
Why I’m Publishing My First Novel in a Format You’ve Never Heard Of - eykd
https://medium.com/@eykd/why-im-publishing-my-first-novel-in-a-format-you-ve-never-heard-of-48e1f5ae71f1
======
faet
For me it is less about the format and more about the ecosystem.

With no way to make a backup I'm reliant on them being always on and still
around 10+ years later if and when I want to read it again.

But, the format also leaves much to be desired. The superbooks' "features"
seem more like limitations. I cannot adjust text font or size, which is a
feature! Something I've been able to do with every other ereader. I've also
run into instances where the preview has text cut off even at 100% zoom.
[https://i.imgur.com/z8OldNU.png](https://i.imgur.com/z8OldNU.png)

~~~
sonicaa
hi! Sonica, CTO of Bubblin Superbooks here!

> I've also run into instances where the preview has text cut off even at 100%
> zoom.

Which [device, os and browser] are you on?

> I'm reliant on them being always on and still around 10+ years later…

These books are hosted using a service-worker, and will work even if our
service goes offline for sometime or your device disconnects from the
Internet.

~~~
faet
Above is latest Chrome on osx.

[https://i.imgur.com/veYtCUV.png](https://i.imgur.com/veYtCUV.png) Iphone xs
safari. Unable to scroll/pinch/etc. Closing tab fixes.

~~~
sonicaa
Chrome/OSX should work normally. I'm sorry about this. :-(

Can we look into the errors on your browser's console?

> zoom

Quick note: As a real reader will you prefer to pinchzoom on every page of the
book or scale the book just once from the settings panel and be good to go?

> scroll

Scrolling is a no-go for books. My cofounder has written about this at length
here: [https://bubblin.io/concerns](https://bubblin.io/concerns)

\---

We are aware about an issue that prevents us from using pinch features to
scale content correctly on iOS Safari. The bug is raised with Apple for this
and I'm hoping they'll catch up on it soon. :-)

[https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=186970](https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=186970)

~~~
faet
Nah, I meant when I got that view with safari there wasn't anything I could do
to actually read the text. I was stuck with that view for all the pages. With
Chrome I can scroll around to read even with the off-view.

Access to fetch at '[https://ft-polyfill-
service.herokuapp.com/v2/polyfill.min.js...](https://ft-polyfill-
service.herokuapp.com/v2/polyfill.min.js&flags=always,gated') from origin
'[https://bubblin.io'](https://bubblin.io') has been blocked by CORS policy:
No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource.
If an opaque response serves your needs, set the request's mode to 'no-cors'
to fetch the resource with CORS disabled. serviceworker.js:1 Uncaught (in
promise) TypeError: Failed to fetch Promise.then (async) (anonymous) @
serviceworker.js:1 serviceworker.js:1 Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: Failed
to fetch (anonymous) @ serviceworker.js:1 serviceworker.js:1 Uncaught (in
promise) TypeError: Failed to fetch

------
dragonwriter
> The EPUB 2.0 format, launched in October, 2007, was a solid innovation,
> followed by the Kindle a month later.

> It’s easy to forget that it’s been nearly 12 years since the last major
> innovation in the ebooks space.

Well, except EPUB 3.0 in 2011 and 3.1 in 2017.

------
justinclift
Thinking over this, WebAssembly would probably be a better idea for embedding,
rather than Javascript.

* Any language which generates WebAssembly could then be used (there are many already. Go, C/C++, Rust, (etc)... with very large growth happening)

* Likely to be a safer execution environment

------
crooked-v
The Superbook format doesn't appeal to me specifically _because_ it's just a
stack of pages without text flowing between them. It sounds like a nightmare
to handle when editing.

~~~
marvindanig
Hi, creator of the Superbook format and founder of Bubblin here!

Reflow is bad for books. It kills referential accessibility [1] which is a
critical feature of codex-style format that follows from the most common
definition of a book [2].

[1] [https://bubblin.io/blog/referential-
accessibility](https://bubblin.io/blog/referential-accessibility)

[2]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book)

> It sounds like a nightmare to handle when editing.

This book was programmatically generated using standard markdown manuscript
and a paginator library called m2s [1]. I'd say it was pure bliss for me to
edit David's book page-by-page!

[1] [https://github.com/bookiza/m2s](https://github.com/bookiza/m2s)

~~~
dragonwriter
Reflow is great for novels and similar narrative prose fiction, and for
documents that need referential accessibility, explicit semantic outline
structure (e.g., case numbering or similar) is reflow independent and superior
to page numbering.

~~~
marvindanig
> explicit semantic outline structure… superior

That! …but one with strong layout and referential accessibility of page
numbers would be even better! I think we need page-wise referencing on novels
and prose fiction too. It opens us up to the possibility of having real
conversations and annotations deep inside the content of a book.

Reflow otherwise has always been a bane of _all_ digital books because it
wasn't possible to scale content without leaving room for it. That's also the
raison d'etre for other "non-web" formats, digital stores and even hardware to
exist.

