Industry Talk

Sometimes it is interesting how our political known faces make news! Recently Bobby Jindal, the media alleged, digressed from his social responsibility and delved into money making. The allegation against Louisiana Governor, Bobby Jindal, was that his book deal was a means of making money. Jindal has been involved with the book publishing industry for quite some time now. In his personal financial disclosure report, Jindal disclosed an income of $50,000 to$99,999 roughly from the contract with Regnery Publishing.

Jindal’s disputed book would bear the title On solid ground. It is said that the book will be Jindal’s memoir.  The report that Jindal is due to publish his memoir was first published on the web on the Louisiana Board of Ethics website on May 19^th. However, there was no mention of the amount that specifying the income that Jindal was entitled to. The website insists on mentioning a monetary amount only if the money’s source is the state, political subdivisions, and/or gambling interests. Obviously book publishing and releasing memoirs does not seem unethical which raises the pertinent question of why did people view On solid ground with raised eyebrows.

However, the general consensus is, when America is posed with serious economic and social concerns the Governor needs to be more dedicated to his post and responsibility and pursue his interest. But this does not rule out people who think the book publishing is actual financial self serving by using the national platform. While these claims may be true one cannot entirely pin down the governor for investing in authorship.

Bobby Jindal : Scared his image just for book publishing

Jindal’s press secretary Kyle Plotkin stated that Jindal was still in the process of writing and is scheduled for release on July 12.Jindal is not the sole author of the book. It has been co-authored by Peter Schweizer. Schweizer is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. Already the book promises to offer “a bold vision for renewing the GOP and our nation.” With web development at its most advanced state the keen readers can log on to Amazon.com and book their copies at the earliest.

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has christened its new publishing unit AmazonCrossing. This time round Amazon intends to publish English translations of foreign language books. This is a daring step because Amazon is digressing from its business model of aiming at a larger market and is instead targeting a niche audience. A 2007 report in Publishing Research Quarterly revealed that 50% of all books published are translated from English, whereas only 3% are translated into English! But for Jeff Belle, Amazon’s (AMZN) vice president of books, it is a challenge and an extremely promising prospect as he himself implicitly suggested, “A very small percentage of books are translated from foreign languages into English and sold in the U.S. and U.K. It is an imbalance.”

It seems that Wall Street Journal did not consider this as a new step by Amazon but mentioned AmazonEncore, launched in May 2009, as a precedence of Amazon’s online attempt at traditional book publishing.  Encore aimed to publish unpublished authors and the initiative candidly has not been extremely productive with just 19 books to its credit. Crossing on the other hand outdares the previous venture because Amazon is treading on the lines of the traditional publishing industry with many copyright issues to battle with! Adding to its list of risks is the cost incurred for translation.  The director of the University of Rochester’s Open Letter Books Chad Post told the WSJ, 60,000-word novel could cost nearly $6,000 to $8,000 in translation fees alone. However, Amazon has definitely weighed its pros and cons and of course it can fall back on AmazonEncore which led the way to online publishing.

“Legacy” by Cayla Kluver was the first book to be published by AmazonEncore in August 2009. AmazonEncore was a delight for authors especially because it claimed to re-introduce their books to readers by marketing and distribution through multiple channels and formats, such as the Amazon Books Store, Amazon Kindle Store, www.Audible.com, and national and independent bookstores via third-party wholesalers. While rational prejudices against online publishing and retailing of books would impede judgment, it is advisable to read J.A. Konrath’s own admission that Amazon is a great platform for authors – “(it) is the greatest thing to happen to the written word since Gutenberg.”

Readership and Book Publishing in the Web Era

Konrath’s remarks “it’s easier, faster and cheaper to create an e-book than it is a physical book” probably is a foresight of the changing mode of the publishing industry. Publishers too, acknowledge that with web development publishing has indeed diversified and reached a larger market.  The catch phrase of course is “instantly and inexpensively with a simple press of a button” by which Konrath shows the acceptability of online publishing among end users.

J. A. Konrath earned his fame through online publishing

Probably Amazon regarded Encore’s slow but steady success as a sure proof of the prospects of online publishing and retailing (at least the launch of AmazonCrossing hints at it). Jeff Belle prophesied this business would earn great dividends for the organization. Statistical data show that 25% of the e-retailer’s revenue comes from media sales outside of the U.S. and the company is equipped to pull sales records, customer reviews and other data to determine which books might sell well to an English-reading audience. After garnering all the requisite information and pinning down the books they’d like to publish, the company will acquire rights to those books, hire translators, print, and then sell digital and print copies through the same media which AmazonEncore uses. This strategy is a boon more so because the traditional publishers don’t have access to such data.

