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Becoming Readers Who Write

President,Voyager Japan, Inc

Junko Kamata❖ The Web Browser as eReader

You use your PC to produce books with soundand video embedded in them, and publish them aselectronic books. Then other people can readthose electronic books on their own PCs.” Wewere convinced that digital media would be thewave of the future.

The State of eBooks 22 Years Ago
Voyager Japan, Inc., was established 22 years
ago, in October 1992, to pursue the possibilities
of electronic publishing. This was long before we
had Google searches or Amazon Kindles or Apple
iPhones. The very notion of electronic publishing
was still only a vague concept. The only form of
publishing the world knew until then was aprocess in which publishing houses printed books
on paper and channeled them to brick-and-mortar
bookstores by way of distributors. Through the
publication of countless books, the system had
been refined into a fine-tuned machine whose
various parts worked seamlessly with one
another. There was no place for electronic
publications in that workflow.

What’s So Great about Electronic Publishing
Anyway?
Computers were expensive in those days, costing
three and four thousand dollars apiece—eventhough they were like mere infants in capability
when compared with today’s computers.
In the course of only a few years, CPUs wentfrom 16-bits to 32-bits, and displays went from
640 x 400 to 1280 x 1024 pixels, and from 256
colors to millions of colors. The pace of theadvances exceeded all of our expectations. Apple,
HP, NEC, Fujitsu, Hitachi, and other PC makers
introduced one new model after another. In order
to continue distributing digital content, we wererepeatedly forced to update our ereader softwareand production tools. And even with updates, themajority of our books still failed to sell. We were
disheartened, exhausted, and on the verge ofcapsizing. But the lure of digital media never let
go of us, and our unshaken desire to be part of its
future kept us going.

In 2011, the International Digital Publishing
Forum (IDPF) responsible for the EPUB
standard, a globally recognized file format forelectronic books, published EPUB 3 as a final
Recommended Specification. The EPUB 3
specification not only accommodates Japaneseand other world languages, but provides forinteractivity, accessibility, and multimedia
functions. Its publication set off a new round ofadvances in ebook viewers, production tools, anddistributions systems. No one working withelectronic books today can be unfamiliar with thisstandard.

The most difficult part of producing a book is thewriting. If the book is printed on paper, thatwriting is preserved in a physical form that canlast forever. But when the book is publishedelectronically, it is far more difficult to givelasting shape to the writing you poured heart andsoul into. With both hardware and software in theequivalent of a perennial growth spurt, change
was the only constant. Electronic books that took
advantage of the latest hardware capabilities were

But back in 1992, there were no Internet-based
booksellers, and only a very limited number ofpeople had even heard of electronic books.
People would ask, “Electronic publishing? What’sthat?” And each time, I would launch into an
impassioned explanation: “Electronic means
digital, which is to say, using personal computers.
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was “Any Difference?” The question was
intended to ask how reading an ebook in a web
browser was different from reading it in a
dedicated ereader app. Paper-based book are easy
to just pick up and read, and we take it for
granted that that’s how books should be. But withan ebook, you first had to go through the troubleof downloading and installing an ereader app. We
had discovered that this was a surprisingly highhurdle for many users, who would simply give up
because they didn’t know how to install. In orderto remove that hurdle, we needed to get rid of theseparate app. But we couldn’t simply do without
anything at all—something had to replace the app
as a reading platform. And for that, we chose theweb browser.

destined to become obsolete right along with that
hardware. I actually began asking myself,“What’s so great about electronic publishing
anyway?”Then, in 2008, Apple opened the App Store—astore for selling applications that worked on the
iPod Touch.*1 The iPod Touch had proved itself
astonishingly easy to use. This is fabulous, wethought. We can create apps that combine thefunctions of an ebook reader with ebook content.
But we quickly ran up against a fatal flaw in thesystem as far as selling books was concerned:
Apple placed a screen on the content; setting its
own unilateral rules, the company determined
what was acceptable and what was not. And infact, book apps we submitted to the App Store
were rejected for reasons we could not agreewith. A comic was rejected for including abathing scene; a work of criticism was turned
away for touching on Steve Jobs’ record. Did thecompany really want to stymie publishingactivity—arbitrarily, at its sole discretion? This
was the system Apple had introduced with suchpride? Well, it wasn’t going to work for us. We
needed to find a system that offered more
freedom.

Our early tests confirmed for us that the browser
could deliver a good reading experience. With thebrowser as our platform, we could easily andquickly make our books available to users on any
number of different devices. And there would be
no screening or rejections.
So after 20 years, we were at long last able toprovide readers with a way of reading digitalbooks that did not require a special effort. BinB
includes the necessary functionality for readingebooks—opening the file, turning pages, jumping
from one chapter to another, managing a libraryof titles—and it is as easy to use as looking at
web pages. All readers need to do is turn on
whatever devices they own with a web browser
and hit a button that says “Read.” This hurdlefree user experience has led the system to be
adopted by online booksellers such as the Yahoo!
Bookstore Japan and Booklive!, as well as bypublishers such as Kodansha and Shueisha on
their own sites. The fact that it can be linked with
Google Analytics to obtain marketing informationthat is not available from Apple or Amazon isanother important attraction from a business pointof view.

“Any Difference?”
The turning point for us came in 2011, the same
year the EPUB 3 specification was published.
Voyager Japan began developing a new system
based on a concept called “Books in Browsers,”
in which the user’s web browser becomes theplatform for reading books. Taking the two initial
B’s, we called the system “BinB” (pronounced“bee in bee”). Any smartphone, tablet, orcomputer with an HTML5-capable browser canserve as a reading device. So long as you areconnected to the Internet, the procedure forreading a book is no different from looking at a
web page.
Until this, we had mainly been developing aroundour own proprietary .book format, but now weadopted EPUB 3. It was time for a course change,
to fall in step with the world standard.

The reading public is still divided in its attitudes
toward ebooks. People often comment thatprinted books are easier on their eyes, or that they
like the smell of the ink, they like the feel of thepaper, they feel better having a physical object tokeep on their shelf. I used to fire back that ebooks

The tag line we chose for the Voyager Japan
display at the summer 2011 e-Book EXPO Tokyo3

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represents less than a hundredth of theinformation originally gathered.

now use better fonts and are easier to read, thetext is in vertical format, and you can easily
search the text. But with this new system, I no
longer feel the need to be argumentative.

I think of the coverage of the March 2011 triple
disaster on the northeastern Pacific coast ofJapan. TV stations continually repeated the samenews, over and over. I couldn’t help but wonder
about what was being left out, what was going on
behind the scenes. Nuclear power is perfectly
safe. Really? I had my doubts. So I went on theInternet to see what media outlets overseas werereporting, to watch videos being uploaded byprivate individuals, to follow what people were
saying on Twitter and Facebook. I learned that an
acquaintance had abruptly moved to the UnitedStates; that data centers in western Japan wereseeing a huge spike in traffic; that foreigncompanies were pulling their staff out of Japan. It
was the information I obtained over the Internetthat confirmed just how bad the situation was.

With BinB, my enthusiasm for electronic
publishing has been rekindled, and I’m feelingreenergized. With the web browser as theplatform, anybody and everybody can readebooks. Internet users all over the world canbecome ebook readers. A new age has dawned.

❖ Regaining Our Voice
Record Events as a Witness, and Send Out Your
ReportOn the Internet, the individual user is not only aconsumer of information but a dispatcher as well.
Until recently, ebooks remained an insignificant
entity occupying only a tiny niche, hardly evenconsidered books at all. So it wasn’t easy for
individuals to embrace them as a means ofexpression. But now that ebooks can be read inany web browser, the world is about to change.
The Internet is a medium by, of, and for theindividual.

The Internet is a vast, open doorway to the world.
We have in our hands a medium that allows us tosound off freely and make our voices heard
around the globe.
Let’s Start Writing
Now let’s take another step forward. I want tospeak to those who have never considered writing
and publishing a book of their own.

We already use the Internet for our daily
communication needs. Calling it “a medium” maysuddenly make it seem like something moredistant, but isn’t it fair to say that traditional
media have all been extensions of our native
ability to communicate? Conversations and letterspassed between you and a personal acquaintance
may seem like too small a thing to associate withwhat the term “media” conjures. But consider theconcept of “word of mouth”: it implies a processof receiving information and giving informationin return or passing it on. Those conversations
and letters have long served as forms of media on
the personal level.

