Developing InterActive Books
InterActivityBy Marie D'Amico
Using Pre-Made Content Saves Time and Money
It's the mantra of the digital-obsessed, turn-on, log-in, never-logout '90s - content is king. If you're a developer, you can spend years burning through animators, programmers, marketeers, and venture capital cash sustained solely by the digital dream of developing, out of the more than 15K worldwide CD-ROM titles, a top 10 hip-content-filled hit like Myst . You'll then not only rake in the rubles but your picture will be taken by star-photographer Richard Avedon for a yuppie Gap ad. You can, however, ameliorate the agony of title development by joining forces with a content-provider who is salivating to get a piece of the zero billion dollar industry, growing 300% annually, we call "multimedia". You can choose a content-provider from the film, music, radio, or television industries. Or, you can align yourself with those who have withstood market onslaughts from others and diagnoses of doom for 50 years - book publishers.
Book publishers are trolling to translate their analog print content into digital, primarily in the form of CD-ROMs. Their reasons are compelling - even though televisions and VCRs have invaded 82.5% of all American homes and the average consumer spends 15 times as many hours watching TV as reading books, the industry of books is burgeoning. Between '88 and '93, book sales grew at a compounded annual rate of 7%; most analysts expect this mutual fund-beating growth to continue for the next five years. Americans spent about $25 billion dollars on books in '93, compared to a piddling $1 billion dollars on CD-Roms. In the '80s, national bookstores consolidated into a few colossal chains such as Barnes & Noble, Crown Books, and Waldenbooks. These book "superstores" have escalated the production of book titles in response to consumers' demand for variety. The market keeps expanding; major retailers such as Price Club/Costco and Toys 'R Us are bounding into the book business. In addition, as a book backlash to the superstores, independent bookstores, which both support small niches and Starbucks, have sprouted all over the U.S. and are becoming both popular and profitable.
The Delightful Facets of Print Content
In addition to a thriving market, the book publishing industry possesses many other qualities which should earn it the moniker "Title Developer's Delight." Content sells stupendously. Robert James Waller's The Bridges of Madison County has sold over five million copies and remains, after three years, on most lists of top 10 selling hardcover fiction. Most books on The New York Times Book Review's top 10 list of best-sellers, both fiction and nonfiction, have sold in this stratosphere. In contrast, a boffo CD-ROM title sells in the low hundreds of thousands. A CD-ROM based upon and packaged with such print content should make you hum a happy tune even if you're a normally dour developer. Content is cheap to make. It costs about $100K to publish a book, a CD-ROM based upon such pre-existing content could cut development costs by an exponent. Since content is cheap, book publishers bring out about 50K titles annually; a book publisher needs only a few Michael Crichton, John Grisham, or Stephen King best-sellers to recoup his costs. Most publishers, therefore, have a huge backlist of content available for translation to other mediums. For example, Winston Groom's novel Forrest Gump sold only about 10K copies when it was published in '86, but after the eponymous movie swept the nation and the Oscars, it sold over 1.5M copies. This backlist mÈlange should tickle you pink even if you're an extraordinarily eccentric or eclectic developer. Content is cheap to market. Book marketing budgets are small in comparison to software because book publishers rely principally upon word-of-mouth and revered reviews in publications such as The Los Angeles Times , The New York Times , and Publishers Weekly . Content has stable distribution channels. Most books are sold through national booksellers, warehouse chains, or specialty stores which have generally accepted prices and fixed terms of sales. Any CD-ROM sold through such stores or packaged with pre-existing print content can take advantage of the book publishers' relationships with their retail channels. More importantly, selling in bookstores sidesteps the competition for limited shelf space in computer specialty stores, where 40% of all consumers currently purchase their CD-ROMs. In addition, national booksellers have long supported a staggering number of skus in a small space and whether it be books or CD-ROMs, shelf space is the name of the game.
Uncle Print Needs You
If this long list of reasons isn't enough to persuade you, as a developer, to investigate interactive books for your next title, think about this. Book publishers are inexperienced in creating multimedia titles; generally, they do not have development capabilities in-house and are currently contracting for print-related digital titles. In other words, they need you. Some electronic book development contracts are on a work made for hire basis; i.e. , book publishers will pay a pretty penny, as a fixed development fee, to a title producer for an electronic book. Other interactive book development agreements are on a royalty-basis, i.e. , book publishers will pay a title producer his development costs plus a royalty based upon the net revenues or sales of the interactive title. Since book publishers furnish the content, a developer can concentrate on the non-content, or programming and user interface aspects, of the products. Those programming aspects will need to be multi-platform. According to 1994 Simba Information, Inc., Windows compatible machines have only 62% of the multimedia personal computer (PC) market, defined as CD-ROM and audio-equipped PCs, and Macintosh machines have 33%; therefore, most book publishers want their interactive titles to be compatible with both platforms.
