We had not been very close these last many years. Recently we really only saw each other at weddings and funerals but it always felt like my aunts kept the family communication flowing, emails, letters, Christmas cards. He grew up in another city, not across the country but far enough that I only saw him in the summer and on special occasions like Christmas and Thanksgiving. As we grew older we visited each other, alone and then with girl friends and wives but as our own families grew the occasion to visit grew fewer and father apart.

The thing is no matter where you are your family is still your family, blood is blood. He, like all my cousins, was always held close to my heart.

He was many things to many people, a husband, a father, an uncle, a brilliant carpenter, but in my still vivid childhood memories he was always fishing. It was the thing we shared each time we were together. The last time I spent any serious amount of time with him was after a wedding when he invited me to “the lake” to go fishing. Instead of two kids jumping in the boat it was two 40 year olds, laughing and joking, like no time had passed, just as we had always done.

It is those summers at my grandparents cottage, at “the lake”, I will always remember when I think of him. I used to spent all my weekends at the cottage yet the week or two that he would visit, initially with his older brothers and, as we grew older, by himself, always filled me with exhilaration, exhilaration tinged with terror. Paul was the outgoing fearless compliment to my shy cautious personality.

In my mind he had no boundaries, no limits, there was nothing he was afraid to do or try. I always knew that the week or two I spent with him would cause me to push my own physical and emotional boundaries, to explore parts of the lake I had never seen, to go farther in the boat or through the forest than I thought we were allowed. Paul always assured me that everything would be fine, and it always was.

Our adventures always had something to do with fishing. Preparing to fish, trying to figure out where to fish, catching bait for the fish, or arguing about what bait would work to attract the fish today. I haven’t fished much since but every time I pick up a rod or thread a worm onto a hook brings back memories of those summers on the lake.

We spent hours catching frogs because the biggest fish liked frogs. We boated out to islands we knew were covered with frogs. We paddled the canoe deep into the deerfly infested but frog filled swamp. We dragged the canoe across cat tails, filling it with one small frog after another. The fishing inevitably becoming secondary to the adventure that resulted during the preparation.

On one trip we caught two massive bull frogs, laughing, convincing ourselves that we would use them to catch the mother of all fish, wondering how hard it would be to cast them out into the water. As we paddled back, plotting our evening expedition, we noticed one of the bull frogs sitting quite contently in the bottom of the boat with two small legs protruding from its mouth. Paul was horrified and spent 5 minutes freeing the smaller frog. A frog he would subsequently put on a hook and feed to a fish. His explanation was that you never knew if we would need that last frog to catch that last big fish.

We went on long walks through the forest behind the cottage, looking to find the deepest part of the frog swamp. A part of the swamp we could never reach in the canoe but were convinced held the mother lode of frogs and would keep us fishing for days. Fearlessly leading me over fences that defined the limit of my cautious explored, getting lost but obviously finding our way back, never actually finding the swamp but spending the day running and climbing and laughing.

We tried on several occasions to discover our own great fishing spot so we could be remembered in the lore of the lake, taking grandpa’s small outboard to parts of the lake I had never seen and was sure grandpa didn’t want us visiting. I would remind Paul of this occasionally, only to be met with a wide eye grin and polite dismissal. I look back and I am glad he never gave into my caution, I have many more tales to tell to my kids as a result.

At one spot on the lake where we were sure no one else had ever fished we hooked a massive Northern Pike. Yelling and screaming at each other, in sheer joy and more than a little panic we slowly reeled it in. As it got closer to the boat we began to realize how big it was. To our young eyes it was the biggest fish ever caught on the lake, we would be famous. As the beast approached the boat Paul reached out with the net to attempt to land it. With one shake of it’s massive head, and I am positive a smirking glare from the eye closest to the boat, the line snapped and the fish slowly swam back into the depths. I was convinced Paul was going to jump in after it as he reached desperately with the net. We fished in that same spot until after dark, and then the next two days, determined to catch the monster, but it never returned.