There may be many who’ve never thought ofwriting a book, but we’d be hard put to findanyone who’s never read one. Ask any hundred
people, and they will have read at least a hundred
books among them. And how did they read thesebooks? They read until they got tired, or they got
so caught up that they couldn’t go to sleep, orthey learned valuable lessons that changed theirlife, or they ached to fall in love themselves as
they followed the story—to list just the first few
possibilities that come to mind. Do any of thesering a bell for you?

The Internet is very different from newspapers
and magazines—not to mention television. With
these traditional forms of media, we are all
passive recipients of information. The
information gathered by the various media
organizations is edited down for our benefit andpresented in the form of articles or programs. The
portion we get to read or watch probably

And think about this, too: Has the amount of time
you spend reading books declined by any chance?
It has for me. If anything, I spend more of mytime these days writing. I’m referring to suchthings as writing emails related to work or
updating my Facebook page. These sometimes
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might imagine.

turn into little dialogues. Someone offers an
opposing view, or I receive a flurry of “Likes.” I
enjoy this give and take, the way it feeds on
itself. I get the urge to write something about
ebooks or digital media, or to see if I can comeup with a precept for living in my own small way,or maybe to post a whimsical verse. Eachexchange prompts a desire to say somethingmore.

And that’s exactly where ebooks come in. With
electronic books, both the production step and the
distribution step can be much simplified, and thecosts are lower as well. Email, social networks,
and blogs can be used to generate sales directlyfrom producer to consumer. In effect, it’s likefarm-direct produce at a farmer’s market. You
can’t make a television show all by yourself. But
going it alone is possible with an ebook: you canin fact enjoy the satisfaction of producing a bookall by yourself. That is the true wonder of ebooks.
So ladies and gentlemen, let’s start writing!

And sometimes I feel the need to take a stand.
Newly formed opinions tend to be weak. No
matter who you are, it takes courage to express
your views publicly. But if I can overcome thatfear and put an opinion into words, then I
definitely want people to read what I’ve written.
“Writing what you know from experience, saying
exactly how you feel—that’s what’s best.” A little
bit of encouragement like that, and even I canwrite.

From MS Word to eBook in 5 Minutes
But what exactly does producing and distributing
your electronic tome entail? In the case of
Voyager Japan’s new web publishing tool called
Romancer, launched in July 2014, it goes likethis:

Then if you did write a book, how would you
want it to be placed in readers’ hands?

The first step, of course, is to write the book.
Many of you will already be using Microsoft
Word as your word processor. Please go ahead
and draft the book in Word. Save your completed
file in .docx format—this is the file you will use.
If you are creating a comic book, you will need tosave your finished work either as a PDF or inimage files.

Would you like it to be sold in bookstores like
Kinokuniya or Junkudo? That is to say, do you
want it to go through the normal retail channels?
If so, it means you either have to personally visit
each bookstore and ask them to carry your book,or you have to sign a contract with a distributor
to handle that task. It’s not really something you
can do on your own.

Once you have completed and proofed your final
draft, you’re ready to produce the ebook.
Upload the file to the Romancer site, and press
the “Convert” button. Then wait. It will take only
a few minutes—a little longer if you’ve used aparticularly large number of ruby characters, it’sa play script, or in certain other cases.

Some 80,000 books a year flow through theexisting retail system, and it has been fine-tuned
to best serve the publishing houses. As
individuals, the chances for us to elbow our way
into the bookstores are extremely limited. We
must first gain the attention of an editor or
publisher, and then get them to bring our books
out as commercial authors. There are vanity
houses that will publish any book for a fee thatruns to several hundred thousand yen*2 or more.
They will handle the layout, and have the bookprinted and bound. It’s then possible to get thatbook onto bookstore shelves. But since bookbuyers have never heard of us, just to havesomeone pick up the book and look at it will takea small miracle. Getting the book into the handsof readers is a good deal more difficult than we

The screen that appears when the conversion isfinished shows two different links. One lets you
download a copy of the ebook to your computer.
The converted file will be in EPUB 3 format. Of
all the ebook formats that have been developed,
this is the most widely accepted, most portableformat. It is compatible with a large number ofexisting ereader apps.
You can port this EPUB to sell your book throughAmazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)
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service, which allows individuals to publish theirown books.*3 Just sign up for a KDP account, andyou, too, can sell your book on Amazon’s site.
There have already been many books written
about KDP, and there are numerous testimonials
and how-to guides on the web.

probably discover lines you’d like to rephrase for
one reason or another. This, too, is something that
happens to the pros. In such cases, all you have to
do is correct your own source file and upload it to
Romancer again. Click on the “Convert” button,
and in a few minutes you have a correctededition.

The other link is a URL that you can click to go
directly to the converted book in your browser, or
copy and send by email, social networking, orother means to those whom you wish to read yourbook. Through the power of the Internet, anybody
who receives this URL will be able to open yourbook in his or her own web browser anywhere in
the world. Each time one of your recipients sends
the URL on to someone else, you gain anotherreader. You make a connection with a growing
web of readers through your book.

For those reading your book in their browsers, thecorrected edition is available at the same URL as
before. This feature can be used to produce a
serial publication as well.

❖ The eBook Awaits You
Take Your First eBook StepYour ebook journey begins with a single book.
I wonder if you’ve heard of Aozora Bunko—thename literally means “Blue Sky Library” (www.
aozora.gr.jp). It’s an Internet library of Japanese
literary works that are being digitized because
their period of copyright protection has expired
and they are now in the public domain.

The URL for the book takes readers to a page thatuses the BinB system. So anyone can read theebook simply by entering the URL in theirbrowser’s address field. The only technical skill
required of the reader is the ability to view a web
page.

The library got its start in July, 1997. The website
launched with just five electronic texts in thecollection: Yo ga genbun-itchi no yurai (How I
Got Started with Genbun-itchi), by Shimei
Futabatei; Takasebune (The Boat on the River
Takase), by Ōgai Mori; Midaregami (TangledHair), by Akiko Yosano—in two separate editions
from 1901 and 1933; and Sangetsuki (The Moon
Over the Mountain), by Atsushi Nakajima.

You will no doubt hear from your readers about
typographical errors. It’s easy for evenprofessional proofreaders to miss kanji
conversion errors, yet somehow they seem tostick out like sore thumbs once the book is in thehands of readers. Also, when you yourself look at
the book again after releasing it, you will

A large number of volunteers flocked to theproject as soon as it was launched. They
established a system for working together toselect titles, gather source materials, and enterand proof the texts. By the year 2000, thecollection held over 1000 titles. The late Michio
Tomita, long the leader of the project, spoke of
his astonishment at how rapidly the site hadreached the 1000-title threshold, with so many
more volunteers pitching in than he had everimagined possible. In 2014, the number of titles
surged past the 12,000 mark.
In the introduction to his book Hon no mirai (The
Future of the Book; http://aozora.binb.jp/reader/6

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How do you make it possible for people to findyour book on the web? “Discoverability” is notjust an issue for ebooks, of course; it is just as
critical for traditional paper-based books as well.
What keywords will make the title of your bookappear among the top hits in a Google or Yahoo!
search? How do you get your title to circulate onsocial networks? They say you can generate ahuge response by advertising all over the Internet
and running TV commercials, but who among us
has that kind of money to throw around?

Michio Tomita speaks out against extending the period of copyright protection.
Tomita was instrumental in getting electronic publishing off the ground in Japan.
Both the Kindle and the Kobo Reader relied on the availability of a large library oftexts from Aozora Bunko at the time of their release in Japan. After Tomita’s death,
Hon no Mirai Kikin (The Future of the Book Foundation; http://honnomirai.net) wasestablished in order to support the activities of Aozora Bunko into the future.

Any information placed on the web must coexist
with an overwhelming volume of otherinformation, much of which is available at nocost. If you want someone to read your book, youhave to get them to select your book from among
everything else on offer. As with the small
miracle it takes to get a shopper to look at yourbook in a brick-and-mortar store, you can’t reallyexpect your book to be discovered through asearch engine.

main.html?cid=56499), Michio Tomita says, “Thebook is now something up there in the sky, just
waiting for someone to begin reading it.”Just as the “Blue Sky Library” began with only
five titles but has grown to over 12,000, yoursingle ebook is the start of something bigger for
you as well.

As I wrote before, all media are essentially an
extension of our native ability to communicate.
Person-to-person communication is built on astrong foundation of trust. It’s impossible to say
how many books I’ve read because they wererecommended to me by a friend. I’ve also oftenbought books on-site after going to hear a lecture
I was interested in. These are purchases I’ve
made because a direct connection was establishedbetween the author—or someone else who knows
the book first hand—and myself. When it comesto discoverability, your connections with those
who know you and your ebook are your strongest
asset. Since the ability to offer sample sections,as well as the utter simplicity of going frompurchase to actually reading the book, are bothsuperior to print-based books, you should be able
to use these connections to help people discoverand read your book.

