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Rosemary Shipton

Real E-Books

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E-books are everywhere these days, but how many of them are real e-books, written specifically for that medium? Not many. Most are simply traditional print books that are available on a different platform. At best, like a DVD, they have a few bonus features tacked on at the end or, in the case of children’s books, a little added animation. Writers of fiction and non-fiction have been slow to embrace the technology available in this new medium and to incorporate it into the way they tell their stories.

For three years now, one publisher in Canada has been developing books that are written specifically as e-books and produced only in that form. It’s the Art Canada Institute (ACI), the brainchild of executive director and publisher Sara Angel, and at present it releases six biographies of Canadian artists every year. Twelve titles have been published so far, and by June 2016 there will be 18 — and so it will proceed. Each season covers a mix of artists: men and women — historical and recent — from all regions of the country, including many Aboriginal artists. The authors are art historians or art gallery curators for the most part, and the books are written and edited to appeal to general readers who enjoy visiting galleries as well as to undergraduate university students.

So how do these books differ from traditional biographies in print? To begin, they are not linear, with a beginning, middle and end. Rather, they are deconstructed into four thematic parts: Biography, Key Works, Significance and Critical Issues, and Style and Techniques. In addition, there is a Sources and Resources part (listing print materials as well as films, videos, documentaries, exhibitions and other items of interest), a Where to See part (giving full information for all the art works included in the title) and a short biography of the author.

The deconstructed approach works well for online delivery. Although every title is about 15,000 words long, each part is compact and generously broken up by many illustrations, both archival images and pictures of artworks (70 to 100 in all). With a backlit screen, the colour pictures are clear and vivid in a way not possible in print. The opening page of the ACI website presents a parade of cover images for its published and soon-to-be-published books, and once readers click on the title they want, the first page sets out not only the part titles but the menu of headings within each part. The site is easy to navigate — and readers can go in wherever they choose. Records of clicks show that the Biography and the Key Works parts are the most popular with readers.

The deconstructed approach also presents real challenges for the authors and the editors. They have to think differently from how they do when they write or edit traditional print books: they must break the life and works of the artist they are covering into these predetermined themes, but they must also exploit hyperlink technology to bring the parts back together into a whole. In Tom Thomson (coming November 2015), for instance, Thomson’s 15 years as a commercial artist are covered in the Biography, but they are explored in greater depth in Key Work 1 (an example of his graphic artwork), in Significance and Critical Issues and in Style and Techniques. All these relevant sections are cross-referenced to one another by differently coloured hyperlinks on leading words or phrases.

The ever-expanding glossary is another way the ACI books use web-based technology. As the senior editors work with the authors to develop these books, they mark the individuals and terms that should be added to the glossary. A succinct biography or definition is then prepared for all these people or words, unless they have already been covered in previous titles. As readers go through the text, they can spot these terms and can access the glossary by hovering over the highlighted words for a moment.

Amazingly, all the ACI titles are available in both English and French. Depending on whether they were written in English or in French, they are translated into the other language. Even more amazingly, they are free — fully funded by generous individuals and corporations that appreciate art and culture. Readers can also download them on their computers, iPads or smart phones. That broad accessibility means that each title is produced in six different formats — on computer, tablet and phone, each in English and French.

Given its initial success and the growing skills of its editorial and technical staff, the ACI has ambitious plans to expand beyond its biography series. Theme issues such as Inuit Art, Impressionist Art, the Group of Seven or Painters Eleven may be next, as well as online curated exhibitions. The ACI also has a special sesquicentennial celebration planned for 2017 called Canada Collects, a resource that identifies and offers in-depth discussion on the most important works of art in more than 150 Canadian collections. It regularly updates its Facebook page not only with news of its own titles and book launches but also with items of interest to culture watchers across the country. In short, the ACI is a totally contemporary and exciting publisher — and it will be fascinating to see where it takes publishing in the future.

Now, where are the other writers and publishers who will accept the challenge of developing books and series specifically for online delivery? There are many different ways to approach the new technology, and it will be interesting to see what develops. Just as early cars looked much like the horse-drawn vehicles that had preceded them, and early films were staged much like traditional theatre, so our early online books are emerging from the print books that went before. Soon, however, these e-books will take off with confidence in new ways — in directions we don’t even dream about now.

Previous post from Rosemary Shipton: Should Editors Be Able to Write?

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19 Comments on “Real E-Books”

  • Anne Brennan

    says:

    They sound like websites. Interesting idea!

    • Rosemary Shipton

      says:

      In presentation the ACI books have some resemblance to good websites, but in preparation and content they follow in the tradition of books that are made to last – to name but some characteristics, an expert advisory board of art historians and art curators, peer review of all manuscripts, extensive image research, and excellent editing at all levels – structural, stylistic, and copy, plus proofreading.

  • Funding must be a big issue for would-be publishers of online content. As readers, we expect online content to be free. The ACI model suggests that publishers should come up with ideas that donors will support. Maybe our new Liberal government will help fund projects of cultural significance like this one. I hope so!