~~~
dragonwriter
> but one with strong layout and referential accessibility of page numbers
> would be even better!

Page numbers are a small additional value; pagination comes for free with
print so it's an easy fallback, but there's a reason why content that is most
intensely dependent on referential accessibility, like _codified laws_ ,
doesn't rely on it.

> I think we need page-wise referencing on novels and prose fiction too.

It's of some use for criticism, but criticism isn't the purpose of most prose
fiction. It's certainly not needed for reading, and resizability does more for
the primary use than page numbering. (Of course, if you really need it,
“referencde page numbering” of the type used in presentations of paginated
content where page number references are commonly used like the Federal
Register or court decisions when reproduced in contexts with different than
source (or no) pagination can be used.)

> Reflow otherwise has always been a bane of _all_ digital books because it
> wasn't possible to scale content without leaving room for it.

I've seen plenty of books that aren't prose fiction that work well with
reflow; PragProg epubs are particularly good that way.

> That's also the raison d'etre for other "non-web" formats, digital stores
> and even hardware to exist.

No, it's not; even to the extent reflow _is_ a problem for some content, PDF
had total-layout-control solved before any of the alternatives, and ePubs had
strict pagination and layout control as an option since 3.0; the reason for
the alternatives seem to be the same reasons for any other content toolchain,
distribution, and consumption ecosystem walled-garden—it's not about serving a
market need, it's about capturing a market segment and creating a cost to
switch out so that you can charge monopoly rents.

------
duskwuff
TL;DR: A lot of words to say that they're using some weird web-based format
that's half HTML, half PDF, and probably compatible with nothing.

Why not a PDF?

Beats me. At least existing ebook readers can display PDFs.

------
Shorel
So, a reinvention of PDF?

If it is more like PDF, then a comparison with PDF is in order.

Forget about EPUB, tell me why your format is better than PDF!

~~~
marvindanig
Those are file formats, as in both epub and PDF live outside of web (need to
download etc.). Superbook format on the other hand lives on web. Each
Superbook is a website. Huge difference!

PDFs are a skeuomorphic parallel of formatting that's natural to physical
paper where as Superbooks adopt narrow column formatting of pure web with
styling that scales responsively. Then there are granular differences in
accessibility, new possibilities in layouts and content (webgl, AR/VR, CSS3,
canvas art etc.), responsiveness, offline-first nature, iPad-first approach
and usage of git for collaboration under the hood and a modern browser for
final consumption.

To sum it up: Superbooks follow the most common convention and definition of a
book. It is more 'consumer ready' than anything else on market.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Those are file formats, as in both epub and PDF live outside of web (need to
> download etc.).

You need to download any content to your browser to view it; otoh, online and
in-browser renderers for both epub (which is mostly web tech in a package
format) and PDF are ludicrously common.

> Superbook format on the other hand is a website. Huge difference!

Superbooks, on a quick glance through some, seem to have a visual look much
like epub, the wasted space from aspect ratio mismatch of PDF, and the
speed/responsiveness of cold molasses.

> PDFs are a skeuomorphic parallel of formatting that's natural to physical
> paper where as Superbooks adopt narrow column formatting of pure web with
> styling that scales responsively.

I don't see how PDF is any more skeumorphic than Superbooks (certainly, most
PDF readers don't use skeumorphic—and dog slow—page turn animations.) You can,
of course, design PDF with any fixed layout you want.

And AFAICT the main responsiveness Superbooks have is automatically choosing
between single-page and two-page view based on screen aspect
ratio/orientation.

I don't know what the “narrow column formatting” referred to is; the only
webbish formatting I see is that pages seem to have symmetric bordering white
space on left and right pages (but still have left and right pages
distinguished, as in the version of 1984, by page number location.)

~~~
marvindanig
1\. hm. 'webbish formatting' is exactly what I meant. These books are supposed
to live on web, always above the fold, and yes, use the webbish format for
good.

2\. On value of page_number referencing vs. seeking people to use ids, classes
and semantics: No, I think we are not on the same page here… ;-)

3\. Speed/responsiveness: Page turns are @60FPS +/-5 give or take, and can
easily be tuned/turned off from Settings. From analytics, you went in with an
intent to surf the web capriciously and confused that with the intent to
actually read a book, isn't it?

------
justinclift
Embedding javascript in a book format, and calling it an improvement?

Thanks, but "hell no".