Books Rooted in Person-to-Person Connections
Thanks to the nature of my work, I have had
occasion to read a great many ebooks. Natsuhiko
Kyōgoku’s novel Shineba ii noni (Why Don’t You
Just Die). Atsuo Inoue’s biography Kokorozashi
takaku: Son Masayoshi seiden (High Ideals: An
Authorized Biography of Masayoshi Son). Dan
Kogai’s self-help book Dangen (Dan Says).
Shūhō Satō’s manga Burakku Jakku ni yoroshiku(Say Hello to Black Jack). Takao Saitō’s manga
Sabaibaru (Survival). Natsumi Iwasaki’s highschool novel Moshi kōkō yakyū no joshi manejā
ga Dorakkā no “Manejimento” o yondara (If theGirl Manager for a High School Baseball Team
Looked for Advice in Peter Drucker’s
Management). And so on.
My motivation for reading these ebooks was notquite the same as it might be for the generalreader. To be precise, I read them in the course ofhelping to produce them, or while researching theebook products being turned out by othercompanies. Would I have read them apart fromthese circumstances? It’s hard to say. But themore important question may be: Would I havebeen able to find them?

The Six Essential Characteristics of Electronic
Books: “EBOOKS”
Every one of us possesses a unique store ofknowledge and experiences and viewpoints that
only we can write about. I challenge you tochannel your thoughts and feelings about these
into an ebook, using your own words. I can7

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scarcely imagine how much the circulation ofsuch books over the Internet will enrich oursociety. I’m eager to read the ebooks into which
each of you has poured your creativity andoriginality. And I’m eager to exchange views withyou through such books, and to deepen my own
thinking. It’s because they embody these kinds ofpossibilities that ebooks have the power to enrich
our society with their light.

up the challenge without worrying about suchthings. Publishing is most fundamentally about
expressing yourself. Organize your thoughts
around an issue you’d like to raise, shape theminto a book, and put it out there for the world toread. The greatest attraction of ebooks is that any
of us can do this, acting on a purely individuallevel, turning our own personal memories andexperiences into something that has lasting shape.

I wrote earlier about how each advance in
hardware made our ebooks obsolete, and it began
to make me think, “What’s so great about
electronic publishing anyway?” Above all else,
ebooks must be lasting. But we have learned fromour mistakes that there are also a number of otherqualities we must not forget, which I willsummarize here using the mnemonic of“EBOOKS”:

That is, if we will voice our views in writing, andupload them. In the Internet age, each of us is nolonger merely a consumer of information. We
must not be satisfied as mere consumers. We all
have a responsibility to inform one another, bysetting down what we have witnessed anddispatching what we know to the world.
What any single one of us can dispatch is small.
But to my mind, that’s precisely what makes
ebooks, which we can produce entirely on ourown, a tool I can use. It’s the perfect means ofexpressing those things we personally want tounderstand and communicate to others—for
saying those things we feel most need to be said.

Eternity: Ebooks must be capable of being
stored, recorded, and displayed in perpetuity.
Borderless: Ebooks must be accessible globally,both in terms of marketplace and in terms of thedevices on which they can be viewed.
Open: The technology and format must make useof an open standard.
Originality: The system must foster publicationof new and original content.
Knowledge: Ebooks should be filled withknowledge and experiences worth preserving.
Social: Ebooks should build on and encourageconnections between authors and readers.

*1 We were only familiar with the iPod Touch at the time because the iPhone was
not released in Japan until the App Store opened.
*2 ¥ 1000 is roughly $10.
*3 E
 nglish books can be submitted in .docx format, but KDP does not currently
support .docx format for vertical Japanese text.

We have media as an extension of our own native
powers of communication, and we have books asa medium that anyone can use. In the final
analysis, a book is in effect a container, and an
ebook is no different. Only a few short years ago,
we did not yet have convenient portable display
devices such as smartphones. Reading required
special equipment. It really wasn’t possible to say
ebooks were the same as print books. But things
are different now. Handheld devices that connect
to the Internet can be had for as little as a few
thousand yen.

Junko Kamata

Born in 1957. She worked at Pioneer LDC,
where she was involved in bringing theLaserDisc to market as well as the productionof multimedia content, before helping foundVoyager Japan, Inc., in 1992. She produces
CD-ROMs and web content, and has also been
engaged in the development and sale ofelectronic publishing tools. She was named
president of Voyager Japan in October, 2013.

If you want to produce a print book, you will
always have to calculate costs. But withelectronic books, you can make the leap and take8

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Book, Internet and RomancerFreelance Technology Writer

Kazutoshi Otani❖ Spread of Media; the Key is its
Immediacy and Interactivity

media for people to enjoy a story, analyzed
differences between each of these media
according to the three axes and discussed why
people were devoted to computer game.

It is very interesting to see the long years of
evolution of book from the viewpoint of Alan
Kay’s analogy with the relationship between
media and people.

According to him, a play performed live has themost amount of information because players andaudiences share the same place, and the play is
performed in front of the audiences. The realismof a play overwhelms those of others.

As you know, Alan Kay was called as the fatherof the idea of personal computer. His capacity asa “prodigy” is described in the section of “TheComputer Revolution Begins From Now On” in
Hagino Masaaki no Funbare Digital! (Masaaki
Hagino’s Keep On, Digital!) (http://r.binb.jp/epm/
e1_2707_03052014040622; this book is inJapanese) published by Mr. Masaaki Hagino of
Voyager Japan, Inc. on Kikan Hon to Computer(Quarterly Magazine Book and Computer) andonly recently digitized by Romancer for everyone
to read easily. I really recommend you to read.

On the other hand, in order to watch a play,audiences have to go to the only theater where
specific players perform. In addition, as thetimetable is fixed, the play is not necessarily
available in the time and place convenience foraudiences. In that sense, play lacks immediacy.
Furthermore, it is not interactive because thestory goes on independently of audiences.
In contrast, a film secures certain amounts of
information thanks to being projected on a large
screen, though its realism is not up to those of aplay. In order to watch a film, it is necessary to
go to a cinema at a certain time but theaters arelocated in various places so that audiences canselect one according to their convenience. In
comparison with a play, a film compromises withaudiences on immediacy, although it is still notinteractive in terms of the progress of the story.
In addition, a TV drama (including video tapeetc.) has far less realism than a film and has
limited amount of information. However, its
immediacy is much higher because audiences canwatch it by setting a channel in their housewithout going to somewhere. Also, it has a little
interactive essence in the sense that althoughtimetable is fixed, audiences can record a dramaby recording device to play it when they want toHagino Masaaki no Funbare Digital!
(Masaaki Hagino’s Keep On, Digital!)
By Masaaki Hagino

In the relationship between media and people,
what this Alan Kay gave attention is the balance
between the amount of visual information, andthe immediacy, and the interactivity. He took up
play, film, TV drama and computer game as9

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ink became the value of the books that taught
religious values to readers and leaved the values
in history.

watch after broadcast and can fast-forward, fastreverse and pose the story as necessary.
As for computer game, particularly in the earlyyears, resolution was so low that the amount ofvisual information was really limited. However, it
surpassed every other past media by immediacy
to play whenever you want to play and wherever
there is a game console and by high interactivity
for audience (player) to commit the progress ofthe story.

At the same time, these books which were as
valuable as jewelry were available for only
limited few people. In addition, they have to go
to the place where the books were kept in order toread them. In other words, the books had no
immediacy and were unrelated to interactivity forreaders and writers to communicate.
The Name of the Rose written by Umberto Eco
and adapted to a movie describes a scene inwhich an important manuscript is burnt to theground together with the building keeping it as
the climax, which means not mere destruction ofa book by fire, but killing of a culture or ahistory.

In his time, computer game software itself wasstill distributed in the shape of cartridge etc.
However, now download via the Internet became
the mainstream to increase immediacy.
From this analysis, Kay concluded that people
were attracted to media with high immediacy andinteractivity even if the amount of information
would decrease. Of course, it has no connection
with superiority or inferiority of each media. For
example, play and film is still supported because
audiences find out other attractiveness such as its
high realism and eventness for which they go to
specific place at fixed time and share experienceswith other people.