The first book that AmazonCrossing has undertaken is a translation of French author Tierno Monénembo’s The King of Kahel, winner of the 2008 prix Renaudot (a French literary prize). The book is based on the life of Aimé Victor Olivier de Sanderval. Sanderval was involved in the conquest of the hostile West Africa region of Fouta Djallon (now part of the Republic of Guinea). The due date for release of the book is November 2^nd 2010. However Amazon has maintained a silence with regard to the remuneration the translator, Nicholas Elliot has been paid and also not disclosed its pay for future translators.

While Amazon has been making good progress with online book publishing, Barnes & Noble (its competitor) is no longer under the illusion that the book publishing in the e-zone is its monopoly. Instead to address Amazon’s entry into its industry, it launched PubIt platform, enabling authors and independent publishers to distribute their writing on BN.com and via the Barnes & Noble e-bookstore. Only time would now tell who would finally rule the web’s e-bookshelf!

When creating subsequent copies of data the quality suffers a conspicuous degradation and this retrogressive phenomenon is called Generation Loss. In most cases the file size of the copies increase. Generation loss is a phenomenon that we relate to analog systems but even digital systems that use analog connections for generating copies have this disadvantage. The primary causes for such depravation is noise and bandwidth issues in cables, amplifiers, mixers, recording equipment and other relevant snags that interfere with the transfer of data from source to the destination. Technically distribution amplifiers which have mismatched impedances can aggravate the problem of reduction in quality of the copy. Though analog to digital conversions do not always cause such loss, repeated conversions unfortunately account for generation loss.

Analog system

It was during the complex analog audio and video editing that generation loss became a major inhibiting factor. Several multi-layered edits were often created by making intermediate mixes which were then “bounced down” back onto tape. Developers had to scrupulously plan to overcome the issue of generation loss and the corresponding noise and poor frequency response. One way out was the use of the expensive 48-track recording studio where an entire complex mixdown could be done in just a single generation. However, it was with the introduction of Dolby-A that such analog noise and frequency mismatches could be controlled. But it was only with the adoption of the digital technology that copying or transformation of data could override generation loss.

Digital system

Unfortunately even digital systems have recorded the consequent decrease in quality when creating copies. This is because of some additional techniques incorporated within the digital systems. But the good thing is, copying a digital file itself incurs no generation loss and the copy is an exact replica of the original. Arbitrary choices of numbers of pixels and sampling rates for source, destination, and intermediates tamper with the digital signals thus jeopardizing the ability of digital technology for eliminating generation loss completely. Developers should be wary of where and when to use lossy compression and lossless compression as the former discards some data which cannot be restored.

Though transcoding for content adaptation (which is the new technique for publishing web content on other devices)  is a digital to digital conversion, it  involves lossy compression which as has been mentioned earlier, does scrap data. Interestingly, the application of lossy compression and decompression especially for inconsistent parameters across generations increases the chances of generation loss – and that is what happens when content is adapted for different electronic devices.

Analog and Digital Systems working in parallel

With regard to lossy compression and content adaptability it is to be noted that the idempotent and the scalable algorithms restrict and minimize diminution of quality. Idempotent is a scenario in which the parameters remain constant and scalable is the parameter in which the data needs to be re-encoded with lower quality settings. But this restricts content adaptability as there may be devices which would require re-encoding with higher quality settings. For all such instances there is a cumulative deterioration of the content quality.

Trancoding is the functionality that automatically transforms the content to suit various electronic devices. The digital to digital conversion of information that requires publishing on the web, mobile devices etc. actually include a conversion of encoding system to another. Engineers and web development professionals have proposed many infrastructures and algorithms that can easily address the problems that creep in during the transcoding process.

Of these new age infrastructures CANS or Composable, Adaptive Network Services has become increasingly popular. It is an application-level infrastructure for injecting application-specific components into the specific network. CANS infrastructure can be effectively used for adaptation of components to generate target content. Their mechanism allows the generated composition to be dynamically changed according to the network condition changes, system overloads and user environment changes, resulting in the creation of the best datapath.

Another alternative of CANS was modularizing content that focuses on how to connect each module using a flexible mechanism. Usually the mode they follow is developing an interface language that connects modules comprising an input pair and output pair. When the end user requests for any particular information (content), this request message includes the output pair -type and also the properties of the content. The intermediate server searches the appropriate module and matches the output pair with an input pair of a module. This process keeps continuing until a complete pipeline is processed.

Other content adapting functionalities introduced were CAP – content adaptation pipeline. What set CAP apart was its use of a an XML interface language which described the users’ characteristics, content and command. Also they divide modules per operation rather than functionalities. Latest trancoding software include widgets like AJAX which provide high performance and enhanced navigation o small screen electronic devices. However, the risk of generation loss still persists in the transcoding functionality.