Voyager Out to Digital Publishing

The time is coming to harmonize text, photograph, illustration, manga, video, sound, all on digital publishing.
Voyager will assist anyone who wants to publish in its own right.

We have our own stories in our mind; family
memories, story of life, statements after
hardships, photos. Precious materials are still kept
somewhere. You finally have your own ways of
expressing voices from such past in publishing.
Voyager will support anybody wishing to publish
own materials to the world. Voyager believes
digital publishing is the way to accomplish suchdesire.
from ”I Photograph to Remember” ©1991 Pedro Meyer

Table of contents

page 2 Riso Bookstore: Not virtual, but being ideal
page 5 eBook for those visually challenged‒ Striving for the 2010 National Reading Year

Voyager Japan, Inc.

5-41-14 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan
http://www.voyager.co.jp/ tel. 03-5467-7070 fax. 03-5467-7080
e-mail: infomgr@voyager.co.jp
2009.07en

http://www.dotbook.jp/store/Logo; Kouga Hirano

Riso Bookstore: Not virtual, But being ideal- Getting on board of eBook on internet

Riso Bookstore is a webstore specializing in eBoos that Voyager is operating in Japan. In addtion tothe Japanese major publishers such as Kodansha, Kadokawa Shoten, Shincho-sha, there are a numberof independent publishers and authors making available their works in the store. Reading experienceson PC/Mac to mobile devices including iPhone is happening at Riso. All of the products on Riso arealso available for the people visually challenged through the read-out function.

How will the digitally published works beparticular have prevailed in our daily life.

remained? Voyager has been keen on this issue

People used to think reading experiences on LCD

since founded. Digital products are only fordisplays including those for PCs do not work.

reading experiences in short term and can be

However, due to the unlimited data package

thrown away. They have been treated as if there isno on going life for itself. The more the sales are,

The poster

the better the short life of the digital products. Few

Internationalfor the Tokyo
Bookfair 2005

publishers thought of perpetual life of the digitally
published works.
Print media was established to remain for itsown right. The media, printed books, was given
longevity by itself. Libraries were created to store
and maintain such intellectual treasures. Thebooks can remain, thus people paid more attention

service started in 2003, people began to enjoy

to make the best of their works on the books.

content on mobile phones, especially manga. Evensmaller size screens than PC, younger people are

We have always given our full thought to handengaged in reading novels and mangas on mobile,

down digitally published materials. What we canand novels written on mobile became muchdo to create a little interesting book stores andappreciated. Publishers are delighted to distributelibraries on internet. At the same time, we havesuch “mobile novels”. Younger people do not care

not sought any large-sized and costly system ismuch about the size of the displays and the lessrequired. Voyagerʼs Riso Bookstore has started insatisfying quality. Content delivered through theSeptember of 2000 as if a little child learned tomobile networks made more sense to them.

walk.
Now that many devices including iPhone 3G, iPod❖ Any LCD supported device can read eBooks

touch, Kindle, Android, PSP, DSi, et al are making

We have created the above buzzword for thesuch buzz and books can be read digitally on all

Tokyo International Bookfair 2005. Versatility ofthese devices.

the devices has expanded and mobile phones in2

❖ PC can be peopleʼs reading room, book store

Corchet is a web browser plug-in, rather than an

and library

application and page description can be madeContinuous connectivity of PC to internet haslike HTML. For example, placements of banners

become norm. People search, read and send

and purchase buttons, leading people to purchasemessages to others in every day life. PCs are usedpage, and guiding people to mobile purchase site

like their reading rooms, book stores, libraries andby using QR code, etc. can be fulﬁlled. People canplaza to sit down and read. There shall be unique

From Riso Bookstore:

mission in something only digital can do. We shall“Web Spica”

Gentosha Comics
presented byshift the value system to that of more writers andCrochet

readers oriented. We already see a number ofpotentials in digital. It may take time. Nevertheless,we should believe in the future. Thus, we named
our bookstore as “Riso”, i.e. ideal.
When people read printed books, there are 2-page

Any desired pagein front of you. Even if a very thick size book of

can be shown
instantaneously bymany pages, a reader can only see the pages inCrochet.

view. Continuous connectivity made possible tosend 2-page at a time for a reading experience,
instead of sending the entire book data once. You
can store the book somewhere up in the cloudand when you want to read it, you just pull down
the pages you want. PCs shall be equipped withenjoy both books and websites ﬂexibly. Dotbook

functions of desirable bookstores and libraries,

encoded ﬁles can be read by Crochet on iPhone,such as functions of search, browse, purchase andiPod touch, DS, PSP, Android, Windows Mobile,

keep the books in bookshelves.