By the way, it is interesting that regardless of its
high value, in some medieval manuscripts there
are complaints written by monks who were in
charge of production of the copy to tell theirhardships (http://tinyurl.com/7p663n4).
According to this website, there are the following
words which tell that the monks were also
human: “Thank God, it will soon be dark (aftersunset).” (Note by author: Copying was done indaytime), “The parchment is hairy” (Theparchment is too rough to write.), “Now I’ve
written the whole thing: for Christ’s sake give mea drink” (release from a hard work), “Writing is
excessive drudgery. It crooks your back, it dims
your sight, it twists your stomach and your sides”(I’m worn out.) and “Let the reader’s voice honor
the writer’s pen” (let the readers know this❖ Evolution of the Form of Book andthe Relationship with People
Now, looking back on the evolution of book, it
was Italian monks in the beginning of 6th century
who created the original form of the concept ofmodern book. They made copies of lectionary
with a quill on a large parchment. They covered
the bundle of pages bound by leather strap with apiece of leather to make a jacket and added ithigh decorativeness by decorating it with metal
fittings and gems on the surface. Written
characters themselves had detail like an
ornamental design focusing on medieval sense of
beauty rather than readability for which theyspent from half a year to a year to produce a few
pages.
As a result, not only the contents but also all
information included the books such as the touchof parchment, the majestic binding andcalligraphy of handwriting with various kind of

The handwritten manuscript boundto the desk with chains not to bebrought out (Cesena, Italy)

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and simplification of binding and to improvereadability by simple fonts. However, thecommon thing for both types is a trend to focus
on the content itself.
As mentioned above, a book originally had avalue not only in the contents written but also inthe part of container of information. It can be said
that spending many centuries, and supported bydevelopment of technologies, a book has reachedto the phase where it aims to communicate theessential parts of the information to the reader.
(Left) Gutenberg Bible (colored ornamental characters and ornamental line were
handwritten)(Right) Incunabula = printed book in the 15th century (see the metal ornamental
protection parts and binding parts)

Besides, the immediacy for which you can get abook as you like by going to nearby bookstore or
library, or by ordering by mail order to get it in
one or two days can be located between the film
and the TV drama in the example of media above.

hardness).
After such a situation continued for a long time,
Gutenberg’s printing method in the middle of the
15th century caused popularization of paper
books which are easier to use than parchment.
However, early printed books known as
incunabula were very few; although the numberof the places where the books of the same content
were available increased, those who knew theexistence of them were very few at all. The books
were for the limited privileged classes.

❖ Realization of the Immediate
Communication by the Internet
The development of book distribution system has
reduced the limit of time and space for readers to
obtain contents and has improved the immediacy
to some extent. However, as for the interactivity,
there were few improvements.
As for the communication between the sender andthe receiver of the information, the reader could
only send a fan letter using the existing postal
system, and the editor could only insert aquestionnaire postcard to get a feedback of
popular articles or to receive an opinion orcomment to the contents.

The transition from copied manuscripts to printed
books caused the information of handwritten
letters’ nuance lost, while the books were still
unrelated to the interactivity, though its
immediacy had improved a little in the earlyyears.

By the way, few people know what the British
Empire dealt with after establishing the modern
production system by the Industrial Revolution.
In fact, the people of British Empire who
possessed the colonies all over the world and thevast territory called as the empire on which thesun never sets tried to develop a worldwide
communication network as fast as possible toconnect all of them.

It is only in recent times that mass printing era
has come and bookstores have opened here andthere so that paper books became popular astreasure trove of knowledge close to readers. A
deluxe edition can be considered as a successorof the past incunabula but popular magazines,
hardcovers and paperbacks have undergone anevolution according to different goals.
For example, magazines try to be interesting forreaders by including a lot of photos andillustrations and using attractive layouts andcolors. On the other hand, hardcovers andpaperbacks aim to reduce costs by standardization

Also, in the Civil War in the United States, it wasa great factor for the army of the North to win at
the end that the headquarters could grasp thecondition of the front by its communication11

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network so that they could send arms and bullets
appropriately.

Website, blog and SNS reflect the result ofwriting immediately and enable the sender andthe receiver of the information to exchange
massages between each other on a comment
section. Now human acquired a completely
immediate and interactive communication method
to express them freely.

Although its function and users were far more
limited than those of the present, realization ofhigh-speed communication by the communication
network to connect major cities on the earth
enabled people to obtain necessary information
quickly to utilize it for their life and work as wellas national strategy.

❖ What is the Difference between
Website, Blog and SNS and Book?
However, website, blog and SNS were not “abook”.

However, the information which can be handled
on the communication network was basicallylimited to texts and the exchange of theinformation was limited for 1 to 1 or 1 to many.
In addition, it was necessary to go to limited basestation to send or receive the information.

I wrote simply that “was not ‘a book’” but I think
you readers began to wonder “what is ‘a book’?”I examined a dictionary Daijirin to find “a book”
is “a volume or publications”. Then what is “avolume”? It means “a book or publications”; also,“publications” are “a book or a volume”. It’s justwasting of time.

In contrast, the progress of the technologies gavebirth to the information infrastructure to send andreceive multimedia data including image, soundand movie for many to many at your home andoffice. This is the Internet which has gradually
got popularized since the middle of 1990’s andhas become established as a nearly essential
existence now.

On the other hand, a dictionary Koujien defines“a book (publications)” as “written or printed
letters and figures bound in a volume”; adictionary Meikyo Kokugo Jiten says “edited andprinted texts, figures, photos etc. bound in a
volume”.

In particular the WWW (World Wide Web)
designed by Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee et al.
created a system for everyone to have electricalinformation pages (websites) on the net. In
addition, it popularized web log in short blog forindividuals to leave diary-like records in astandardized form and SNS (Social Networking
Service) to create virtual community whereregistered users exchange their latest news andcomments to them.

Also, the standard expediently adopted by
UNESCO in 1964 to collect statistics describes abook as “a non-periodical printed publication ofat least 49 pages, exclusive of the cover pages.”
In addition, Shuppan Jiten (Publication
Encyclopedia) released by Shuppan News Co.,
Ltd. in 1971 defines book (publications) as “1.
Letters, figures, photos etc. are included ascontents expressed for communication”, “2. The
contents are printed on pages”, “3. The pages arebound not to break up and have both contents andcovers” and “4. It has a certain amount ofcontents (non-routine publications including morethan 50 pages excluding covers).”
As you notice, these definitions have become old
because it is assumed that books are “printed”
and “bound” thing. Besides, it seems meaninglessto prescribe page number precisely.

Alan Kay considered the relationship between media and people from thethree axes

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However, we can pick up the essence according
to the actual circumstances: It includes “letters,
figures, photos etc. edited and brought together”.

contains about 1,000 letters per a page, 1 topic ona page and 1 theme for several pages. Also, thesender of the contents sometimes develops a topic
in a quick tempo considering the reader may readfrom the middle or read only a part. In otherwords, as for website, contents are usuallycreated to give the information fast rather than let
the reader read thoroughly.

A dictionary Shinmeikai Kokugo Jiten seems tohave captured these definitions from the time of
paper books, or have reached to a universal
definition. It defines a book as “written (printed)
things brought together for people to read”.
Though there is no mention to figures and photos
here, it is natural that they include elements otherthan letters which help to understand because
they are “things for people to read”.

On the other hand, as for blog, in particular ablog based on a hobby, it is not rare case that longtexts are contained in a page and the content isrich. However, due to the layout, there are somecases it is not suit to read a long text, or evenworse, reading is painful.

Also, () in a part of “printed” means that it is notnecessary to be printed; if only written, it can bea book. Printing is not a necessary condition.

Needless to say, both of them are based on lateral
text. Even though the writer wants to provide
vertical texts according to the contents, it requires
some know-how, or it is impossible for somesystems.

In contrast, the part of “brought together” isessential. In other words, it is necessary that “thecontents are carefully considered with an intent”
and to “have a composition to communicate theinformation the writer wants the reader to read in
the most effective way”, not to simply write down
ideas. This point is consistent with the essence ofother dictionaries’ definitions: “edited andbrought together”.

However, even these contents can bereconstructed from the viewpoint of an editor,
have a readable layout and be released as a bookto actually achieve success. From this point, we
can understand the importance of “edit” and how
to “bring” the contents “together” in “a book”.

In the light of these points, let’s answer to thequestion again: “what is a book?” The answer is“a thing for people to read written with letters,
figures and photos, edited to communicate theintent effectively and bound together.” One topic
may be developed in several pages. It may take a
few hours to read the whole of the theme.

How about SNS? It is a place to send/note ideas
on each occasion, notable information or
happenings occurring in front of the writer now
and then, so it lacks continuous development or
nature of story; it is different from “a book” atall.

