Monday, July 14, 2014

eBooks

When will ebook Versions be Available?

The short answer is not real soon.  More specifically, not until after the hardback version of the History of the Russian State has been published, probably in 2015.  There are several reasons for this:

1.  I need to get the entire work (almost 900,000 words in English) into final draft status before I get hit by a truck.  This involves, once again, tediously checking every line against the Russian original.  As of August 2013 this is about halfway done.  Getting involved in ebooks at this time would seriously delay this essential task.  Case in point: the process of publishing Boris kept me from doing any work at all on final drafts for over four months.

2. I believe the ebook is in its awkward infancy and is currently based on an unfortunate model.  To wit: during the Dark Ages the codex (bound book) was introduced and was popular enough to replace the scroll completely it is certainly more convenient.  Now, with ebooks, we seem to have re-introduced the scroll.  Although this is progress, it’s not in a forward direction.


3.  As of summer 2013, we have not found any ebook processes that will support drop caps or side bars.  These are essential features of our publications and not mere decoration