    • Rosemary Shipton

      says:

      Time will tell, Ellie. But why should we expect online content to be free, really? If we’re prepared to pay for almost everything that is important to us so that the people who provide it will be fairly compensated, why shouldn’t we extend that same attitude to excellent and convenient online products? I’m commenting purely theoretically here – rest assured, now and in the immediate future at least, the ACI books are free.

  • Rosemary, until you showed me the potential of ebooks last June during our visit, I’d never thought of approaching them in this way — marked with hyperlinks to many other sources. I think there is a difference between ebooks accessible on a Kindle or Kobo or e-reader, and a complex ebook online, such as the ACI model. When I read a book on my Kindle, I don’t think of adding a comment or checking something underlined that is hyperlinked. I still think of it as a plain old print book that I’m turning pages in. I feel way behind, in terms of ACI’s idea.

    I have to take a long breath to keep up with you! Yet I see, Rosemary, that this type of hyperlinked, financed publishing is indeed the way of the future. It’s a marvel to me, an advocate of innovations in self-publishing and e-technology, that I continue to admire your forward-thinking ideas. Throughout your professional life, you’ve looked ahead, always questioning and sometimes challenging what the future holds for publishing. You’ve never, ever become complacent about any aspect of book publishing. You’ve embraced the change that inevitably results from innovations in technology. I applaud you for your innovative approach –something you’ve applied throughout your editor career, but especially now, in this time of huge change in the publishing industry. This type of hyperlinked publishing is indeed the way of the future. I can’t wait to be part of it.

    Ellie brings up good points too. I feel honoured to be among such forward-thinking people. As for me, I do my best to try to stay abreast of the wave of self-publishing. New models are coming up every month. One interesting new company is Pronoun, which says it will help self-publishers for free; their financial backing is deep and comes from other sources than the self-publishing author’s payment. I hope this may be a new wave of opportunities for quality self-publishing authors.
    https://pronoun.com/

    • Apologies for the typos. Wish there were an edit feature for comments here.

      • Sue Archer

        says:

        Hi Arlene, I took the liberty of editing the typos on your behalf. Blog staff do have admin access to the page, in case you ever need anything changed or removed.

    • Rosemary Shipton

      says:

      Yes, Arlene, it is an exciting new e-world out there. I hope creative fiction and nonfiction writers will embrace the potential of this new technology and see what they can do with it. In the meantime, we editors have one more area to explore as we try to keep up with developments and hone our skills to fit them.

      • And then there’s that idea for fiction that you and I were discussing, where different hyperlinks could lead to different plot developments and different ends, effectively allowing readers to choose their own ending. While that’s not a new idea, it could be enhanced with the use of hyperlinks. I’d really like to see some exploration of that idea!

  • Sue Archer

    says:

    Thanks for bringing ACI to our attention, Rosemary! I think the development of hyperlinked and multimedia content will drive significant changes in the area of structural editing. Instead of focusing on a strictly linear flow, editors will need to consider the whole spiderweb of content and how everything should be integrated together. It will be interesting to see if online developments eventually change our cultural concept of a “story.”

    • Rosemary Shipton

      says:

      You raise fascinating – and challenging – points, Sue. Teachers and professors are already reporting that many students find it difficult to handle traditional long and linear texts. So yes, I expect the “spiderweb of content” will become more common – and it will influence in turn the way people think, learn, and find entertainment. Inevitably it will affect the way we edit too …

    • Sue, I’m so glad you contributed to this conversation. The idea of changing editors’ thinking from a strictly linear narrative flow to a hyperlinked flow of ideas is exactly what Rosemary has done with ACI. I feel so much education is needed in this regard. Could a session be presented at the EAC 2016 conference in Vancouver that addresses this topic?

      • Sue Archer

        says:

        Arlene, I would love to see a session on this topic at the conference. I’m sure there must be a lot of editors out there who work primarily with online and hyperlinked content. And there’s a whole field on information architecture that might drive some insights in this area. I definitely think it’s something we should raise with the conference team.

        • Rosemary Shipton

          says:

          I agree – bringing speakers together from a variety of streams would lead to a most stimulating conference session.

          • Frances Peck

            says:

            Conference suggestion noted and forwarded to organizers. Thank you for a thought-provoking article, Rosemary, and for stirring up such interesting discussion.

  • Again, sorry for the typo.

  • This is quite the interesting topic! I’ve been hearing a lot about e-books, but have never heard anything like what you’ve discussed. What’s clear is that editors, publishers, and writers will have to adjust their editorial practices in keeping with the upcoming new technologies. How exactly will professionals do that? Will they succeed? We’ll see.

    • Rosemary Shipton

      says:

      I think we must keep current with developments, Dwain. Anyhow, it’s exciting to expand our horizons and learn new skills. No one wants to keep doing the same old things over and over … Right?

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