Rock climbing features a maneuver called a “dyno”: When climbers are too far from the nearest hold above, they have to plant their feet, let go of the rock and leap upward. It sounds straightforward, but when developers at publisher Globe Pequot Press first created a digital version of the book How to Rock Climb!, they struggled to improve on the static illustration of the dyno from the print version. Last May, however, using tools made by software developer and e-book seller Inkling, they were able to make the move come to life with a fast-moving animated sequence of still photos.
Most magazines and newspapers have created good-looking tablet versions with features such as slideshows and videos that readers can’t get in print. But book publishers haven’t been able to capitalize on tablets’ screens and interactive capabilities because software made by Amazon (AMZN) and Apple (AAPL) doesn’t support some embedded multimedia and can be difficult for multiple developers to use at the same time. Some of the most pictorial—and expensive—books are thrown onto devices with little thought to properly replicating graphics, illustrations, and instructions readers see in print.
Inkling, started by Matt MacInnis, a former senior marketing manager at Apple, is addressing the problem by giving publishers a way to convert some of their highest-margin books into a more dynamic digital form. The San Francisco-based startup’s new Habitat software platform, which it released on Feb. 12 after a private beta test, allows publishers to add high-resolution photos, audible pronunciations of wine varietals, or videos that show how to cut an avocado. “Inkling is going at a unique, high-end interactive experience that you won’t find on many of those other platforms,” says Jerome Grant, chief learning officer in Pearson’s (PSON) education division, which has invested in Inkling.
The company has teamed up with publishers, including McGraw-Hill (MHP) and Walters Kluwer (WKL) (in addition to Pearson), in an attempt to gain a portion of the U.S. e-book market, which Forrester Research projects will reach $13.6 billion by 2017. Inkling takes a royalty of at least 30 percent from every sale.
Inkling is focused on textbooks, how-to guides, and cookbooks, which means many novels and other books that Kindle users are accustomed to consuming on e-readers won’t be included. “We’re not interested in pumping a bunch of text files into our platform,” MacInnis says. Starting today, the company also will make portions of books searchable on Google (GOOG). When someone searches an excerpt about treatments for asthma, for example, a chapter from a medical text could come up. Readers will have five clicks of interactive features within a chapter until they have to purchase the chapter or the book. “Publishers will have direct access to consumers, they’ll have access to data about how their content is performing, and they’ll be able to monetize through the world’s largest storefront, which we think is Google,” says McInnis, “as opposed to Amazon’s walled garden or Apple’s walled garden.”
Consumers can buy Inkling books through the Google search results page (through Inkling’s payment platform), from the Inkling’s website, or from a publisher’s online store. The books are readable through the Inkling app on the iPad, IPhone, and PC. On Android devices, users have to access the books through the web browser.
Because of the interactive features, many of the books, whose prices are set by the publishers, are more expensive than the Kindle Fire and iPad versions. How to Rock Climb! costs $18.99 on Inkling, compared with $9.99 on Amazon. Other book sellers have set prices that are closer to Amazon’s, like the cookbook Put ‘em Up!, published by Storey Publishing, which costs $12.99 on Inkling and $9.99 on the Kindle. MacInnis says he supports publishers being able to choose their prices, since they can’t on Amazon.
Inkling is for now an addition to—not a replacement for—book sellers such as Amazon. “We work with almost every distributor out there and find our business solutions with them,” Grant says. But MacInnis is looking forward to a day when his company, which began developing e-books in 2009, can match up with the giants of the e-book world. “Publishers can build content on our system and they can sell that content directly to consumers before it ever gets to Amazon,” he says. “They’ve all these years been a passenger in the airplane, and now we’ve handed them the flight manual. That’s a big deal.”
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