Faced with poor sales and lack of publisher investment, Sideways, a multimedia developer for iOS and other mobile platforms, has reduced staff and is working to refocus its business model on developing multimedia products based on the new ePub3 standard.
Despite the growth of the app/enhanced e-book market as publishers work to produce more multimedia titles, Sideways founder Charles Stack says the market for apps has been “difficult.” Stack said that, “after a year its been very difficult to be viable, unless you have a hit. The ROI just hasn’t been there. We saw it in our own products and the reluctance of publishers to invest in the category.”
Founded in 2010, Sideways produced a variety of multimedia publications include a camera guide, a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame guide, children’s titles and an iPhone/iPodTouch digital magazine called TapTilt and Sideways for the iPad, general interest multimedia magazine. Sideways also developed a multimedia development engine that it was offering to publishers and self-publishing creators that would allow them to build titles with video, audio and interactive functionality. But he said that those development engines have been “retired.”
While Stack said that Sideways has reduced staff, “we’re much smaller now,” he also emphasized that Sideways remained a viable company and was in the midst of a “reboot” turning its development away from apps to the creation of interactive titles using the new ePub3 standard, the e-book standard designed to be better suited for supporting multimedia development. Mobile apps, Stack said, are typically developed using a programming language like objective c (or java) and are sold through the iTunes/App store while “ePubs appear in the iBooks store, the Nook, and the Kindle [actually mobi not ePub, but similar enough] and are written using html5.”
Stack said that developing multimedia e-books based on the ePub3 standard cost much less and that he did not have to develop titles for three separate platforms—iOS, Android and Kindle. “Instead of working on a $25,000 app in three separate languages, you focus on one platform, ePub3, and it’s a bigger market,” he said. “It costs 5 times less than developing iOS apps and gives you triple the readership,” he continued, “You still have multimedia functionality, audio. Video and interactivity and you can charge more traditional book prices, although there is still pressure for lower prices.”
In April Sideways released its first ePub3 title, Egypt, a multimedia presentation of the 19th century painter David Roberts' classic illustrated works on Egypt, which sells for $14.95 in the App store. And beginning in October on iTunes (and November for the Nook and the Kindle), Stack said that Sideways will begin releasing 22 read-along titles developed using the lower cost ePub3 standard that will be aimed at the children’s marketplace. Sideways will be the publisher and the titles will feature both licensed and original content. Indeed Stack was enthusiastic about the new Amazon tablet device, rumored to be available by October, noting that his business plan figured in the impact of the new device, “We’re counting on it," he said.