and upcoming Nokiaʼs smart phones. Since thedotbook encoded ﬁle data are transmitted in

Riso Bookstore has started to have functions

encrypted status, there is no concerns of piracy.

for reading experiences on PC initially. T-Time
Crochet proprietary developed by Voyager is one❖ Mobile is a bookof the functions equipped at Riso. Any eBooks

Considering likely environment for our reading

encoded on dotbook also developed by Voyager

books, mostly we only have moments on the way

can be stored on Crochetʼs bookshelves. More than

to work, at a coﬀee shop or right before going to

25,000 eBooks encoded in dotbook can be enjoyedsleep in bed, instead of facing a book at a deskin such manner.

with ample time. This proves that one importantcomponent of books is mobile aspect. A paper

Crochet enables you to pick up books from theback and such portable version of books became

bookshelves, show the table of content and go topopular due to the mobile aspect of the books.

the very top page or where you had left the book.
“Enlarged view” will give you larger view of theBooks require mobile function. Thus, PCs havepage, which can be used to show any details of thebeen limiting such capability of the books. Probablypages.

the heavily wired PCs with powerful search engine
3capability was like the image of digital publishing
before the dawn of itʼs prosperity. We have been

From ASCII “The company developed iPhone”

striving to go beyond such limitations.

be browsed by iPhone but rejected by Apple

by Kazutoshi Ohtani, which is supposed toto distribute through App Store. It was
notiﬁed that any book relating to emploee

iPhone 3G released in Japan in July of 2008 was

and management of Apple are excluded fromwhat we have called “ideal books on mobile digital

iPhone to be ideal eBook device. This has led

App Store. We were quite disenchanted asto think about the freedom of press throughdevice”. We realized at glance of the device thatmobile devices.

all kinds of functions necessary for digital bookexperiences are quipped, such as touch panel, easy
to browse by changing size of the displayed page,
WiFi capability, etc.
Risoʼs reader, Crochet are now well connected
to mobile devices such as iPhone. This will
expand the horizon of eBooks in conjunction
with PCs. Now people can enjoy books like PCs
are bookstores and libraries and that mobilephones are books. This new environment canentertain and expand the peopleʼs eBook reading
experiences to more free and unrestricted ones.
We believe this is not virtual, it becomes real.
Google has aggressively sought its own wayof digital publishing. Amazon has also madeillustration: Masanori Dateavailable digital book browsing, and prevailed
with own eBook reader, Kindle. Japanʼs National

If you wish to catch a butterﬂy for sure, you may use a big net . But myinterest is to catch it bare-handed, even if I had the net̶̶

Diet Library made an announcement to propel-from words of FranAgois Reischenbach (Film maker)-

digitization of the books in the library by utilizing
the Governmentʼs budget. These phenomena tell
the fact that the conventional meaning of books
are being dismantled and also the reconstructionof knowledge is happening through the digital
innovations. It is completely diﬀerent from theattitude presented by the Japanese publishing

T-Timehttp://www.voyager.co.jp/T-Time/industry using the digital being just a way to makeup decline of the revenue. The transition to thedigital media has much more magnitude to change

azur
http://www.voyager.co.jp/azur/

the world. Even if we are small and independent,
we strive to create uniquely independent media forreaders and writers with our Riso Bookstore.

4

eBook for those visually challenged❖ Mobile has expanded the way

Development.

visually challenged people. Thus, the eBooks

Kochi System Development and Voyager havealready available in public can have read-out

worked together to make available a read-out

capability to support their reading experiences.

function for eBooks. Kochi System Development

eBook file, dotbook has become accessible tohas number one share in this kind. Recently, theyIn addition to the publishers already being

have developed “MyBook” enabling people tosupportive to read-out functions such as Kodansha,

easily enjoy eBooks with simple operations. Owing

Gutenberg 21, 21st Century Play Library, etto MyBook, on top of Daisy books, Aozora, Naïveal, Shincho-sha and Kadokawa Shoten also

Net, Braille books and PDF documents, dotbook

participated. Dotbook encoded eBook ﬁles having

has become capable of read-out function.

capability of read-out function will be signiﬁcantly❖ “For us, a book does not mean the book.”

expanded. The dotbook ﬁles are identical to thosefor physically unimpaired. As long as they areVoyager has reinforced dotbookʼs enlarging

marketed at the same price and distributed, there

function to support people of weak eyesight

is no need of applications for grant of use andincluding seniors in 2006. In October of 2006,approvals.

