Most publishers realized the inherent benefits of getting content into XML/DocBook. Yet most authoring tools that are easy to use, are horrible at getting usable XML out of the authoring environment. I know, many purport to offer XML conversion, but it is still an arduous process to clean up those conversions, and what a waste of time and resources. The existing XML tools on the other hand, are typically for the more geeky authors who write in mark up naturally. They are not intended for significant works with lots of art, cross references, interesting layout. XMLMind, ASCIIDoc and Oxygen are the three that we recommend for creating easy to generate and use XML. There are proprietary tool chains that work for some publishers relatively well but they are not shared with the industry. There are other significant problems with XML — it’s based on the idea that content and appearance can be separated, so, as I already mentioned, it’s not particularly suited for books with significant art, or any type of book where the layout is part of the content. So I think one component of The Book of the Future needs to center on making the upfront writing and creative work easy, intuitive, and productive for authors. Better enabling our authors will benefit everyone, including the cheese sandwich makers.

Today we kind of know what formats people want to read their book in. Print, APK, DAISY, ePub, Mobi, and PDF are the most notable formats today. But what will be the most favored format three years from now? You might pick one format from the previous list, but what if some wiz-bang new device comes out and makes reading an amazing experience anywhere you are without effort, and knows when your eyes have stopped focusing so it tells you to take a break. The point is, we’ll need to be able to get our content onto devices and formats that are not yet available. So how do we get authoring tools to make it easy to get into all these different formats without a resource investment that kills a reasonable P&L? And how do you have print inventory right-sized to a changing market, yet stock is on hand? Can publishing do Just in Time much like Amazon does for retailing? The Book of the Future will need to be in all formats and all channels on its pub-date.

For many categories in publishing, the content that is published has a very short shelf-life. There is a need to keep content updated and relevant. But how do you make changes without taking back inventory or having two similar, but not exactly similar products on the market? Is the solution similar to what happens when you purchase an App in an App Store? In other words, will publishers start pushing out updates, new chapters, and errata fixes, to registered users for all their content in the future? Will there be “in-app” purchases similar to what we see in app now? In essence, if someone purchases content, should they get lifetime updates, enhancements, revisions, fixes and the like? Is this something that The Book of the Future needs to provide?

We all know about, or have seen examples of integrated media. Will combining several of the various elements become the expected minimum viable product? Will publishing be hiring more producers with TV production in their background for creating great learning experiences? Will the early rich-products look like the early web-pages with a feature-overloaded look and feel? Are we going to see Media Designers become the highly-paid and coveted jobs in publishing? Will The Book of the Future really be a media-container for more than a book?

Wow, this was a long time coming. Audience has always been a key focus of authors and publishers, but now days, we are getting closer to our beloved followers. Connecting readers to authors, and authors to readers, and readers to like minded readers, and readers to publishers, and publishers to communities is getting easier with the abundance of social media options. Will connecting social media as an in-App experience take publishing to a new level? Will making content passages easier to share help sell more books? Will publishers need to abandon DRM to make this social connections work on a large scale? Will books be judged based on how many followers, friends, posts, tweets, status updates, etc. there are related to the book? Will The Book of the Future be a social event rather than a static view of content?

We’ve all heard about how our attention is being overloaded by too many media and information options. How are we going to create learning experiences that are tailored to individual attention spans. Some people may be able to focus for 20 minutes while others may last several hours before needing a break. How do we win the the competition for our readers minds? Is the solution to create many smaller loosely joined components that work at bursty intervals? Does this let the reader learn, read, and enjoy at their pace? Will the social anthropologists, cognitive scientists, and watching the digital natives provide us with the insights to build The Book of the Future.

This has been long overdue and needs to be done soon. The simplified process for writing a book is 1) author writes, 2) publisher edits, 3) author/publisher approve changes, 4) book is printed and distributed in various channels, including digital. In the majority of cases, why are we waiting to throw the project over the fence to the international rights groups to begin translation, after the fact. In today’s world, with all the amazing technology, why do we wait for translations to happen? We have tools like Subversion, and Git that can make this straightforward, so why not write a chapter and have a translater work on a forked version. Translators would see any changes to the original and could alter their version. Will The Book of the Future be published in several languages simultaneously?

