Unbound: The eReading Blog

[#1]

As an editor working in digital publishing, I’ve seen a lot of words cross my computer screen. I read eBooks all day for work, but I’m also an avid digital reader in my personal life; my virtual library consists of thousands of titles. But there are two types of books that I still don’t buy digitally: cookbooks and children’s books.

I’m an enthusiastic collector of cookbooks; half of a bookcase in my kitchen is dedicated to various titles I’ve acquired over the years—like one of my old favorites, Betty Crocker Cookbook, and one of my new favorites, The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl. I also have a five-year-old daughter who has inherited her mother’s passion for books of all shapes and sizes. Being a kid in the digital age, she’s also got an insatiable curiosity about my iPhone. But neither my love of cookbooks nor my daughter’s love of kids’ books has translated fully to digital yet.

I think one obvious reasons for this is pictures. My daughter loves lots of pictures in her books, and I love them in my cookbooks. Nothing makes me choose a recipe faster than a scrumptious-looking photo. So—although I'm already hopelessly devoted to eBooks—today I’m dreaming of what the future might hold for eCookbooks and kids' eBooks. What changes and features are possible for eBooks that would make them even more appealing to the average child or the at-home chef?

Some cookbooks are already making digital headway. Major titles like Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express and Cook Yourself Thin are already available as eBooks (see bn.com's entire spread of eCookbooks here). It's wonderfully convenient to be able to follow recipes on my laptop instead of peeling sticky pages apart. But I’d love to see the digital cookbooks and children’s books of tomorrow offer the same detailed, beautiful, intricate pictures as their print counterparts do today. Who knows: someday, digital books might offer the ability to include even more pictures than print ever could. Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a cookbook that has pictures of every step of the process, from start to finish? What if your eCookbook even included a video on how to  carry out a complicated technique? Maybe it could recommend wines to pair with your meal, suggest meal plans, or link to online stores that sell unique and hard-to-find ingredients.

And what if my daughter’s eBook had embedded audio, so she could hear clips of the characters’ dialogue, the song the character is singing, or the rhythm of a rhyme? How about a video that demonstrates how to play the same game the characters are playing?

The possibilities seem endless; that's the magic of eBooks. I admit there are times when I just want my book to be a book, with no extra features. But I do hope that someday, eBooks will offer more than I can even imagine. Who knows, maybe they’ll even figure out a way to include the delicious aromas of the recipes in my digital cookbooks. Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?

How about you? Dream big with me and tell me what outrageous (or not so outrageous) features you’d love to see in your eBook of the future.

Angela James is a freelance editor who has worked in digital publishing for six years.

[#2]

Have you seen those computerized refrigerators. They take stock of the contents. You use the touch pad list a couple of things for a recipe. Fridge connects to your computer goes through all the recipes you have within. List the choices you have from the selections you made. You chose which one and then it lists what you need to get, and sends a print out of a shopping list, ingrediant list, and the recipe to your printer. Now that's neato!

[#3]

As photographer and crafter I NEED color; I need photographs and graphics and videos. As reader I need background material, since I belong to several book groups and often do research on what we read. What I envision for the future of eBooks is color eInk and an integrated LCD screen which allows me to click on an image to explore, just as it would allow me to click on a name and search for articles, bios, etc.

Kindle has an experimental browser, though slow and cumbersome, nook will not have one, but will have an LCD screen. My laptops and desktop hold gutenberg project books and google books and other free books. What I wish for is a totally open platform (nearly impossible while authors, editors, publishers hold on to tried and proven business concepts) that would let me organize all my eBooks on virtual book shelves within one reader, let me read in different languages, translate, and make suggestions for more.

For instance, I would like to travel to Prague, see a dead tree book about Franz Kafka while I sit in a café. The book is in Czech and shows a self-guided tour of his hangouts. The book mentions homes and stores and coffee shops, books he read, music he liked, even his favorite dish (if he had one?) and the history of Prague as it relates to him. I sip the last of my latté, open my "Dreamcatcher" (had to name it) point it at the title of the Czech F.K. book. Once the signal registers, the book shows up on my LCD screen. I pick the language I want and open the book. Begin to read. When I click on the first landmark, a GPS system tells me where the house is located and I begin to walk. Since I have a hard time walking and reading I flick a switch and listen to the audio, occasionally looking at the map. Once at the house I continue to read, mark several places I want to take a second look at later, and I go from room to room enjoying the decor. In the evening, at the hotel, I take a quick look at my notes. One of them is about a painting I had seen. I plug its title into the browser and learn more about it. Then I get sleepy, read something easy, something unrelated to my trip, (strictly black and white and unenhanced) but before I fall asleep I think about Kafka's love of a certain meat dish. I search for it, see if it works with my low cholesterol and low sodium diet (probably not) check the ingredients, watch a video about its preparation, and find a restaurant in Prague that shows me a menu of "Kafkaesque" meals. I make a lunch reservation for the next day. When I wake up in the morning I rush out and forget my Dreamcatcher at the hotel. Oh well, some days you just got to live without dream catching. I enjoy the sunshine, find the restaurant by asking clumsy questions, love the dessert more than the "Kafkaesque" sausage, though it is stuffed with more calories than I should have for the rest of the day. I write a real note in my dead tree journal about this and smile. Prague is Prague with or without Dreamcatcher. Kafka lives!

