EPUB 3: Blu-Ray for eBooks

We had another great conference in Frankfurt this month for the Frankfurt Book Fair 2011. I was thrilled to see the size of the audience for my presentation about novel uses of EPUB - and I see it as paramount that we continue to educate publishers about the EPUB standard and additional ways it can be leveraged in their workflows.

Of the first 6 visitors to our booth on Wednesday, 4 were from Latin America. In all, we received visits from Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Mexico. Clearly Latin American publishers are moving forward aggressively with digital publishing initiatives and I am excited to visit Argentina this Spring for the Buenos Aires International Book Fair.

One of the great things about these Book Fairs is the opportunity to listen to publishers.

During one such conversation, the Director of Research and Development at one of our publishing customers in France likened the changes in the EPUB 3.0 standard to what Blu-Ray has done for home movies. EPUB 3.0, in his opinion, will be used to allow publishers to embed special features into books, insight from the author, audio, and other unique items that allow users to dig even deeper into the genre in which they are reading. I believe this analogy plays very well and I'm excited to start creating EPUB 3.0 titles in the next few months.