Kevin Kelly, the past editor of legendary Whole
Earth Catalog and WIRED, said: “‘A book’means not a substitute, but a topic or a narrative(narration/story) continuously developed” (http://
wired.jp/2012/01/28/future-of-reading-kevinkelly/).

Due to popularization of the Internet, the time hascome when everyone can release information
easily to express themselves. However, it does
not give complete satisfaction as a platform to
read/let the reader read.

❖ Romancer Fills the Gap between“Net” and “Book”

At the same time, he added that so far as heexperienced, the duration of the reader’s interestis several minutes for an ordinary webpage;
however, nearly 10 hours is not unusual for abook.

This insufficiency has been filled with hardware
and software of so-called eBook readers. Such a
special device or viewer app enables to instantly
download and read a necessary book (if it is on
the selling list), utilizing the immediacy realized

On the basis of this, an ordinary website often
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by the Internet. The item sold there is the content
worthy of reading for a long time which has aformat of “a book” mentioned in this article.

until just before its release and can do revision
after the release; it is even possible to change thestatus of the book to non-released.

In contrast, it lacks the freedom for the sender ofthe content to upload information on their own
and release it in real time on a popular browser,
like freedom of website, blog and SNS. Also, thereader has to make a registration to a certain
service and provide some personal informationeven if they want to read free contents.

Besides, if I may mention a personal wish for
Romancer, I’d like to say its interactivity should
be more enriched since it is a web service.
Concretely, even now the author and the reader
can share a book with comment for a book but it
is ideal that they can do that in more detail for aparagraph like CommentPress (http://
futureofthebook.org/commentpress/). If this wererealized, it is sure that the meaning of reading
utilizing eBook will reach an unprecedented
level.

That is inevitable for enclosure strategy ofbusiness, or for provision with highly advanced
technologies but incompatible with the needs torelease/read a book freely regardless of businessor non-business.

Of course, Romancer is provided like a web app
based on cloud service; even if such an upgradewere carried out, users can utilize new functions
instantly and seamlessly without an operationsuch as upgrading. This is a great merit.

Romancer can be regarded as an eBookpublication tool to fill the gap and give the author
and the reader the best immediacy and freedom. I
have published a short work Concep-tou Tuushin
Tokubetsu-gou (Concep-tou Report Special
Edition) (http://r.binb.jp/epm/
e1_2808_12052014071742; this book is inJapanese) by Romancer and I was moved by its
easiness for which the author only have to set
captions etc. on familiar Word file and to provide
images of a cover and figures to read it as “abook” on major web browsers after a few
minutes.

By the way, as for the publication environment in
the near future, Kevin Kelly mentioned above
expected appearance of a new format and says:
Longer than an article on a magazine and shorter
than a book; there will be a business chance.
Romancer is of course capable to publication ofeBook of every length. In addition, it enables torelease a book in real time at ease and to make arevision easily. From these characteristics, I think
Romancer is the technology nearest to theplatform for such a new article.

Kazutoshi Otani

Born in 1958. He has written on various media
as a technology writer. He has interviewed
Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak. The
director of AssistOn in Harajuku and vicemanager of NPO entity MOSA. The author ofApple no Mirai (The Future of Apple), Seikou
Suru Kaisha ha Naze “Shashin” o Daiji niSuru Noka (Why Does Successful Company
Take Good Care of “Photo”) etc.

Concep-tou Tuushin Tokubetsugou (Concep-tou Report Special
Edition)By Kazutoshi Otani

The author can control everything; so they tend to
devote themselves to detailed adjustments. This isinevitable, but from the viewpoint of the author itis really attractive that they can adjust their works
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American Book Publishing Industry: What is possible andwhat has changed

Editor: BookJam Books



Takashi Hata
OR Books publishes its books using the Internet
only. This publishing company doesn’t use any
traditional distribution channels - OR Books
publishes digital on demand books and EBooks
exclusively.

Almost every morning, I go to one of three cafes
I like and drink the first cup of java and read thenews of the day. I check my “Things To Do” list
and start working. I am an expatriate of Japanliving in New York. Most of the time my work
involves interviewing editors and writers, andwriting articles. I write about the American
literary world, and as I have been doing this for along time, I have accumulated some knowledgeof the U.S. publishing industry, which is facing
new challenges and new technologies. Where willthese changes bring the industry? I’ll explore thisin this article.

My interviews with them can be read here in fullin Japanese (John Oakes: http://bit.ly/johnoakes;
Colin Robinson: http://bit.ly/colinrobinson). My
first thought going into these interviews was: Is it
possible for a company to survive only by
publishing books on the Internet?
John and Colin share the same mindset about thispoint. To their thinking, the traditional publishingmethod of printing, distributing, and sellingbooks is coming to the end. They say publishingas we’ve known it is either ending or radicallychanging. They believe they have set up OR
Books in the best way possible to go forward andpublish books that they value.

❖ One answer provided by OR Books
6th Avenue runs through Greenwich Village in
New York. Crossing the avenue and going south
into the maze of small streets of the Village, youwill come upon Varick Street, which later
becomes 7th Avenue as it heads north towards
midtown. The offices of OR Books are on thisstreet.
OR Books was founded by two veteran editors.
John Oakes, who worked for Grove Press, cofounded Four Walls Eight Windows, and was the
publisher of Thunder’s Mouth. His partner, Colin
Robinson, is a former senior editor at Scribnerand a publisher of New Press. The “OR” of OR
Books comes from the first initials of their lastnames.

John Oakes

I was lucky enough to interview both of them. I
met them on separate occasions, and each of theinterviews was memorable. Their personalities
and resumes are impressive, but their fresh
approach to the publishing industry made thegreatest impression on me.

Colin Robinson

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school in Manhattan.

They both have extensive experience in theAmerican publishing world and Colin isknowledgeable about the industry in the UK too.
Both of them know the traditional publishingprocess very well: a book idea is proposed, thebook goes through the editing process, andapproximately a year later the book is actually
published. Copies are sent out to booksellers, asmany copies as possible are sold, and then theunsold copies come back and the publisher isstuck with the remainders.

One day, I brought my tape recorder to his
Tribeca apartment and interviewed him.
The full text of this interview can be read here in
Japanese (http://bit.ly/dansimon). The impression
I got from this interview was similar to theimpression I had after meeting with Gary
Fisketjon, the American editor of Haruki
Murakami.

“It was a very frustrating, sad and wastefulprocess,” said John. In so many cases, even thebest titles suffered this fate.
They started this new style of publishing house,
OR Books, because they felt the there is need fora new way to do things.
“Colin and I, we’d never worked together before,
but we had an idea to set up a company together.
As we were talking, we realized we had to find a
new way to publish, a way to start fresh, strippingaway the traditional methods and find a new
approach to managing the publishing process andproducing books.”

Gary Fisketjon

I remember Fisketjon’s words when I asked him
whether book sales in the US are in a state of
decline. He referred to the bestseller “ColdMountain” and said, “‘Cold Mountain’ won the
National Book Award and sold 1.2 million copies.
But this figure represents only 0.5 percent of theAmerican population. I believe there are more
people reading fiction out there.”That’s how they came up with the idea to start
OR Books.
“In my view, one of the exciting things happening
right now, and also one of the frightening things,
is that there are a million paths to success for
publishers. Five or ten years ago there was one
way to publish. A fuller spectrum of possibilities
is available to us now.” said John.

He said there should be a continued emphasis on
selling books, publishing good books and making
an effort to publicize and let people know of theexistence of these books.

Is American publishing truly changing? And if so,
how? This is very interesting question for me as
well.

Fisketjon’s words echo the current sentiment in
the book industry among American editors: they
do not feel much of a sense of crisis regarding thefuture of book sales. Unlike the situation in
Japan, the American book industry is not in“recession”. According to figures released by
BookStats, the Association of American
Publishers/Book Industry Study Group statistics
program, trade book sales rose 6.9% to $15.05
billion in 2012. And total book sales rose 1.0% in2013 over 2012, to $15.05 billion, according to❖ The challenge for publishers isn’t
digitalSeven Stories Press is a mid-size publisher thatpublishes Kurt Vonnegut and Noam Chomsky. I
became friends with the publisher, Dan Simon,
because our sons attend the same elementary16

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the 1,211 publishers who report results to the
Association of American Publishers’ StatShot
program.*1

Print:The American book industry may not inrecession, however, the commodity composition
and the sales methods are changing greatly.

1. In-store display / on-shelf / spinning rack
2. Friend / relative recommendation
3. Bestseller list
4. Online: author’s site

eBook:

1. Friend / relative recommendation
2. Online: read excerpt / sample
3. Online: retailer recommendation
4. Bestseller list
5. Online: email from retailer

HOW DO CONSUMERS LEARN ABOUT BOOKS?

