Digital Publishing Association News Volume 2, Number 8 - August, 1993 Copyright (C) 1993 Ron Albright This, and all, issue of the "Digital Publishing Association News" is sponsored by the Digital Publishing Association and its member publications. "Digital News" features news, product developments, and other information of interest to authors, distributors, and readers of electronic publications. Items presented here serve to inform the public of the electronic publishing industry, that industry being the authorship and publication of reading materials in electronic format, rather than traditional, paper publishing. Back issues may be found on the Digital Publishing BBS at 205-854-1660. The"Quills" are in full swing.... I want to mention again, in case this is your first edition of the DPA newsletter, that the Second Annual "Digital Quill" Awards for excellence in electronic publishing are well underway. News of the awards competition has already made it to the NewsBytes news wire, thanks to Washington editor and DPA member John McCormick. Since NewsBytes is, undoubtedly, the most widely-read computer- specific news service in existence with millions of readers weekly, his reporting of the competition has brought a great response. Particularly, from circles that the DPA and our newsletter does not normally reach. Thanks to John for covering the event for us. The press campaign is continuing. To recap, we are accepting entries for several categories of electronic publications. They include: Regular Publication - a weekly, monthly or bi-monthly publication that has been in publication for 6 months or more. This category will include both fiction and non-fiction magazines and newsletters. Fiction Book - an original (eliminating reprints of the "classics" in digital format - who among us can hope to compete with a digital edition of Shakespeare's classics?) electronically published novel. Length: 50,000 words, minimum. Non-Fiction Book - an original non-fiction book in digital format. Length: 35,000 words minimum. Short Story - a single original story appearing either alone or as part of an anthology or magazine and published in digital format. This category shall exclude reprints of stories originally published in a paper publication. Length: 1000 words, minimum. Non-fiction article - a single originally article appearing either alone or as part of a magazine and published in digital format. This category shall exclude reprints of articles originally published in paper. Length: 1500 words, minimum. Miscellaneous Publishing - to accommodate experimental literature, this category is new to the 1993 Quill Awards. This category shall include (but not be limited to) poetry and electronic comic strips, for example. Anything that you have created that can't b pigeon- holed into the above categories can be submitted under this heading. Publishing software - a software program (Shareware or traditionally marketed) designed for publishing text and/or graphics and facilitating their distribution and viewing. Nominations will be accepted from users as well as original authors. Del Freeman, a founding member of the DPA and editor of the highly- successful "Ruby's Pearls" electronic magazine, suggested an additional category for awards. We have added the following to the awards competition: New Serial Publication - a weekly, monthly or otherwise regularly- scheduled publication that has been issued for less than 6 months but has been published at least for two issues. This category will include both fiction and non-fiction magazines and newsletters and is proposed to recognize and encourage new issues. We have also added a "Miscellaneous" category. Since electronic publishing encourages experimentation with publishing materials, there are a number of publications out there that just can't be pigeon-holed into any of the above. With this new category, we can recognize poetry, graphic collections, comics, and other publications outside the previous "standard" categories. This brings the number of categories open for submission to eight. We need offers from within the DPA membership and beyond (non-DPA members with the appropriate qualifications will be considered as judges) to serve as judges. Judges will serve outside their own individual categories. For example, if you publish a regular fiction magazine or anthology, you could easily serve as a judge in the "novels" category or "non-fiction book" category. If you are a programmer of a publishing software package, you could easily serve as a judge of any category of literature. I encourage ALL DPA members to volunteer to serve as a judge in some category. With the expected number of entries this year, it is imperative that we get a large panel of judges from which to chose. Please notify the DPA office - either through electronic mail or through "paper mail" of your willingness to serve as a judge. Finding judges is the one critical aspect of the Quill Awards that always requires the most work. PLEASE help make it easy this year my volunteering a few hours of your time to look over some of the entries. We need your support and input desperately. Also, if you are submitting to the competition, please remember the following important points: 1. You do NOT have to be a member of the Digital Publishing Association to submit for the Quill Awards. No preferential treatment will be given DPA member authors or publishers. The Quill Awards are an open competition and all are invited to submit. 