It’s no secret that e-books are slowly taking over the publishing industry… and for the past few weeks, we’ve touched base on the latest craze in the world of electronic books—enhanced e-books.
To recap, what in the world is an enhanced e-book?
Instead of just black and white numbers and letters printed on the page, or embedded since we’re talking electronically, enhanced e-books also include multimedia files (.PDFs, images, videos, and audio files) within the e-book itself.
With this explanation, some may still be asking what in the world an enhanced e-book is… and that’s okay; they’re not alone.
Let’s look at these three examples:
- Say that Abby the Author hand-drew art that she wants to include in her story, giving the book another form of visual appeal. She can do this now.
- Say that Rocky the Rocker wants to include some of his popular hits within the text of his autobiography for the reader, allowing his fans to actually hear the music instead of only reading the lyrics. He can do this now.
- And say that Cathy the Cook wants to include actual video footage of herself preparing meals in the kitchen inside her e-cookbook, instead of only listing the recipes for her chefs-in-training. She can do this now.
Sounds cool, right?
We think so.
But how do we get started?
So far, we’ve talked about the most basic file type for enhanced e-books, images, as well as PDF files. Today, we want to continue our conversation pertaining to the next two file types—audio and video.
Before we dive in, remember that adding audio and video to an e-book can be very tricky, and there are a few “rules” a writer should consider prior to inserting these files into his or her e-book.
First, a recap…
Rule #1 – Not all readers/devices support audio and video
Rule #2 – Not all file types will work
Now, on to the next two rules to consider before adding audio and video to an e-book:
Rule #3 – Watch the file size
The general rule of thumb is that audio and video files will greatly increase an e-book’s file size. Why is this important?
First, if all of the audio and video files combined are larger than 50MB, getting the e-book file approved by the Direct Sale Vendors (Apple iTunes Connect, Barnes & Noble’s PubIt, and Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing) will be tough. Direct Sale Vendors simply don’t allow files over a certain size on their systems.
Second, e-readers have limited space on their devices; the more books the user has saved, the more space that is taken up and no longer available on the device. If an enhanced e-book turns out to be some huge file size, users won’t be able to save as many books on their devices. And who wants to delete a book that they’ve already purchased?
Now, if the author is unable to get away from the large file size and he or she doesn’t want to compromise the quality of the enhanced e-book, then consider the next rule…
Rule #4 – There’s not just one way to embed an audio or video file
There are two different types of embedding:
Type One – True Embedding
True Embedding means that the single file produced includes the audio and video files in the actual ePub or KF8 files. In other words, the file contains everything. When the buyer buys this e-book, he or she does not have to be online, or even connected to the internet, to play the audio and video files within the enhanced e-book.
Type Two – Quasi Embedding
Quasi embedding means that an image or text is used as an anchor to show an audio or video feed. When a reader plays the audio or video it will stream directly from the internet. This type of embedding allows for the look and feel of audio and video being embedded without the actual weight of the file being included within the e-book, thus not affecting the file size.
Think about grabbing a video over on YouTube and inserting it into a blog. Within the blog’s text, there is a screen image of the video; however, when the user clicks on the screen image, the video is streamed from YouTube. Make sense?
But here’s the catch—in order to quasi embed, the user will want these audio and video files available forever. Therefore, a private server can come in quite handy… otherwise, if supported by a third-party, once the said third-party upgrades servers, crashes, or goes out of business, these files may be lost forever and will no longer be accessible—even by those who purchased the book outright months, or even years before.
Definitely some food for thought…
Come back next week when we continue our series about multimedia as a part of publishing and discuss a few pros and cons to publishing an enhanced e-book.