to the 41% who read on black and white ereaders, 29% on cell phones, and 23% on tablets. And that was 18 months ago, in the US.

In Spain in 2012, just to give one example in Europe, 55.8% of ebook readers use a computer to read their ebooks, compared with only 6.6% who use ereaders. According to the Spanish Publishers Guild only 9.7% even own an ereader. (I wished they gathered data about mobile phone reading, but they don't.)

At any rate, until Mavericks, if they were reading on a computer, they were reading in PDF. But Apple changes that. Not only has Apple released a fairly decent EPUB reader—that supports both EPUB2 and EPUB3, and both fixed and flowing formats—the most important thing is that iBooks for Mac is included in the Mavericks installation automatically.

That means people don't have to even know iBooks exists. You send them an EPUB file, they double-click it, and it opens.





Pure magic. They can read all kinds of ebooks, as large or small as they like, with JavaScript, audio, video, media overlays (read aloud), and in Asian languages with right-to-left page progression where necessary. It just works.

Now, why was that so hard?

Poll: Paper or Bits?

I've been learning a lot about publishing my own books, and am seriously considering offering print editions of my miniguides (with links to download the example files). Would you, dear reader, prefer to buy my books in print or continue to read them in EPUB and PDF editions? If you wouldn't mind, answer the poll here in the right-hand column of my blog. I'd sure appreciate it.

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The results are in! Out of the 130 people who voted, 82 said they preferred the ebook format over print. Only 18 preferred print, and 21 said they'd buy both. 9 said they had no preference.

At first glance, that might look like an overwhelming victory for electronic formats, except that the poll must be pretty skewed by the fact that I asked for responses from Twitter and my blog, where people are most likely to be comfortable reading on screen. The truth is I, like the rest of the world, sell many more books in paper than I do electronically.

I thought the fact that 1/3 of the responses preferred print, both formats, or had no preference, was even more telling, given the folks who I asked.

At any rate, I keep printing out bits of my miniguides so I can consult them faster. So, it looks like once again, I'm going to make something for the rest of you just because I want it for myself :) Printed editions of my miniguides are on the way. Details to follow!

OverDrive says Kindle will support EPUB and PDF

Yesterday, Amazon announced the new Kindle Library Lending Program. They haven't offered a lot of details, but one little tidbit written to librarians on one of OverDrive's blogs caught my eye:

Your existing collection of downloadable eBooks will be available to Kindle customers. As you add new eBooks to your collection, those titles will also be available in Kindle format for lending to Kindle and Kindle reading apps. Your library will not need to purchase any additional units to have Kindle compatibility. This will work for your existing copies and units.

Emphasis added by me. And I'll repeat it once more:

Your existing collection...

Currently, public libraries' existing collections consist overwhelmingly of EPUB and PDF files. If those existing files will now work with Kindle, with no additional purchase necessary, the only possible solution is that Kindle will support both EPUB and PDF.

And that is news indeed.