Which Content Should You Use?
We've now persuaded you print content is the key to your financial future, fame, and personal happiness. The next question is, what category of content? The three biggest potentially revenue-raising electronic book markets are the textbook and professional book market, the reference book market, and the children's book market. These markets are not only best-sellers but appear to be well-suited to the multimedia medium of integrating of text with graphics, photographs or video, and sound. The textbook/professional book market grosses a gargantuan $9 billion dollars annually. The best part? Almost no one has electronically addressed this market, so feel free to bungee-jump in. Simon & Schuster appears to be eyeing this market; in February '95 they announced their acquisition, for an undisclosed amount, of Education Management Group (EMG), which had ’94 revenues of $35 million dollars. EMG delivers custom-ordered CD-ROMs, among other technology, to about 3500 schools in 38 states.
Coming in the No. 2 content class, the children's book market nets a very-adult-like $2 billion dollars a year annually. Everyone is attempting to address this market since Broderbund Software, Inc., with their Living Books series, has shown the way to making aesthetic and absorbing multimedia versions of best-selling children's classics. Finally, the reference book market, for dictionaries and encyclopedias, garners a whopping $700 million dollars annually. CD-ROM versions of these books, usually accompanied by a print version, have successfully stormed the market; sales of such book/CD-ROM combos are now exceeding those of solely printed renditions. For example, Random House's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary on CD-ROM , which provides over 2000 line-art illustrations and over 100K spoken pronunciations, is a sizable seller, as is Microsoft's Encarta , the CD-ROM version of the popular Funk & Wagnalls’ New Encyclopedia , which is on most top 10 lists of educational CD-ROMs and has sold about 400K units. Dorling Kindersley Multimedia developed a handsome CD-ROM version of David Macaulay’s '88 best-seller, The Way Things Work , a Houghton-Mifflin property, and took advantage of Houghton's established book channels to sell the title.
Who Should You Call?
With whom might you want to work? The power in the book publishing industry, like any mature market, is wielded by only a few players. In the ’80s, many of these players went on an acquisition rampage and gobbled up smaller publishing houses so even if you're dealing with a small guy, remember he answers to a big guy. Sidebar A lists the major players and their contact information. You should pick a player based upon which market you are attempting to address. For example, Simon & Schuster owns both Prentice Hall and Macmillan Press, major publishers of college titles, tutorials, and professional reference books. If that's your favorite field, give them a call. Houghton Mifflin is one of the last independent publishers in the world, so if you like independence, ring them up. To give you a feel for developing products in this field, we'll examine some publishers and their modern moves into this market.
HarperCollins have produced a small number of CD-ROM titles, based upon their existing print content, using outside multimedia development companies on both a work made for hire and a royalty basis. Even though they are new kids on the electronic block, they appear to understand the capabilities and limitations of the medium. One of their first titles, The American Sign Language (ASL) Dictionary on CD-ROM , based upon the best-selling book by Martin Sternberg, uses the visual, digital medium to overcome the limitations of print. It provides video clips of over 2,000 ASL vocabulary words accompanied by a digitized voice so hearing users can receive additional instruction. As with most CD-ROM based-books, it is sold both with printed content and alone. Nancy Dickenson, the Vice-President and Director of Harper-Collins Interactive responsible for the development of this title, said the ASL content was chosen for CD-ROM because "it was a best-selling book that should have never been a book. It [ASL] is a visual language and belongs on a visual medium. . . .We gave the user more than just a dictionary, we helped them understand the culture of the deaf by adding additional materials such as conversational styles, etiquette, ASL slang, and five foreign language lexicons."
Another HarperCollins Interactive title is a CD-ROM version of the phenomenally best-selling self-help book by John Gray, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, developed by the San Francisco-based multimedia company, Medior. Mr. Gray became renowned on the seminar tour for his lectures; HarperCollins swooped down and shaped him into a successful author. The CD-ROM contains a video seminar of a fictional couple, and comes equipped with a paperback version of the book, which has yet to be otherwise commercially released. Ms. Dickenson stated she chose this title because many self-help and business lecturers-turned-authors are more comfortable and charismatic when the user experiences them in a workshop, seminar, or lecture. She stated her idea was to try and find a medium that would allow HarperCollins to publish these authors in the format in which they were originally successful, instead of forcing them into a written one, and CD-ROM is that medium. So, if you've got some cool ideas about designing user interfaces for self-help books, dial HarperCollins.