My grandparents anchored our adventures, feeding us, when we happened to be near the cottage, cautioning us about boat safety, watching over us as we wiled away the hours between each fishing adventure swimming, playing cards or simply sitting in the sun and talking, but it was always the fishing that connected us.

Paul was fearless and in a lot of ways taught me to be fearless as well, or at least less cautious and for that I am eternally grateful.

Goodbye Paul, when I see you again we will go fishing.

It is hard to tell if this article on ePub3 could be any more wrong

The publishing industry has a problem, and EPUB is not the solution
http://toc.oreilly.com/2013/02/the-publishing-industry-has-a-problem-and-epub-is-not-the-solution.html

The author, a smart guy I assume, seems to believe that technology and more accurately, the right technology, and even more specifically DRM free, zero cost, open source books, will solve the publishers problems when it comes to eBooks and ePublishing. This is a technology guy, assuming that technology will solve a problem that has nothing to do with lack of technology.

To prove his point he makes a couple of wilding inaccurate assumptions.

First, he spends a lot of time confusing ePub (ebook publishing standard), DRM (ebook protection technology) and eReaders (display applications for ebooks) mixing them together as if they were somehow selectable features of the same basic technology pre-requisite for the ebook market. Then he jumps wildly to the assumption that if we just used HTML5 (like the web) and made all books free (like the web) that would solve everything.

I am not sure where to start disagreeing.

OK, so let me agree about one thing, the ePub standard, in and off itself, is not a solution to anything, and is wildly deficient both in specification and in implementation. The publishers have a much bigger problem, however, than which file format to use to display ebooks. They don’t even understand how to adapt to this new ebook market.

It starts with the publishers basic approach selling books. The reality is, publishers want to preserve the existing book-to-book-buyer interaction. That model works and they are making good margin on sales. Paper based books are sold at a store front, where an actual exchange of money occurs and a consumable product is provided (book). Publishers are confused by how to make money in the ebook market as there is “nothing” being sold and they are concerned (rightly so) that the “nothing” will escape into the wild and be copied forever and they will lose future ability to monetize that “nothing”.

Which brings us to the the DRM issue, let’s put that to bed right away. DRM has nothing to do with ePub or the ePub standard. DRM is a technology layered onto the ePub after it is created. The publishers are the ones mandating the DRM restrictions on ereaders. DRM has been proven in other markets (songs, movies) to be a restraining technology not enabling. Apple turned off DRM in itunes for songs and they started selling MORE songs, not less. The publishers are at least 5 years behind the curve on this one.

As far as the ebook standard is concerned ePub3 is brutally outdated. It is incomprehensible that they wouldn’t simply mandate the use of HTML5. All that is required is come up with a simple wrapper structure for multi-file HTML5 content and allow offline viewing, problem solved (seriously it is that simple). The browser technology already exists to render HTML5 content is literally all  mobile platforms. But HTML5 is not the solution, in the same way that ePub is not the solution, it is simply a technology.

What is actually needed is to create an open eBook market place, one that authors can access and want to use, various technologies will fill the gaps and make it work.

As far as the concept of making books free is concerned this is absolute nonsense. Every author or publisher wants to get paid for their work, “the web” and HTML5 is not a solution for this. The public has been trained that they can get content for free, but we also know that same public will pay for content they feel is worthy and some things are worth paying for.

Authors need to realize that just because they spent the last year writing a book doesn’t mean anyone want to read it (or pay for it). The same authors that had rejected manuscripts sitting in their home office two years ago are now able to self-publish and become indignant when someone suggests that $14.99 might be a bit steep of a price to pay for that same rejected book.

Authors, if publishers aren’t going to do it for you then you need to earn your own pay check…you need to build audience and build demand for your writing, then you can start to make money on your work. Publishers have traditionally acted as the gate keeper for this, once you got past them you likely made money, now everyone is a (self) published author and there are no gate keepers but this doesn’t mean there is somehow a lot more pay-worthy work.