“New Public” published figures for net revenues
for U.S. trade books. According to their findings,
the net revenue of hard covers fell $5.2 billion to$5.1 billion from 2008 to 2012. Paperback net
revenue also fell from $5billion to $4.9billion in
the same period. On the other hand, the net
revenue for eBooks in the same period increased
by $64 million to $3.1 billion.*2

Source: Bowker Market Research

this “direct relationship” magic formula, and heintends to find it.
This is the issue of “Discoverability”, and thedifference in how people find out information
about print book vs eBooks. Bowker Market
Research has published some interesting data.*4

Tom Weldon, UK chief executive of Penguin
Random House, says “Some commentators say
the publishing industry is in enormous trouble
today. They are completely wrong, and I don’t
understand that view at all.”*3❖ The formula that “sells” eBooks

After the mega-merger of Penguin and Random
House last year, Penguin Random House now has
15,000 writers. Weldon says book publishers havemanaged the digital transition better than any
other media or entertainment industry.

In the last few years eBooks have produced
skyrocketing sales figures. For example inFebruary 2011, eBook total sales were up 202%
compared to the same month a year earlier, but by
2013 sales had slowed down. eBooks now
account for about 30% of all adult trade booksales. However, this figure does not include selfpublished eBooks, an important segment of theAmerican publishing industry that is expected tocontinue growing.

“In the last four years, Penguin and Random
House had the best years in their financial
history” says Weldon.
Penguin UK has 700,000 followers on Twitter,and every month 2,500 customers open an email
from Penguin UK.

Most traditional publishing houses don’t list
eBooks that are priced under $4 for fear that thecheaper eBook prices will affect print bookprices. These publishers seem to have given overthe eBook market for titles below the $4 pricepoint to self-publishers and independent
publishers.

Weldon says, “The challenge isn’t digital: It is,
how do you tell people about the next great
book.”
Amazon uses customers search history to create“recommendations”. Weldon thinks publishers
have to do something more personal.

It is also likely that self-published titles by
famous authors will increase. The reason for thisis the increase is royalties that authors can enjoy.
The going standard royalty rate for eBooks at
traditional publishers is 25% of the list price andthis is unlikely to change in the future. However,
if an author self-publishes a book, he or she could“Where do they (our readers) hang out, what dothey like, how do we talk to them?” Weldon
thinks publishers have to know much more about
their readers. The company is still looking for17

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reading devices increases, the number of eBook
readers is likely to grow. However, most people
who read eBooks also read print books, and only
4% of them read eBook exclusively, according to
Pew Research.*6 This figure suggests that ownersof digital devices read both eBooks and print
books and both will co-exist in the market.

potencially realize a return of up to 70% of thesales price (although rates will vary by site).
So if an author has a large established base ofreaders already, self-publishing may provide him
or her with a real financial advantage. On theother hand, self-publishing has its own
challenges. An author may not be able to develop
the strong marketing resources provided by large
publishing houses, such as Penguin UK. Anotherissue is that an author may not have the goodediting support and name recognition associatedwith major publishers. Therefore, not every
author will be jumping on the self-publishingbandwagon right away, but some authors will be
tempted for sure. This may enhance the relatively
poor image of self-publishing in the near future.

❖ Publishers find new ways to publish
books
I have looked at the present and the future of theAmerican publishing industry by looking at hard
data to discern possible trends. Overall trends
suggest that the price of a “book” will continue todecline, while on he other hand, as digitaltechnology progresses more people will bereading “books” in various formats.

But this changing landscape is not all bad news
for publishers. As the annual growth of eBooks
sales settles down to around 30% for the next few
years, publishing houses will have an easier timeplanning their sales strategies. Only a few years
ago publishing houses were in panic mode,
wondering openly “ What is going to happen?”“What can we do?” in the new digital
environment that they faced. But now things aremuch calmer, and the panic phase is over.

One of editors who is experiencing this new
publishing environment is John Oakes.
“When I was working at traditional publishers, all
the actions happened in the first 6 weeks. Put abook out into the stores, and you know very
quickly that you are going to be stuck with a lotof unsold copies.” said John.
But at his new publishing venture, OR Books, theselling pattern is different.

Then where do readers buy their books, and whatgenres of eBooks sell well?

“I would call it ‘Slow Burn’. You can put a bookout into the stores, and you will know very
quickly if you’re going to be stuck with a lot of
unsold copies. But this, you can put a book out
and it can be a gradual build up. We end up
netting maybe after a year or two, I think we domuch better than we would have been than
traditionally. It’s hard to compare the two,
because obviously if I had a book now I can’t say
how the exact same book would have done. It’s
something already occurred, so I cannot bescientific about it, but this is my strong sense
after 25 years of publishing experience.”

According to a Bowker survey of readers over 13
years old in 2012 and the first quarter of 2013,
paperbacks accounted for 45% of all book sales,
and hardcovers accounted for 27%. eBook’s
themselves figured in at 22% of sales andaudiobooks claimed only 2%.
If you take a look further into these hard data,
42% of readers buy books from internet sites, and
15% of them buy from chain bookstores.
Independent bookstores account for 6% and massmerchandisers account for 6% also. As for thesales of eBooks, you will see romance novels sellwell, as well as young adult and children’s books,
according to The New York Times.*5

OR Books’ basic strategy is to sell their books
directly to readers. OR Books has little
involvement with bookstores, nor do they sell
books at a discount, unlike other publishers in the

As ownership of both tablet computers and eBook18

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United States. OR Books doesn’t allow returns orremainders either.

segment of the books sales market. The Americanbook industry is changing for sure.

However, OR Books has its own sales problem.
Because OR Books was not set up to publish
blockbuster books, but to publish smaller books
that fit with the publishers values and vision, OR
Books sometimes experiences insufficient booksales.

John Oakes says, “I’m not anti-print, or not evenpro-digital. It seems to me that our business as
publishers is to get the contents to the readers
efficiently and as the readers would like it. In a
way we are sort of servants to the readers and toauthors.”

On the other hand, because OR Books has noreturns, the publishing house doesn’t experiencecash flow issues. When OR Books acquires
books, it also acquires the foreign sub rights. The
sales of translation/publishing sub rights toforeign and domestic publishing house accounts
for about 1/3 of OR Books total sales.

Authors, editors, and publishing houses have new
ways to deliver books to readers in their hands
now. As the publishing world adapts to andadopts new digital technology that is changing
rapidly, it is exciting to think about what the
future holds for publishers, readers, and authors.

OR Books has embraced one method for
publishing books in this new environment, butthere are other companies approaching publishingusing different models.

References:* 1 Publishers Weekly: http://bit.ly/pw_vj* 2 The New Republic: http://bit.ly/nr_vj* 3 the Guardian: http://bit.ly/tg_vj

One such publishing house is Rosenfeld Media
Books in Brooklyn. Their approach is to use
books as a gateway to the total UX (User
Experience). They publish books written byexperts in specific fields, then actively work to“brand” the authors. They develop seminars, offer
consulting, and organize classes and special
events from there. Their approach is to generate aripple effect from the initial publishing activity.

* 4 RAMDOM NOTES(Bowker Market Research): http://bit.ly/rn_vj* 5 New York Times: http://bit.ly/vyt_vj* 6 Pew Research: http://bit.ly/pew_vj

Another approach is to offer unlimited access tobooks on the Internet. Companies such as Scribd
and Oyster charge members around $10 a monthfor the access rights to their book library. Oyster
has signed on a few major publishing houses,
such as HarperCollins and Disney, but how to
expand collaboration with other major publishinghouses is a challenge for this business model. But
this so-called “Netflix model” of books sales is adefinite player in the current American bookindustry scene.

Takashi Hata

Born in Tokyo. After working as a reporter andeditor, he started “American Book Jam”, aliterary magazine, in New York introducing theAmerican literary scene to a Japanese audience.
He has published several books. His articles
have appeared in Japanese media such as Asahi
Shimbun, Aera Magazine, Pen Magazine. He
lives in New York.

We’ve taken a look at various aspects ofAmerican publishing. Digital devices that allow areader to read a “book” on a screen continue tosell, and eBooks have become an important19

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Let Us Seize the MediumFounder, Voyager Japan, Inc.



Masaaki Hagino❖ The Loneliness of the Isolated Voiceof the isolated voice standing up to be heard. You canraise your voice, you can shout at the top of your lungs,
but good luck getting any response. Every such person
experiences the deep loneliness of having something to
say and trying to be heard. And yet as if driven by some
innate force, they feel compelled to speak out, to try toconnect with others. To me, this archetypal image holds
the key to what publishing needs to become.