Simon & Schuster took their best-selling, but relatively dry, Star Trek books, The Star Trek Encyclopedia and The Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future , and, with the help of some development tools, most notably Apple Computer, Inc.'s QuickTime VR , turned them into the CD-ROM Star Trek: The Next Generation Interactive Technical Manual , which sold 250K copies in just one quarter. Simon soon will release The Star Trek Interactive Encyclopedia , a CD-ROM of Star Trek trivia based upon the same materials. These Star Trek titles are well-suited to the medium of CD-ROM. The pre-existing print content was supplemented by a plethora of photographs, sound effects, and video and audio clips available from the Paramount Studios' television series because Paramount and Simon are both owned by Viacom. In addition, the titles are narrated by an actor from the series, William Frakes who played Commander William T. Riker, and the computer voice in the Interactive Encyclopedia is provided by Majel Barrett, who played various characters in the different television series and is the widow of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek . Voice recognition technology was licensed from Dragon Systems and the Interactive Encyclopedia CD-ROM will contain nearly 10K commands such as "Computer, go to the transporter room." The result: both products are not just reference guides but completely immersive experiences. If you're a big fan of Apple's QuickTime VR, you might want to talk with Simon & Schuster.
Making Electronic Books Isn't Kid Stuff
One of the most popular areas for electronic books is children's stories. One of the most successful children's classics makers is Living Books, a joint venture between Broderbund and Random House. Random House is wisely investing in this market; children's interactive software, an element of the home educational market, is like oil in the '70s, everyone wants it and they're willing to pay and wait in line for it. According to the Software Publishing Association (SPA), home education software sales grossed $89.7 million dollars in the first quarter of '94, whereas entertainment software sales lagged at $81.3 million dollars. The education segment grew an astounding 128% between '94 and '93. Living Books generally develops their titles in-house although they do contract some aspects of the titles, e.g. , animation, to outside developers. Don't be fooled; developing children's interactive books isn't kid stuff.
Most current children's electronic books have the same Living Books-derived-format: the text from the book is accompanied by a dramatic reading in a read-to-me mode, each page has "hot spots" or clickable animations and sound effects, the text is multi-lingual, the child can read himself in a let-me-read-mode, and the CD-ROM comes packaged with the printed content. Just combining a children's book with these aspects won't necessarily provide you with a interesting interactive experience. Many parents and teachers have stated if the title is "too interactive," the child spends his time clicking on cookies and not reading. In other words, don't get carried away with "clickables." In addition, many titles are slow, especially in turning the pages. You should strive to make your children's title compatible with lower-end machines, i.e. , reasonable performance on a machine with 4 MB RAM, since these are the home PCs for many families. Bandai, the company best-known for invading the U.S. with The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, will introduce, in late '95, the Pippin, a low-end, PowerPC-based Macintosh clone for $500, and this might be a good platform to target for your potential children's electronic book.
In general, developing electronic books requires a knowledge of Apple's QuickTime, Macromedia's Director and SoundEdit Pro, and Adobe's products, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Premiere, because these products are what most current titles are using. Your programming and user interface challenge is to use the CD-ROM medium to either relate the story in a novel manner or illuminate it in a captivating way. For example, Houghton-Mifflin's bird CD-ROM added bird vocalizations and Quick-Time videos on migration, nesting, and anatomy. Dorling Kindersley's The Way Things Work CD-ROM has "movies" for children too young to read the text which will hopefully guide them to the remainder of the title.
The Old Guys on the Block
One company which has banked its future on interactive books since its formation in '84 is The Voyager Company. They publish a wide array of CD-ROMs, based principally upon non-mainstream books or music, such as their CD-ROM Ludwig von Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 . Some of their products are targeted to narrow niches; their Beatles CD-ROM, A Hard Day's Night , while lauded by MacUser magazine as the best of the top 50 CD-ROMs ever, is chock full of material only a fan of those mop tops would love. Other Voyager products, such as Amanda Stories , a CD-ROM based upon children's books, are middle-of-the road titles designed to appeal to an average audience. They should, however, get kudos for developing and distributing CD-ROMs which don't cater to the idea of the "dumbing down of America," while many other producers are designing Mortal Kombat sequels or imitations, Voyager's titles are as informative and beautifully filmed as anything on PBS. In '93, their titles raised revenues of $12 million, not bad for some highfalutin products.
Software
© 2006 InterActivity