To succeed authors (and publishers) need to embrace the concept that some content can be given away for free and then they need to learn when and how to move from free to paid. Newspapers and magazines are struggling with pay-walls now, with huge backlash, and they have experience putting content on the web for years, how are print authors and publishers expected to cope, this is an environment in which they have no experience. Publishers need to treat authors like partners and not milking cows that are just there to be exploited.

Publishers need to wake up and realize that they are losing their power. The web and ereader (hardware and software) combined with easy to use and free to access self-publishing tools is making them irrelevant, the consumer will decide what is good and what isn’t, they don’t need publishers to tell them.

Authors control the written word (content) and the channel partners (Amazon, Google, Chapter etc) control the ereader (customers), what is left for the publisher?

I stumbled across this amazing version of Stairway to Heaven on Youtube last night and had to listen to it, just as I listen to any version of the song, anytime, anywhere. I would guess that anyone that went to high school in the 70′s (and early 80′s) would feel the same.

It is amazing how a few notes on a guitar can instantly throw you kicking and screaming back to a specific time in your life.

As soon as the guitar solo starts at the 3:45 mark of the song I was, once again, that shy 15 year old, reliving that awkward moment during the slow dance, that you had just spent the entire night trying to orchestrate, when the song kicks it up to a faster pace.

Do you cling to your dance partner and desperately hope they let the slow dance last longer or do you start dancing fast?

I had chills during the entire song and was standing at the end, BBQ lighter held over my head, screaming for an encore.

Classic!

The Problem – New Technology is Changing the Market

Book publishers are being pulled in all directions as they struggle to come to grips with the new reality of publishing electronic books for tablets, smart phones and ereaders.

The Current Situation - Stagnation

Publishers are, for the most part, taking a wait and see attitude. They are waiting for the market to show them where the sales will be so they can decide in which direction to move

My Recommendation – Get out ahead and lead the market

Instead of letting technology startups and self-publishers drive the market, get out ahead, drive technology adoption, try new directions, set trends, take chances, be a market maker instead of a follower. It is not always easy to adapt once the new market is set.

Consider…

• eBook sales surpassed hard cover sales in North America for the first time ever last summer (link here), so the push is to produce ebooks
• demand from the consumer for ebooks is increasing
• eBooks are currently selling for about half the price of a comparable hard cover
• profit margins are lower on ebooks than on hardcover or paperback books (link here), so there is no incentive to produce ebooks
• publishers are starting to merge to stay competitive, increasing their back catalogue of books while reducing the staff and overhead required to produce them (link here)
• by staying with print the publishers will ride their nice profit margins right down to zero revenue

Print book publishers have is easy compared to text book and children’s (illustrated) book publishers.

Even as publishers struggle to keep the price of ebooks high they are being attacked from the side by developers who want to turn children’s books into interactive apps and reduce “book” prices even further (for example an iBooks version of a children’s book will sell for $6 where the app version of the same book might sell for $2).

Illustrated book publishers are playing with two scenarios, neither of which seems very palatable…

1. Create an interactive version of the book for iPad or other tablet, spend $30K on developing the app, sell it for $1.99, spend an additional 30% on marketing ($40K total), sell 30K copies (which is considered successful in todays market), make revenues of $30K and loss money on the venture.

2. Create a flat digital copy of the book, spend $2K on creation, sell it for $5, don’t market it at all, sell 1000 copies and break even on the venture.

Publishers are doing better volume on the apps but they are still at risk to lose money. The lure, however, remains, the possibility of being successful and having a break away success, but this is a false hope.

The volumes on apps are higher because they are cheaper and more interactive. They are a better product and more compelling for parents as they offer more to the child, as long as they don’t look like games (good lord don’t make it look like a game).