we made available functions for the people haing
week eyesight through the collaborations of AlphaIn Japan, there are more than 300,000 people

Systemʼs “Digital Kataribe” player. They werevisually challenged. There seems to be more

not designed for the people visually impaired.

than one million people if people of amblyopia

Only way to support their reading experiences isand those having weak eyesight are counted

to provide the function of read-out. Due to DRM

as well. Currently, a read-out software for PCs

embedded in dotbook, read-out function wascalled “screen reader” became popular amongst

restricted. We have spent time to re-recognize howvisually challenged people, which includes one

to assist visually challenged people. We have been

entitled as “PC-Talker” developed by Kochi System

to assemblies and study groups for supporting.bookMyBook© 講談社文庫『まぼろしの邪馬台国』( 宮崎康平 著 )Kodansha, "Maboroshi no Yamataikoku", by Kohei Miyazaki

5visually challenge people. We came to realize thehave people desired to read the books. Therefore,reality. How they are overcoming the handicap

it is essential to make available books to whoeverof gathering information. We deeply sympathizedwishes to read, which includes anybody having

to their ever lasting eﬀorts. We have learned thatphysical difficulties. There are a number ofthere are a number of existing technologies thatpublishers employed dotbooks. So, if dotbooks

we can utilize. Our attitude of aiming to develop “deis equipped to have the function of read-out, it

fact standard” has impaired our vision.

can make best selling books available for visuallychallenged. We have disclosed the technology of

One day we heard the following message. “ForT-Time/dotbook to Kochi System Development.

us, a book does not mean the book. They are like

They have made “PC-Talker” readable by dotbook.

bound bulk papers. We cannot read them.” WhatVoyager also made efforts to make additional

this very person visually completely impaired has

revisions to dotbook for the read-out. Now any

mentioned next really astonished us. “EBooks

publisher can easily choose an eBook based on

are books to us. They can be read and we candotbook to have the read-out function.

understand.” We have devoted ourselves to make❖ Open positions

read-out function to be equipped in dotbook fromthis point.

Due to the need of visually challenged people, thecollaboration between Kochi System Development❖ Exclusivity cannibalizing

and Voyager occurred. In fact, the development

If dotbooks disclosed its proprietary technology, it

process was shortened because of the open andcould enhance the collaborations of DRM and also

good-will collaborations. Still, MyBook is remained

read-out engine to accelerate the support to people

to be an independent software for read-out, andvisually challenged. The comment of “eBooks

T-Time/dotbook can be applicable to develop otherbeing a real book” makes us think of working

kinds of functions for new business. We are very

to enforce the accessibility of eBooks to them.

glad to find this new open positions for the both

Sometimes exclusivity may seem to make moreparties.

business. Nonetheless, it can also limit openness of❖ Still more good news to comeitself. We realized if open technology can enlarge
the ground of the same eBook for both physicallyN e e d l e s s t o s a y, t h i s i s n o t a b o u t t h eunimpaired and visually challenged, then that canheartwarming story. The important thing is that weuplift the business after all.

became a part of improving reading experiencesof visually challenged people. Then, why not all❖ Image envisioned by visually challenged

the publishers join force? There are a number of

The fundamental cause of the sales of books is tounderlying issues.

6None of the publishers disagree with the efforts.
Yet, due to extra process required to attainapprovals from authors, etc., some publishers
do not stand up. Do any authors reject the ideaof read-out functions? Some authors may not
authorize digitalization of their works. However,
it is unlikely foreseen those works alreadyapproved to be digitally published and the very
authors go against read-out. The process to obtainunderstanding may take time. But, efforts should
be made.
The publishing business has been struggling with

A scene of presenting “Aoi-tori Bunko with enlarged letters” presented

the economic downturn of the industry. In theby Kodansha. Kodansha has donated the same to 66 schools for visuallychallenged students nation-wide. The books were made of data frommeantime, mobile novels and manga have shown

Voyagerʼs dotbook data ﬁles.

the uplifting elements for the future. The core of
the business going to digital has been an issue of
everybody for sometime. Yet, no substantial vision
about what the digital publishing can bring wasneither addressed nor discussed.
The digital publishing in Japan has 20-year of thehistory. During the time period, publishers did
not perform major roll in progress of the digitalpublishing. Leadership is very important in allareas. And, the digital publishing for the people
visually challenged needs leadership and guidanceof the industry by the publishers.

7