2. Be aware that the competition is open to materials that were FIRST published in electronic format. That means, materials that have been uploaded to an online system or distributed on disk for reading as digital materials previously are eligible for consideration. Materials that were simply created on computer (most writers use those for EVERYTHING these days, anyway) and do not meet the criteria of having been made available on an online system for reading are ineligible. This is an important requirement. Please remember it. 3. Finally, the Quill Awards are not computer-specific. The DPA is equipped to judge material submitted in most computer formats, Including, but not limited to DOS, Windows, and Macintosh). We invite material from all hardware platforms. IMPORTANT NOTE: I am also looking for input from the DPA membership about what we should do about prizes this year. Last year, we awarded a simple but attractive certificate (along with a great deal of press coverage) to the winners of the Quills. Since we have a modest budget this year, and I DO mean modest, I hope we can come to some consensus within the membership on offering something more substantial to this year's winners. If you are a DPA member, please submit suggestions to the DPA's multiple electronic mailboxes. The final decision will be made by the Board of Directors. As soon as the prizes are determined, we will make an announcement. A Conference All Should Attend... I received a fax from Chris Fisher of the Atwood Group (11827 W. 112th St., Overland Park, KS 66210; 913-469-1110; FAX 913-469-0806) on July 28 announcing the inevitable: The First Annual "Electronic Books" conference. Sponsored by DPA corporate member Meckler (11 Ferry Lane West, Westport, CT 06880; 203-226-6967), the conference is billed as "the first annual conference and exhibition on the emergence of electronic books and their impact on traditional information media, markets, and applications." I would say it is long-overdue! Congratulations to Meckler for jumping out in front of the corporate pack with this wonderful event. Chris sent along a copy of the conference program and, as the understatement of the year, the festivities appear to be as exciting as the idea itself. A workshop will be offered on Monday, September 27 on "Exploring Electronic Book Production with Voyager's Expanded Book Toolkit" - by Roger Devine of Voyager. The conference program begins on Tuesday, September 28. The inaugural keynote address will be given by John B. Evans, head of Rupert Murdock's "News Corporation." He is responsible for determining the group's strategy for electronic publishing. Topics for the ensuing seminars include the following: "New Technologies, New Paradigms: The Publishing Challenge;" Bob Faber, Senior Vice-President, The 3DO Company. "Publishing for MPC;" Tom Corddry, Director, Multimedia Publishing Group, Microsoft Corporation. "Beyond the Expanded Book." Bob Stein, President, Voyager Company. "Interactive Story Telling;" John Baker, Vice President of Product Development, Broderbund Software. "Creating the Electronic Dictionary;" Andrew Rosenheim, Electronic Publishing Director, Oxford University Press, Oxford, England. "The Irresistible Rise of the Memory Card;" Stephen Harper, Chairman, Personal Computer Memory Card International Association. "Developments in Memory Card Platforms;" Gilbert DeLiso, Director of Sales, Wizard Division, Sharp Corporation. "The Future of Memory Card Publishing;" Morton David, President, Franklin Electronic Publishers. "Strategies for Chip-based Publishing;" Mike Weiner, President, Selectronics. "Personal Digital Assistants and the Future of Portable Electronic Media;" Gaston Bastiaens, Manager, Personal Interactive Electronics Division, Apple Computer. "Evolution of Sony's Electronic Book Format;" Ken Butti, President, Electronic Book Publishing, Tokyo, Japan. Here is how the brochure I received explained the purpose of the conference: "Electronic Books 1993 is the first conference and exhibition on the emergence of electronic books and their impacts on traditional information media, markets and applications. This new annual event takes place in New York City - the publishing capitol of the world. "Electronic media across a range of generic and proprietary platforms are already transforming the structure of the information market place and everyday practices and expectations of information users in all sectors. Hardware, software and telecommunications companies, together with major information providers and publishers, are rapidly finding their interests converging. Hence, they are increasingly working together to build a rich variety of strategic alliances, innovative new product categories and exciting opportunities for investment in a new generation of information publishing activities. "Electronic Publishing 1993 tracks the rise of electronic books in two ways. First, the seminar program examines the increasing use of book metaphors in interactive media, assessing and illustrating how far these metaphors work and where they brake down, demanding innovation and creative adaptation to ensure the underlying information products deliver the right values effectively to their users. Secondly, the