This is really just economics 101…

LOWER PRICE = HIGHER VOLUME

And hopefully the volume increase is higher than the price drop so your total revenue increases, as long as your production costs stay the same, but in the case of  ebooks and apps this is not the reality.

The price of higher sales in the interactive book market is higher production costs with no guarantee that the sales will follow leading to the current situation where a very low number of books are being converted into digital form (and they are usually the guaranteed successful ones like Dr. Seuss) and a market that is crying out for more interactive books.

Enter ePub3…

The new ebook standard, which is partially supported by most ereaders (with full support promised soon), is capable of displaying interactive books (textbooks, cookbooks, children’s books etc) inside traditional ereaders without the need resort to creating an app. The only problem with ePub3 (other than partial support) is that there are few or no tools to author books (Apple has created iBooks Author, which supports a subset of ePub3 functionality for creating textbooks, but can only display inside iBooks).

Here is a ePub3 children’s book that I created that shows the power of ePub3 (demo book). Download it and open in iBooks and you will see a fully interactive children’s book, created using Skyreader’s Studio ebook authoring tool (creating ebooks at a cost least than 20% of traditional interactive apps).

If publishers want to make the ebook market successful ePub3 is where they should focus their time, effort and promotional expenses.

They should be market makers, not market followers.

My concern with this advice is that it is the same advice that has been echoed to them for years.

I believe that publishers need to make a fundamental shift in the way they do business in order to survive, it is not about small steps it is only through a drastic a right hand turn, innovation and leadership that publishers will survive the digital era.

There are two basic industry trends that need to be embraced before the publishers can move forward.

1. Electronic books are a rapidly growing market segment and people expect to pay less for e-books than paper books…

- I have had this conversation with publishers and authors alike. They are unhappy with the dropping prices of ebooks as they want to maintain their profit margins and, in the case of the authors, be paid for their effort. The problem with this stance is that people don’t believe ebooks should cost as much as they believe there is little or no cost associated with them.

- The reality is that a publisher is going to make less from the ebook on a per unit basis than from a print book, which is a dis-incentive for the publisher to make any moves. Given that manufacturing and distribution costs for a paperback book is in the $2 range the publishers will make $10 on a $25 book after they pay Amazon their 50% and deduct the book costs. On a $10 ebook they only make $7, so why move to ebooks at all?

- The incentive to action should come from the reduced demand for print books and the reduced volumes and thus reduced sales the publisher are seeing. But they are protecting their profit margins and in doing so they are slowly spiralling into lower and lower revenues. This is a death spiral.

- The way out is basic economics 101, reduced price should generate increased sales. Like any market you drive top line revenue by increasing sales even if it means reducing price to do so. People are not happy to pay $10 for an ebook, even if the paperback is $20, and with the price of apps hovering in the $2 range they questions why a book should be any different.

2. Self-Publishing is here to stay

- Every ereader vendor has a self publishing channel available to aspiring authors. The ereader vendors goal is to get as many books into the reader as possible. As an author I can try to convince a publisher to take my book to market for me, with a very high rejection rate and then a very low return (10% or 15%), or I can simply take it to market myself and keep 70%. Now…obviously marketing and promotion are my problem now, but my book will be in the market and will be selling copies. Once the book has sold a few copies it might be easier to get the attention of a publisher and get the book promoted.

- Publishers need to figure out how to work with the self-publishing market. It is not going to be as simple as tracking the best selling self-published books and approaching them, because by the time the books are successful the authors will have much less need of the publisher. It is not a matter of turning up their nose and assuming the market will go away. People want to create, people want to write books and the cost of writing and publishing an ebook, real out of pocket costs is rapidly approaching $0, so it will only get bigger.

- The solution here is for the publisher to actually use their contacts and marketing and promotion expertise to promote self published books. Provide it as a service, leverage the work that is already being done for internal books and let the self-publishers pay for it.

—

A popular saying goes that programmers are machines that turn caffeine into code.