There are a variety of mass media in our possession thatcan be used for communicating ideas or advocating
causes to large audiences. But the powers that control
dissemination rest within the realm of established big
media. You could even say we are at their mercy. If wewish to depend on no one, and to bring disseminationof our ideas closer to home, we quickly discover thatour powers are severely limited.

Media coverage is often triggered not by the content ofwhat is being said but by images of the size of thecrowd that can be placed in the newspaper or on video
screens. This fosters a tendency to simply grasp things
as a whole, to take the gross view instead of delving
into the meat of the argument, and to determine thenarrative by superficial likes and dislikes. Driving thistrend is the big lie of media “neutrality.” Everystatement has a point of view—no communication cantake place without one. Furthermore, points of view
cannot easily be unified, tending instead toward
pluralism. Yet, the media try to gloss this over and seek
the safety of numbers—as if to say they are only doing
their proper job when they use sheer overwhelming
volume as proof that they are reflecting the broader
public opinion. That is the nature of the age we live in.
Still, I wish to be one of those voices standing up to beheard.

No matter how large of a crowd a politician may draw
when he parks his sound truck in front of a station to
give his stump speech, there are obvious limits to how
many people his voice can reach. I often used to comeupon the leader of a well-known right-wing politicalgroup shouting over loudspeakers at the Sukiyabashi
intersection near Ginza or in front of Shinbashi Station.
With his sun-darkened pate and flashing eyes, he ranted
on and on about the Red Menace, waving his arm,gesturing frequently toward a large cloth banner behind
him showing a map of the world with broad swatchesof countries splashed in red. But for all the intensity ofhis performance, he drew little attention frompedestrians as they streamed by to left and right. Any
actual dissemination of message must have beenminuscule compared to the amount of energy
expended.

❖ When the Book Was Our Best Friend

My long-time friend and colleague Bob Stein was a
Maoist. He distributed political fliers at the gates ofColumbia University every day. The vast majority of
the fliers were destined to be dropped into trash bins
without being read. He nevertheless continued passing
them out in the hope that a phrase here or there mightcatch someone’s eye and kindle interest, but the almost
complete lack of response was disheartening.

German literary scholar and media critic Friedrich A.
Kittler noted that “the book became both film and recordaround 1800—not as a media technological reality, but
in the imaginary of the readers’ souls,”*1 The bookoriginally came to power and glory as a medium throughwhich bodies of data far too vast for any individual toremember could flow. With the subsequent invention offilm and the phonograph, our visual and aural senses
came to be serviced by these new forms of media, which
took their place alongside paper as separate avenues for

Although they stand at opposite ends of the political
spectrum, these two examples testify to the frustrations
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expression. Meanwhile, even with the invention of thetypewriter as a new means of writing, the written word
remained bound to the medium of paper.

cash flow. We lost the book as our best friend among
media.
As time went on, I became convinced that the Web
could free us from this impasse. Although it was
obvious that no medium was on our side anymore, had
I not been witness over the last twenty years to a cadreof people who had decamped to the digital world andwere eagerly exploring the possibilities of that medium
under their own power?

For those who wished to “speak out” about something,
the book was long our best friend. It wasn’t flashy, but
it provided us with a modest medium for earnestly
expressing our thoughts and views. That is what thebusiness of publishing has facilitated. Miraisha,
Shōbunsha, Misuzu Shobō, and a host of other small
publishers have over the years brought out many superb
books. But I can discern no sign of growth in theiroperations. I suspect it has something to do with thedestiny of the medium itself—the medium has its own
message. But it’s also clear that this traditional paper
medium no longer provides the platform for activism it
once did. Why? I have yet to find a satisfactory answer.
But as an identifiable phenomenon, it appears to be real.

❖ A Medium That Replaces the TraditionalBook
If you have to worry about the long-term viability of themedium you are using, your argument is likely to suffer.
People should be able to select the medium that fits
their needs quickly and intelligently, without fear.
For the last 22 years, Voyager Japan has been striving tocreate digital publishing tools that people can rely on.
None of our efforts was satisfactory. No matter what we
tried, we could not improve on the paper-based book.
One of the fundamental difficulties was the fact that theability to publish was dependent on and governed byconstantly shifting system and hardware requirements.
The ideal of truly free and independent publication
remained a distant dream.

Bringing a completed movie script to the big screen isno easy feat, requiring a massive investment inproduction staff, equipment, know-how, and othercosts. The scale may be somewhat reduced when
producing for television, but there is the added burdenthat broadcasting over the airwaves requires a special
license. Neither of these is something that just anyone
can decide to do on his own.
By contrast, the book has been more of an equal
opportunity medium that supports a broad range of free
expression. But the medium has been transfigured by an
explosion in the number of titles being published during
the latter decades of the 20th century, and by theattendant rise of a bottom-line mentality. The consensus
has become that a good book is a book that sells, andthe guiding principle in selecting works for publication
has become prospective sales figures rather than
freedom of expression. The primary agent in the act of
speaking out has shifted from writer to publisher.

Something had to change. Finally it hit us that weneeded to free ourselves from all the preconceived
notions we were bringing over from the paper-based
book. We had to stop trying to compete on the aesthetic
level of appearance. If we set aside aesthetics, what are
the other necessary elements of a book? As a package,
the traditional book printed on paper represents acertain kind of perfection. On the one hand, its
marvelous functionality derives in large part from its
fixed shape. No alteration of form or content is possible.
But on the other, the fixed nature of the package places
limits on the metadata that can be attached, such as
notes and cross references the reader may wish to add
in the margins as he digests and assimilates the content.
It is here that electronic publishers need to focus in
pondering the future of the book.

There was always more to publishing than the mere
packaging of a book in the form of sheets of paper
stacked between two covers. Manufacturing a physicalproduct and stocking it for sale means arrangements
must be made for storage and distribution. The
distribution side involves both addition andsubtraction—not just sales, but also returns. When thecomplex dynamic of distribution tilted from an era ofbooming sales to one in which returns eclipsed sales,publishers had to face up to the realities of negative

Further, if the electronic book could be extricated fromits dependence on specific operating systems andhardware and rely instead on the power of the Internet,
it would open up tremendous new horizons. From this21

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challenge remains before us, all we can do is continue
our tireless efforts. Though every challenge comes withrisks, we must not be daunted. Perish the thought! We
are on a journey of discovery!

perspective, it can be considered only natural thatefforts to build a better digital publishing platform
turned to the Web.
Since October, 2010, a series of Books in Browsers(BiB) conferences have been held annually at theInternet Archive, headquartered in San Francisco, as aforum where those with concerns like ours can gather todiscuss the future of the book. One of the driving forces
behind the conference is the notion that the distinction
between the Internet and books is a totally arbitrary one,destined to disappear in the not too distant future.

Tim O’Reilly, president of O’Reilly Media, has been
one of the longstanding voices urging publishers toembrace the digital future. He once spoke about thevalue of new discoveries with a down-home example,
showing a picture with a large number of berries on it.
Noting that some of the berries were poisonous andsome were good to eat, he asked how we know which
ones we can eat and which ones we can’t. His answer
was that a long time ago, someone had the courage tofigure it out and let the rest of us know. *3

The business of ebooks today remains purely an
extension of the business of paper-based books.
Deliberate constraints are placed on the content so that
it will function exactly (and only) the way the content
of a paper book does. Describing this as ebooks tamedby and for publishing interests, Hugh McGuire, aleading speaker at the first BiB conference, went on tolist some of the things that are a matter of course on theInternet but can’t be done, at least not easily, withebooks:

It is not possible to talk about digital publishing inJapan without mentioning the online library Aozora
Bunko (lit. “Blue Sky Library”) — a Japanese analogue
to Project Gutenberg, founded by Michael S. Hart.
Throughout its existence, the library has rested entirelyon the shoulders of unpaid volunteers. An endeavor
undertaken without the promise of monetary
remuneration, on which we depend for sustenance, isamong the riskiest of challenges, yet it is just such aneffort that is making Japan’s literary classics available
to us in digital form. There can be little doubt that thislibrary, now nearing 13,000 titles, was the spark that
ignited other digital publishing efforts in Japan. One
can only imagine who may have gotten the largest
benefit from this remarkable resource.

• copy/paste• link to a specific chapter or page• search for text on the Internet and land on the ebook• leave a comment or feedback in a central place• easily query an API about that ebook• easily search and extract geographic data from an ebook• etc!

