World, Writing, Wealth discussion

Don't know whether they still have live radio broadcasts of sport events, like football(soccer) games, but text online reporting is still quite widespread.
Can hearing or reading about the real time event with a little help from imagination really substitute watching it or are they always inferior?

Audible reports of cricket games were one of my favourites when doing something like painting the house. Painting is, for me, rather boring, and radio sports broadcasts fills the time quite nicely, and I could still paint while listening.

Audio books already go strong, is creating video books the next stage?

Yes! They are called TV programs/series, etc and have been around for a while. Seen "Game of Thrones" in video?

Yeah, but not what I mean:) More, I guess authors themselves using animation or video tools to replace traditional “illustrations”

I guessed that :-) As for authors using animation, what would be the medium? Wouldn't work on a kindle - in fact most of the time your traditional illustrations do not work very well either on a kindle

Nik wrote: "Yeah, but not what I mean:) More, I guess authors themselves using animation or video tools to replace traditional “illustrations”"

Personally I don't see why not as there is technology out there that would support it. That would be cool to see the books come alive that you all write! :)

Ian wrote: "I guessed that :-) As for authors using animation, what would be the medium? Wouldn't work on a kindle - in fact most of the time your traditional illustrations do not work very well either on a ki..."

I am curious about your answer Ian. You are saying kindles would not support animation yet kindle fires would probably work as I am able to watch videos and movies on my new kindle fire. So if they are able to support that technology why wouldn't it support book animation?

Sorry - I meant mean ordinary kindle - a paperwhite . I think most people around here that have kindles have that, and these only really work with ebooks

Ian wrote: "I guessed that :-) As for authors using animation, what would be the medium? Wouldn't work on a kindle - in fact most of the time your traditional illustrations do not work very well either on a ki..."

Youtube or something like it. Not sure if it would be worth the effort of trying to integrate video files into ebooks, but people already do similar stuff on youtube. Place a wall of text for people to read and then follow it with a piece of action. Remember, this is how movies started out...walls of text on the screen in the days before sound was added.

If you could put short videos in your ebooks, retailers would have to change their royalty structures to adapt. many retailers have strict caps on the file size of your ebook. On Smashwords, for example, your book can't be larger than 10mb. On amazon, the size is not limited, but if you choose the 70% royalty rate, they charge the author a delivery fee for every Mb if your book is over a certain size. Anyone creating picture books runs into this; it is not unusual to find comics in the kindle store with file sizes between 100 and 200 mb. If you could add video to an ebook, you're looking at something approaching a gigabyte or more.

For the record, my largest book is just short of 62mb...

Ian wrote: "Sorry - I meant mean ordinary kindle - a paperwhite . I think most people around here that have kindles have that, and these only really work with ebooks"

No worries, Ian. :) But you are right about kindle paperwhite and any other e-readers that do not have that support as not everyone owns a kindle fire. I still think it would be cool though to have the visual of the books come alive. :)

Agreed, it would be cool, but as an author who does not sell a lot, I would not be prepared to go through the expense of making such ebooks.

I don't want visuals in my fiction. Most movies or TV versions of books disappoint me. I prefer to read the book with the image the words create in my mind, not someone else's.

Lizzie wrote: "I don't want visuals in my fiction. Most movies or TV versions of books disappoint me. I prefer to read the book with the image the words create in my mind, not someone else's."

Doesn't Apple i-book format support embedded animation etc. But as described -its not the creation it's the distribution and the end user device.

Like Ian - given sales why go to the effort.

As visual pushes written out in terms of popularity and number of users, I guess AI will enable future writers to "write" video and audio streams directly to visualize their imagination. "Writing" might become different. What do you think?