And sure enough, ask a random programmer when they do their best work and there’s a high chance they will admit to a lot of late nights. Some earlier, some later. A popular trend is to get up at 4am and get some work done before the day’s craziness begins. Others like going to bed at 4am.

At the gist of all this is avoiding distractions. But you could just lock the door, what’s so special about the night?

I think it boils down to three things: the maker’s schedule, the sleepy brain and bright computer screens.

The maker’s schedule

Paul Graham wrote about the maker’s schedule in 2009 – basically that there are two types of schedules in this world (primarily?). The traditional manager’s schedule where your day is cut up into hours and a ten minute distraction costs you, at most, an hour’s worth of time.

On the other hand you have something PG calls the maker’s schedule – a schedule for those of us who produce stuff. Working on large abstract systems involves fitting the whole thing into your mind – somebody once likened this to constructing a house out of expensive crystal glassand as soon as someone distracts you, it all comes barreling down and shatters into a thousand pieces.

This is why programmers are so annoyed when you distract them.

Because of this huge mental investment, we simply can’t start working until we can expect a couple of hours without being distracted. It’s just not worth constructing the whole model in your head and then having it torn down half an hour later.

In fact, talking to a lot of founders you’ll find out they feel like they simply can’t get any work done during the day. The constant barrage of interruptions, important stuff to tend to and emails to answer simply don’t allow it. So they get most of their “work work” done during the night when everyone else is sleeping.

Read more: http://swizec.com/blog/why-programmers-work-at-night/swizec/3198#ixzz2I9Y5Ot2o

—

http://visual.ly/node/16746

What is the best tool for converting iBooks to/from KF8 (within the constraints of legality and without hacking DRM?)

—

I guess there are two answers to this.

1. If the ebook was purchased from Apple and is being viewed in iBooks then it is highly unlikely that you will be able to convert to KF8 without “removing” the DRM on the iBook. (we can talk DRM morality issues later)

1. If the eBook is already unlocked (no DRM) then it is likely in PDF or ePub format and you can quickly convert to KF8 using the tool provided by Amazon (Kindle Preview http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000765261)

Hope this helps

From LinkedIn eBook Discussion Group

My ebooks are available in 3 formats: ePub, mobi and PDF. But people pay their money then download many times before they find the file they’ve chosen. Then they can’t work out how to get that file to work on android, etc. Does anyone have a step-by-step process that anybody could follow. I don’t know enough myself to help them.

——

Hi Jocelyn,

I know I am weighing in here after quite a few comments but I just started following this group.

There are a couple things you should do to make it easier for your reader to get the right versions:

1. Put separate links on your web site for each eReader (as opposed to a link for each file type). Most people will not know that the MOBI version is for the Kindle and the ePub version is for Apple etc. So I would add links that are eReader specific.
- A Kindle link that points to your MOBI version
- An Apple link that points to the ePub2 version
- etc

2. You can also add Kobo, Nook, Sony and other ereader links pointing to the ePub version of the book. I would just make sure you test the ebooks in the specific ereaders before you set up the link .You can use the free software version of most ereaders on the iPad to do the testing.

3. Then add a PDF link to the PDF version of your book for those people that specifically want the PDF. They may want to read it on a laptop or on a PDF app on a tablet or in iBooks. But put it down towards the bottom of the list.

4. Add a link to “Other eReader” that points to the ePub version. But a small note that tells people to use this link for eReader that are not specifically listed on your web site.

That should solve most of your problems.

If you want to have your book sold directly by Amazon or Apple or Nook you can submit it to the self-publishing sections of those web sites. Most times it takes about a week to get a book listed for sale. They will want banking information and each site is slightly different but it is fairly painless.

Alternatively you can go to a site like Smashwords and they will submit you book to all of the book sellers (for a small percentage) and save you the hassle of interacting with all the different vendors.

Hope this helps, message me if you have any specific questions

Steve