There is plenty of evidence showing that people react to Gamification principles in a compelling manner, and in some cases an addictive manner. So why is the publishing industry waiting to build this into our products? Are we waiting to make sure it ‘sticks’ before we invest resources? Some people say Gamification will be to this decade what Social was to the previous decade. Can you imagine that people will earn things for reading, learning and engaging with your content? Shouldn’t students get more immediate feedback and fun from their textbook? Would it be great to leave one device you are reading on, continue your journey, game, assignment and login to a different device and pick up where you left off (some devices have this in nascent form now)? Will Gamification be a big part of The Book of the Future for your organization?

Will your future products put your customers more in touch with you, the publisher, rather than the retailer, professor, bookstore, or some other intermediary. Will in-book purchases (like in-App purchases) put you closer to your audience? Will your direct sales of The Book of the Future make up for any declines you see in your existing channels and will you create new channels?

As the landscape in publishing changes due to technology, disruption in market distribution, and a new generation of readers, will your company undergo a change in culture, staffing and leadership? When you compare the publishing industry to others, it looks as though we have moved quite slowly. Is Google the same company it was 10 years ago? Microsoft? Yet many in publishing have done very little to innovate and ignite this industry. As an industry, need to give Amazon a boatload of credit for forcing us all to be more innovative. Does our culture of building great, noble and scholarly works need to change to a more ‘fail forward fast’ mentality where we are meeting market demands in a “just in time” manner. Much more like a software company that releases early, often and continuous. I have heard over the years, that the publishing industry is like running with the slow kid on the block, so are going keep dragging our feet, or look for talent to bring in from other industries to help us create The Book of the Future.

A natural reaction in a declining market, from most corporate entities, is to hoard their assets and keep them safely guarded with DRM and the like. This is a closed and proprietary view of doing business. There are enough case studies showing how Open Sourcing your products actually creates a larger eco-system and a more vibrant market. We need to think about the industry and not individual company success. How do you make money if you’re giving the content away? What is the cost of free? Most publishers won’t consider Open Source / Creative Commons licenses for some reason, yet those of us that do, are growing and thriving. What does open source do to the publishing ecosystem, make it larger and stronger? Margaret Atwood’s brilliant depiction of a part of the ecosystem, cautions publishing to neither accidentally or intentionally eliminate the author (part of the ecosystem). When the industry defines and deploys the The Book of the Future, we need to make sure the industry is healthy by making the ideas, technology and models Open Source in spirit. Obviously there are components that will help companies remain unique, but let’s get our industry moving in a healthy direction, together!

Creating more value than you capture is an essential ingredient for successful publishing in the future. Tim O’Reilly has instilled this sort of thinking in all of us at O’Reilly. If you use this train of thought to guide your pricing decisions, you’ll do well. There is something going on in our industry that needs to self correct. Average prices are going up, and average units sold is going down. I understand this pricing strategy helps a publisher not lose money (fewer units at a higher price can actually drive a bottom line profit). We need to think carefully about our pricing decisions when we figure how to price The Book of the Future. I wonder which rocket-scientist decided to price a digital edition so much lower the the print analog. I find the digital edition more useful, portable, and convenient. Yet somehow digital is valued less in our industry’s pricing strategy. Could it be that some large retailers have artificially set the price low and don’t care about the ecosystem so they can sell less-than-adequate devices instead of valuing the most important asset — the content. I don’t think we have to wait for a market correction, we are squarely in the middle of it now. Self-publishing, direct sales strategies, the rise of small publishers, new open devices, piracy and broken DRM are all indications that our pricing strategies as an industry are off-kilter. Create more value than you capture, think about your readers first, your ecosystem second, and your P&L third.

Under an open-ended model, notes, excerpts, links, and drafts can all be published online. Few people would care to access this content -- heck, its disorganization could make it private while in public view -- but it’s been my experience that pushing material into the public space changes it in an important way.

Public content holds the content creator accountable. This is why I dump all sorts of quotes and excerpts and half-baked ideas into my Tumblr. That’s my big bucket of slop: all the stuff that informs the posts I write and the interview questions I ask. I put it out there not because I think it has value to all (it doesn’t), but because public content makes me want to follow through.

