Why can’t an e-book be more like a book?  People have tried to make it look like a book, sound like a book , autograph like a book and even smell like a book (See Aerosol Makes Your Nook Smell Like Crunchy Bacon). Now someone has come up with a way to make e-books feel like books.

KAIST Institute of Information Technology Convergence has applied for a patent for its Smart E-Book Interface. “The interface uses the private Apple API for the page flip,” writes Kelly Hodgkins on tuaw.com, “and turns it upside down and inside out. Not only do you get a beautiful page flip like the one in iBooks, you also get page flipping that lets you scan 20 or 30 pages at a time, multiple page flips that are controlled by the speed of your finger swipe, and a way to hold your thumb on one page and flip through the book with your fingers. You can see it in action in the video below to marvel at how the interface mimics the way most people flip the pages of a softcover book.”  Below is a cool demo of the interface.

What the interface seems perfectly suited for is boring books that you just want flip through in big chunks.

Is there any e-book that incorporates all the book-like sensory experiences in a single device?  The only one we can think of is the Flopatronic Fleeber. Check it out.

Richard Curtis

Jonathon King didn't autograph in his bathrobe but he could have (photo by Lauren Naefe)

Remember Autography, the e-book signing technology we wrote about last spring? (See Autograph E-Books in Your Bathrobe) We’ve been waiting for the first practical demo. It finally happened last week.

E-book publisher Open Road hosted an autographing – we think that’s the word for the process developed by the company’s co-founders T.J. Waters and Robert Barrett.

We hesitate because we’re still grounded in pens on paper.  Hell, we’re still grounded in places, the brick and mortar locations where autographing sessions used to be held. The Open Road session was conducted in a place (Bouchercon Mystery Conference, in St Louis, Missouri) but it didn’t have to be. It could have been performed by author Jonathon King in Rangoon, Paducah or Sasketoon and the lucky recipient of his cyber-greeting would not have been the wiser.

Here’s what Open Road had to say about the event:

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Autography’s e-signing technology works across all major eReader platforms and applications. Jonathan’s signature page will feature special graphics just for Bouchercon and can include a picture with the author that is also inserted into the ebook. The now personalized greeting can be exported to the consumer’s Facebook or Twitter space with a single button if they choose.

Attendees will have the opportunity to see our technology in action by having their ebooks signed and getting photos added to the signature page,” said Autography cofounder Tom Waters. “This exclusive opportunity is available only for Bouchercon attendees who visit Jonathon Saturday afternoon.”

Rachel Chou, Chief Marketing Officer from Open Road said: “We are always looking for innovative ways to connect authors with readers and are excited to usher in the digital age of book signings with Autography and Jonathan King.”

Edgar-award winning author Jonathon King is the author of the Max Freeman crime series set in the Everglades and on the hard streets of urban South Florida. In addition to his award winning backlist titles, Open Road published an E-riginal Midnight Guardians this past year.

About Open Road Integrated Media

Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its ebooks through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media. Open Road has published ebooks from legendary authors including William Styron, Pat Conroy, Jack Higgins, and Virginia Hamilton, and has launched new e-stars like Mary Glickman. (www.openroadmedia.com)

About Autography

Autography LLC is a media technology company headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida. The firm features a patent-pending method for inserting an autograph or other personalized salutation into an e-book or other digital media. The system works with all popular eReader devices. The company was cofounded by author TJ Waters and technology executive Robert Barrett in May 2011. (www.autography.com 727-388-1605)

It looks as if the business we described a while back, a way to autograph e-books, is going to get off the ground.  The system developed by two enterpreneurs, “Autography”, will be on display at Book Expo America this spring, according to the New York Times. Here is our original article.

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When we broached the idea of replacing physical book conferences with virtual ones (See A Book Conference You Can Attend in Your Bathrobe), a number of readers observed that there was one big problem: how do you autograph virtual books?

A team of enterprising businessmen, T. J. Waters and Robert Barrett, know how, and they’ve launched a service for publishers and authors called Autography.

Waters’ entrepreneurial tale is a fascinating one “I wrote an ebook entitled Prior To The Snap as a companion guide to my Wiley-published business book Hyperformance.” he explained in a recent email to me. “The eBook became wildly popular with troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Next thing I knew I was invited to join a USO tour going overseas. I asked a grad school friend (and high end IT geek) about developing a method to autograph the ebook like I would a hard cover book. The rest, as they say, is history, though still very much in the making.”

We visited his website (www.autography.us.com) and though the service is still, as Waters says, “in the making,” in theory at least he seems to have thought of every question that might be raised by author, publisher or customer. For example:

• “Our vision is live streaming video over the Internet coupled with autographed eBooks. We can even let the author create a scheduled of which cities he’ll be ‘visiting’ during his ‘tour’. We are now having our software upgraded so that readers can export the signature page (with a thumbnail of the book’s cover) out to their social media (Facebook, etc) to further promote the book/author to their friends.”
• “Personalization can take place at the time of purchase or any time afterwards, including after secondary (used) sales.”
• “Authors can give away signed sample chapters to introduce themselves to new readers who later purchase the full volume at their convenience. The now full copy ebook retains the author’s salutation (replacing the sample chapters) without the need for Digital Rights Management (DRM) software.”

Waters points out that “Autography’s patent-pending technology doesn’t just cover eBooks. We’re redefinining the digital media experience for a wide range of entertainment. Digital comic books, movie and music cover art, video games, and athlete or celebrity promotional cards are quickly and easily personalized for consumers.”

For further information contact the company’s representative Bob Diforio at bob@d4eo.com

With Autography the road to Virtual has taken another big step. Look for more and more applications in the coming years.

Richard Curtis

When we broached the idea of replacing physical book conferences with virtual ones (See A Book Conference You Can Attend in Your Bathrobe), a number of readers observed that there was one big problem: how do you autograph virtual books?

A team of enterprising businessmen, T. J. Waters and Robert Barrett, know how, and they’ve launched a service for publishers and authors called Autography.

Waters’ entrepreneurial tale is a fascinating one “I wrote an ebook entitled Prior To The Snap as a companion guide to my Wiley-published business book Hyperformance.” he explained in a recent email to me. “The eBook became wildly popular with troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Next thing I knew I was invited to join a USO tour going overseas. I asked a grad school friend (and high end IT geek) about developing a method to autograph the ebook like I would a hard cover book. The rest, as they say, is history, though still very much in the making.”

We visited his website (www.autography.us.com) and though the service is still, as Waters says, “in the making,” in theory at least he seems to have thought of every question that might be raised by author, publisher or customer. For example:

• “Our vision is live streaming video over the Internet coupled with autographed eBooks. We can even let the author create a scheduled of which cities he’ll be ‘visiting’ during his ‘tour’. We are now having our software upgraded so that readers can export the signature page (with a thumbnail of the book’s cover) out to their social media (Facebook, etc) to further promote the book/author to their friends.”
• “Personalization can take place at the time of purchase or any time afterwards, including after secondary (used) sales.”
• “Authors can give away signed sample chapters to introduce themselves to new readers who later purchase the full volume at their convenience. The now full copy ebook retains the author’s salutation (replacing the sample chapters) without the need for Digital Rights Management (DRM) software.”

Waters points out that “Autography’s patent-pending technology doesn’t just cover eBooks. We’re redefinining the digital media experience for a wide range of entertainment. Digital comic books, movie and music cover art, video games, and athlete or celebrity promotional cards are quickly and easily personalized for consumers.”

For further information contact the company’s representative Bob Diforio at bob@d4eo.com

With Autography the road to Virtual has taken another big step. Look for more and more applications in the coming years.

Richard Curtis