[#4]

I'd like to see color and more pictures. I know it's not much, but that's what I'd be happy with.

[#5]

My eBook wish list includes a screen (or screens) large enough to accomodate multiple media formats, a device size small enough to be tucked into a purse or satchel, and ultimately, participation in a personal area network of cooperating devices for additional storage, local service connectivity, data feeds, etc.

Basically, by making the ebook into a cooperative display device, the ebook can be reduced in complexity to a roll-up screen, a battery, some storage, a bluetooth transceiver, and enough of a computer to tie it together.  Of course, the cooperating devices in the personal area network will need to be designed to work together, and the service providers will need to think about the bigger picture.

I can see my personal area network including:

A phone for local WAN network service (need unlocked tethering and an unlimited data plan) to online storage, provides bluetooth or better wireless connectivity for other devices.

A headset for music, telephone interaction, handsfree navigation, search, etc.

A roll-up (color) epaper device that has my morning news, books I'm currently reading, important messages, and my calendar within easy reach.

A still/video camera.

If the epaper screen has slow response, then I want another screen for quick browsing.  Maybe netbook sized, maybe phone sized, though I think I'll want the biggest possible screen I can easily tote around (for now a phone).  From the browser on the phone or netbook, sending an article or recently bought book to the epaper screen should be a gesture or other single action.  It just works.

I also need something with a bunch of local high-speed storage.  With 16GB micro sdhc, that's pretty close to enough space and can fit in just about anything.

Back to the ebook-specific features:

I want one library (in the cloud) where my annotations and notes and current location in recently read books are automatically saved.  I don't want to care about which device I'm using to read right now.  If I bought it, I can continue reading it by authenticating into my library from an ebook reader, from a phone, from an internet cafe in India and opening up the book.  Once this happens (the content is tied to me, but not to a device), I would probably stop caring about DRM.

Color, yeah.

Open, yeah.  Not being able to use wi-fi for general network access is dumb.

[#6]

Why not just put the actual print on the eInk screen, and put a smaller, modified version of the picture in he color screen below?  I can't see why not.  Obviously, the picture would be smaller, but the nook would appeal to a lot more people if you could see pictures on it.

I would also like to see Cook's Illustrated in the magazine selection.  It's compatible since every thing is black and white, and if you can do a newspaper, you can do Cook's Illustrated.

[#7]

My dream E-Reader would be waterproof!! I would love to bring my Nook to the beach and not be worried about damage...read on the boat....or better yet in the bathtub!!!  Oh to dream.....

B&N - Can you design a waterproof cover or holder for Nook in the meantime????

[#8]

Unfortunately, digital posts are still not going to correct issues with spelling and grammar.  When I read this there were two glaring errors:

What if your eCookbook even included a video on how to do carry out a complicated technique?

and

the song the character is signing,

One hopes that in the future, someone is going to be proofing the reviews more closely and using grammar check to make sure they make sense.

[#9]

As a grandparent living some distance from a my Granddaughter I'd love the option to gift a version of a child's book with my recorded reading of it. It would be especially nice to "tag" the illustration with additional comments.

[#10]

Personally, I would love it if the digital copy of the book you purchase came with a "text to speech" option.  Many times, I have to put a fantastic book down to do something mundane( like cooking, cleaning, gardening etc.). Wouldn't it be wonderful to just plug it into a speaker or headphones and be able to continue your book, uninterupted?  I LOVE reading, certainly more than books on CD, but I'd love to have the option of audio for times when my eyes aren't doing well or my hands are otherwise engaged.

I thought the previous poster's idea of a waterproof case is wonderful as well!  I live on the beach and in Florida.  When I'm not at the beach, I'm in the pool.  Imagine being able to sit in a hot tub reading and not having to worry about accidentally dropping te book.

This is more of a marketing idea. As silly as this sounds, I love the feel of a "real" book. I would like to have both...at least of my favorite books.  Maybe there could be an option to have the other version for a discounted price (thereby selling two copies of one book).  For example, purchasing the standard version of Pride and Prejudice with a $5 off coupon for the digital copy.  Or Vice-Versa.