I used to collect similar dribs and drabs in private Google documents. Despite good intentions, I never closed the loop on any of that stuff. It just sat there, locked in a doc no one will ever look at again. But publishing that same material publicly is like creating an alpha version for a future piece of content.

You’ll notice I wrote everything “can” be public. It doesn’t have to be. If there’s a competitive advantage connected to a particular insight or breakthrough, you might want to hold that back. That’s fine, but I’m of the mind that almost everything can and should be blithely tossed into the public space. After all, a stunning idea means little without great execution. (Note: Nuclear launch codes, secret herbs and spices, and private corporate data don’t apply here. Just so we’re clear.)

We’re so accustomed to sensing “the end.” We see that last paragraph or feel that last beat and we know, subconsciously, that the ride is almost over. Because of this, open-ended publishing feels weird -- perhaps even wrong. But I think we need to fight through that.

A content creator can always reach a full-stop with their work. He or she could tie up loose ends and make their creation cohesive. But even in these cases, the “never say never” adage will always apply. If a related idea pops up, what’s to stop that same person from firing up the engine again? Or, if someone else wants to run with the same ball, why not? This is already common in the film industry, where franchise “reboots” are a norm (and given what we’ve seen from Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” films and JJ Abrams’ “Star Trek,” a reboot can be a very good thing).

The big takeaway here is that if content is open ended, creators can go forward or back whenever they like. Personally, I find that liberating.

The world is filled with people brimming with ideas. The world is not filled with people who will act on those ideas. Content creators are naturally scarce because writing, filming, and editing requires effort -- often lots of effort. Some of us are blessed (or cursed) with a need to create. It’s a compulsion.

This section doesn’t apply to those people.

I don’t subscribe to the notion that all great material comes from borderline psychosis. “Writers have to write,” that’s true, but others have it in them to create interesting things as well. The key is to reduce the barriers to entry. When that happens, we’ll see two things:

YouTube is the embodiment of this. Much of that content is very, very bad. But nestled amidst the shaky home videos and cringe-inducing “comedy,” you’ll find genuine voices and genuine talent.

But YouTube is using technology to lower the barriers of content creation and distribution. What I’m proposing is a barrier-busting mindset.

The key is this: Instead of pushing the notion that all material of merit must only appear after countless revisions, we could instead just start. Just publish it. Just write it. Just put it out there. Let it become a thing instead of an idea. Since this content is open ended, you can always revise the material, or rework it, or completely alter its intent. The most important thing you can do is begin. (This is why NaNoWriMo is a fantastic project.)

I know it sounds like I’m suggesting that all content should become stream of consciousness blather. But that’s not true.

I’m an editor. I value clarity, and I know clarity is only achieved through structure and revision. (This post, for example, was reworked and then reworked again.) I also see quality as a competitive advantage. Because there’s so much bad stuff out there, committing to the good stuff sets you apart.

As such, open-ended publishing needs to mesh expectations with platforms. That’s why I dump my random gatherings on Tumblr, where the expectation -- if there is one -- is quite low. I would never post that material on Radar. But I would (and do) take the ideas and links that bubbled up in my Tumblr and use those as building blocks in Radar posts.

There’s a missing piece here, though. If Tumblr is where the ideas start and Radar is where they manifest in a better-formed way, then what do I do when a related idea or development pops up? Do I add to a pre-existing Radar post? Do I create an entirely new post? Or, do I use a separate platform for these “director’s cut” versions? I’m not sure about the execution, but abandoning a line of thought because there’s no home for it doesn’t sit well with me. A story with energy deserves to continue. And with all sorts of low-cost and easy-to-use digital platforms now at our disposal, there’s no reason it shouldn’t continue.

In a way, this is a meta post. I’m gathering the threads I’ve collected over years of working in, and thinking about, digital content. Those individual threads were already “published” in various places: Tumblr, blog posts focusing on adjacent topics, emails, tweets, etc. Now the threads have been partially bundled here on Radar (for good or bad). This story is on a continuum, and I imagine it’ll chug along in one form or another.

But is there anything to this idea? Does open-ended publishing make any practical sense? I welcome any comments, counter arguments, enhancements, or rebuttals (drop me a line at [email protected]).