McGuire subsequently co-edited a volume of essays byfellow participants in the conference, detailing theirideas about and experiments with digital books. The
collection contains 27 instructive and stimulating
accounts of their various activities. It was published by
O’Reilly Media in 2012 as Book: A Futurist’s
Manifesto, and Voyager Japan brought out a Japaneseedition the following year.*2 The process of creating
this book was itself a bold experiment in digitalpublishing, and gave birth to the PressBooks tool, asystem for making ebooks available on the Web whose
development was spearheaded by McGuire. As a result,the English edition of the book can also be read on the
Web at http://book.pressbooks.com .

The greater the challenge the greater the risk. Instead ofmaking money, you may lose your shirt. Yet, to put it
plainly, it is because we have something to say, to set
down for posterity, without regard to what it may profit
us, that we are able to grapple with the uncertainties
inherent in our path of discovery. It is this desire thatdrives our efforts to determine what shape the brave
new world of books will take. In our time, a tremendous
variety of efforts have sprung up to make one thing or
another accessible via the Web, and with each
additional effort that arises in response, the circle
continues to widen. The book must join that circle. The
truth of something Hugh McGuire has long asserted isstaring us in the face: without question, it would be
more convenient to readers if books were accessible on
the Web.

We do not yet have a model that persuasively shows
how the digital book can surpass the paper-based book,with its long and distinguished history. But if the22

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❖ We Must Create a Medium of Our Own

have been picked up and relayed to ever broader
audiences by others in their speeches, on websites, andin books and other publications. I believe what has
begun to emerge, though we still see only faintbeginnings, is a determination to work closely withwriters in making digital technologies the means ofpublication.

Who, then, is our best friend? It is not readily apparent.
Powers that make it difficult for us to speak out
continue to hold sway. Any effort to give voice is liable
to elicit the immediate response that we are justordinary folk, mere readers or viewers, with no need to
speak out about anything. Or if we do have that need,it’s on the level of amateur hour. We should be satisfied
venting our spleen in flamewars. That’s about our
speed. It’s only in those terms that we areacknowledged as individuals. But I believe that’s
exactly where the path to becoming an individual who
speaks out begins.

We are in need of a medium of our own. A concerted
effort will be required on our part to cultivate it and set
it on a firm footing. The effort will be rather like the actof standing before a dark and empty square andshouting to an invisible crowd of supporters who may
exist more in our imaginations than in reality—muchlike the right-wing political leader I used to see waving
at his map on the street corner, or my left-wing friend
passing out fliers in front of university gates. But thetime has come when we, too, must start from that
position. The time has come for us to make that standand speak out in our own words.

When we want to give voice to something, whether inwriting or otherwise, I think we are in effect trying torecord or convey the “facts” of life as they have become
known to us in our own personal circumstances andexperience. If saying “facts” seems too categorical,
perhaps “perspectives” will do. They may not represent
objective truth, but they are expressions that springfrom the consciousness of a person on the spot, who
experienced events first hand. At any rate, they are not amatter of strength in numbers. Rather they are acacophony of countless individual voices that simply
disappear into the distance without any response. It isdifficult to conceive of any medium that could record
them all. So should we simply discard them, or should
we find ways to affirm their value? That was the
crossroads at which we found ourselves standing.

As I have already noted, in spite of many twists andturns, Voyager Japan’s efforts to develop an electronic
publishing tool failed to produce an experience that
equaled or exceeded a paper-based book. But we did
not give up. We refused to give up. There was no other
path for us to take. We continued to try different things,
three times, four times. And now we have arrived at a
new publishing tool that we have named “Romancer.”*5
Based on what we learned at the first BiB conference,
Voyager Japan began by shifting its focus fully to the
Web browser as the platform for reading ebooks. We
introduced an ereader under the trade name of “BinB”
on December 8, 2011. Because the browser itself isused for the reading environment, there is no need todownload any special software. There is also no need toworry about this or that online bookseller objecting tosome particular content and shutting a title out of its
app. In this sense, BinB was a clear step forward in thefreedom of ebook expression. Just open your preferred
Web browser on your preferred device, and you can
instantly view any content you wish to view. Thanks to
its utterly intuitive design, BinB has been adopted by anumber of major bookstores and publishers on theirwebsites.

But we discovered that we had a great deal to learn. As
we groped our way through a variety of different
initiatives, we gained valuable lessons. That is how
Aozora Bunko has grown. The ongoing debates being
advanced at the annual BiB conferences have been ofmuch the same nature. As an extension of thisconference came the papers collected in Book: A
Futurist’s Manifesto, and in the time since, additional
work has been carried out in response to several of theexperiments described. It has now become possible topublish in a form accessible to everyone exactly whatkind of discussions took place, what kind of proposals
emerged, and what specific endeavors were undertaken
as a result.*4
All of these developments made use of digitaltechnologies; none could have occurred without them.

But that still left us short of one of our prime goals:
supporting all the lone individuals who wish to speak
out—all those people who have been ignored for

The many different views expressed in these processes
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speak of profits. That will only confuse the issue,
creating mixed motives. Total, unconditional
commitment is our only option. Short of that, any
digital publishing system we achieve will only beworthy of being swept into the dustbin.

lacking the strength of numbers. Although BinB
provides an easy, intuitive interface for reading ebooks
in a Web browser, it also requires that a server system
be maintained to make the books available to readers at
all times. It is not realistic to expect individuals, or evensmall publishers, to maintain such a system.

For each of us, there are things we can and cannot do.
We must each contribute what we can. The only way
forward is by sharing, giving freely—technology hastaught us that we must set this firmly in mind. In our 22
years of grappling with digital publishing at Voyager
Japan, we have learned this all too well. That we eachhave different strengths to offer is clear. Only by joining
hands to develop ever better prototypes together can weadvance the future course of digital publishing.

We therefore developed Romancer as a tool thatenables anybody to publish content on the Web,providing a structure that leaves sale of the content
entirely under the writer’s control. By hitching theirwagon to the Romancer train, writers can transport theircontent to the desired destination—the Web. At thesame time they receive a distributable version of theirbook in the open ebook standard EPUB 3 format. Ifthey wish, they can arrange to sell copies of this EPUB
through major bookstores, or they can establish theirown private publishing operation in cooperation with
Voyager Japan.

*1 Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, Stanford, 1999.
*2 http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920020325.do; http://tt2.me/15294*3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsTpwmCVPZ4❖ Speak Out in a Clear Voice*4 http://dotplace.jp/archives/category/これからの本の話をしよう. Site is in Japanese.

The act of writing, of describing something in words, isa link between the present and the future. It opens up apath by which any of us can contribute to our chosencause. Let our resistance to being brushed aside, andour innate desire to validate our existence, bear fruit inacts of writing. Let the professionals give up theirconceit that only they can write, and stop impugningother people’s writing as a lesser activity. After all,every one of them was once an unknown. Every one ofthem must have endured many a failure before
garnering the spotlight.

*5 Romancer: https://romancer.voyager.co.jp

Masaaki Hagino

Born in Tokyo in 1946, Hagino is founder anddirector of Voyager Japan, Inc. He began his
career in 1970 as a film director. He thenworked on LaserDisc production at Pioneer
Corporation before founding Voyager Japan in
1992. He served as a director of theInternational Digital Publishing Forum from2011 to 2013, and played a role in bringing the
EPUB 3 standard to Japan.

This is not something anyone else can do for us. There
are many fine people of power and authority all aroundus. But we must abandon our habit of simply accepting
what other people hand out. We are quite capable ofcreating the things we need under our own power. At
the very least, let us take full pride in the knowledge wehave gained through our work and our diverse activities
and relationships. After all, that is really all that wehave. And let us express our deepest thoughts by meansof our own medium. Let us speak out in a clear voice.
The paramount mission of every one of us engaged inelectronic publishing is to build a digital medium that
supports and contributes to that kind of expression. A
medium that emboldens those who would write. We
must turn them into standard bearers of the age, resolutein the face of any challenge. This is not the time to

The Book and You—Making the Digital Connection
Original Edition (Japanese) first published on July 2, 2014
English Edition first published on October 20, 2014
Cover Design: Koga Hirano
Translator: Wayne Lammers, Takashi Hata, Narumi Sato*T-Time, .book, .press, BinB, and Romancer are registered trademarks of Voyager
Japan, Inc.
*Other product, company and service names may be trademarks or registeredtrademarks of their respective owners.
Voyager Japan, Inc.
5-41-14 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan
http://www.voyager.co.jp e-mail. infomgr@voyager.co.jp
tel. +81-3-5467-7070 fax. +81-3-5467-7080

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