conference examines the rise of palmtop and portable electronic media, describing the emerging platforms and publishing opportunities and assessing the strategic implications for traditional information media, markets and applications. "The conference brings together some of the world's leading players in electronic book platforms and media and provides a unique opportunity to gain a global strategic view of the hardware, software, publishing and marketing development issues." The conference will be at the Sheraton - New York from September 29-29 and is, as mentioned, organized by Meckler. Meckler is the publisher of 12 professional periodicals including CD ROM World, Internet World, and Virtual Reality Report. They already produce 13 trade shows annually and recently did the Electronic Books International conference in London. Booths (10 by 10) are available at $1850. You can reserve space by calling on John Gosselin at 207- 883-1223 or writing him (John Gosselin, Exhibit Hall Manager, Electronic Books '93, P.O. Box 12, Scarborough, ME 04070-0012; FAX: 209-883-8347). While the DPA is certainly not in a position, financially, to attend - much less exhibit! - I certainly hope that some of the membership in the area (I know Ted Husted [UserWare] and Paul Peacock [FloppyBack] are located in the area) will be able to attend the conference. I would love to be able to publish a report of the event in a future DPA News. In any case, as I have observed before, I feel that an industry fully arrives when they have their own conference. For electronic books and digital publishing, that time has clearly arrived. Speaking of "arriving".... UPI, in the person of staff correspondent Joe Fasbinder, covered Ziff-Davis' entry into the electronic publishing movement in a lengthy article released for publication August 1. He opened the article by discussing one of the major benefits of electronic book publishing and distributing. He writes: "You can now avoid the embarrassment of buying books and having them languish on the bookshelf unread -- silent testaments to good intentions gone awry, If you have a computer and modem, you can download books from a new service. That way, if you never get around to reading them, at least they won't stare you down. And you can erase them." Fasbinder then goes on to describe Ziff's experiment in digital books as described in the July issue of DPA News. As mentioned there, through the end of the 1993 ZiffNet - Ziff-Davis' modem service accessible either directly or through CompuServe - will be allowing users to download of its own $39.95 "PC Magazine DOS 6 Techniques and Utilities," by Jeff Prosise. [Nota Bene: ZiffNet is also available on Prodigy but downloading the book is not supported on that version of ZiffNet]. With your modem you can get all 1,035 pages of it, as well as a collection of 48 software utilities for a very reasonable $12.95. The digital version of "PC Magazine DOS 6 Techniques and Utilities" also comes with a searchable viewer so that you can read it on your computer screen and quick-search software that makes it easier to use than a printed reference book. According to Ziff, the book takes up about one megabyte in compressed form. Fasbinder states the obvious be observing "That's a lot faster than skimming or using the index and flipping pages. So what you end up with is a book that's less expensive and more effective -- at least as a reference." You do have to pay for the downloading time as well. A Ziff spokesperson, quoted by Fasbinder, estimated that at 2400 bps, downloading the book would take about 76 minutes, or $16 worth of connect time. At 9600 bps, the download procedure would take about 20 minutes, or $7 worth of connect time. But as Fasbinder noted, "that even after adding the connect time charges to the $12.95 price, you still get a significant discount off the $39.95 cover price for the book and also have that nifty computerized search capability. And you can print out what you need when you need it." You can access ZiffNet directly by dialing (800) 666-0330 and following the instructions or get to ZiffNet through CompuServe's "gateway." Fasbinder goes on to state that Ziff-Davis is evaluating other titles potentially for on-line distribution, but "it will be up to the computing public to decide if the distribution method is popular enough to merit continuation." It should prove to be a revealing experiment that we should all keep our eyes on. If Ziff can make it work, smaller publishers should be able to do the same with online services. If book distribution be modem fails on ZiffNet, we should all take notice. Winding down... That's it for this month. This issue is a little shorter than usual due to the rush of activities surrounding the Quill Awards and their publicity. Let's all pitch in and spread the word. Post the notices on your local BBS and anywhere else you can. Also, remember to volunteer for the judging. It shouldn't take more than a few hours of your time and it is imperative for the success of the Quills to get a variety of judges for as many viewpoints on the materials as possible. With the Digital Quill Awards cranking up and the activities in preparation for November's "Electronic Publishing Month" festivities, things will stay busy as DPA HQ for some time. Stay tuned, join in, and spread the word! See you next month.