Tim O’Reilly: Andrew Savikas, our VP of digital initiatives at O’Reilly, likes to make a distinction between “formats” and “forms.” A hardback, a paperback, an audiobook, and many an ebook simply represent different forms of the same work. New formats, on the other hand, represent deeper changes in how authors develop content and readers consume it. The graphic novel is a recent format innovation in the West (albeit one with deep antecedents), as are the cell phone novels that have become popular in Japan.

People think of ebooks as simply another format, but ebooks actually represent an opportunity for a change in form. For example, you used to buy a printed atlas or a printed map, but now you have a dynamic, perpetually-updated, real-time map that shows you where you are. The old paper maps aren’t very useful anymore. Applications from Yelp to Foursquare can be seen as elaborations of the potential of the map in its electronic form.

Or look at Wikipedia. As an encyclopedia, it’s actually pretty close in form to what it replaced, but there are important layers of reinvention. A printed encyclopedia doesn’t have articles on breaking news; it can’t be a real-time encyclopedia in the way that Wikipedia now is. Notions about what an encyclopedia can do have changed.

Changes in form have significantly affected O’Reilly’s publishing business by providing new kinds of competition. Our bestsellers are now tutorial books. The old reference-based books have been cannibalized by the web and search. This is why we try to define Safari Books Online as a library of content that people can search across. Reference material now carries an expectation that it will be searchable. And our tutorial books are increasingly challenged by other forms of tutorial, such as screencasts and online video.

O’Reilly may appear to be in the same category as HarperCollins -- we both put ink on paper and sell products through retailers -- but in other ways we’re not even in the same business. HarperCollins publishes literary fiction, serious non-fiction, biographies, and other popular literature. We publish technical how-to and reference material. Their competitors include other forms of entertainment and erudition; ours include other forms of teaching and reference.

Tim O’Reilly: Publishers think way too narrowly about what kind of business they are in, and as a result, are blind to how the competitive landscape is changing under their feet. If someone has roots in ink-on-paper, they are a publisher, but if they are web- or mobile-native, they are not. But this is wrong-headed! Put another way: Why would you think Zagat is a publisher but Yelp isn’t? They both perform similar jobs. Competition should be defined by the jobs publishers do for users.

That being said, curation and aggregation are among the core jobs of publishing, and it’s clear to me these jobs still need to be done. There is a real need for someone to winnow out the wheat from the chaff as more content becomes available online. (Of course, Google is also in the curation business, but they do it algorithmically.) Eventually, there will be new ways publishers get paid for doing these jobs, but there are also going to be new ways to do them.

Tim O’Reilly: I gave a Publishing Point talk and someone in the audience asked how new publishing models could pay for “all this,” and they pointed around to the lovely room and by reference, the building we were in, the headquarters of a storied publishing company. It was as if maintaining what they already own is the heart of the problem. That’s like Digital Equipment Corporation asking, back when the PC era was just beginning, “Will the personal computer pay for all of this?”

HP and IBM figured out how to make the transition to the personal computer era. Digital didn’t. Now, Microsoft is struggling with the transition from the PC era to the web era. Could you imagine somebody at a Microsoft conference asking, “But will the web pay for all of this?” You would think that was ridiculous. In technology, we understand the reality of competition and what Schumpeter called the “creative destruction” of capitalism. Why is it when somebody asks that same question in the context of publishing it’s treated as a serious query?

Tim O’Reilly: Publishers, including O’Reilly, need to ask themselves: How can we make our content better online? How can we make it better through mobile?

In non-fiction, there are simple improvements to be made in the form of links -- after all, what is a link but a better version of the footnote? There are also ways to add more content, in much the way that DVD publishers add deleted scenes, director commentary, and other extras to the original movie. Other times, “better” will be defined by making something smaller -- at least from the user’s point of view. For example, Google has more data than any print atlas, but the user sees less. Consumption is defined by the user’s particular request: show me where I am now; show what’s around me; show me how to get from where I am to somewhere else. There’s a huge opportunity for books to be reconceived as database-backed applications that show you just what you need to know. Former computer-book publisher Mitch Waite now publishes a fabulous birder’s guide for the iPhone, iBird Pro, demonstrating the power of this model.

Books give people information, entertainment, and education. If publishers focus on how those three elements can be performed better online and through mobile, innovation and business models will follow. If we don’t innovate to do those jobs better for our customers, it’s only a matter of time before someone else steps in.