Writing Software: What Can it Do for Your Writing?

Ever try to construct an elaborate, Tolkien-style fantasy world, but got lost in the lore? Having trouble keeping your notes straight for constructed languages, or lost track of your character arcs? Or is your fiction novel proving difficult to organize? An author aid might be just the tool you need to keep track of your work as your writing your epic novel. While many come with a range of options for a hefty subscription, many have simpler versions that are entirely free. Here, we’ll break down several popular brands to find out which works best for you.

Scrivener

Dave Chesson, a publishing consultant, writes that Scrivener is the best non-fiction writing aid. Scrivener comes with premade templates, options for place and character sketches, a corkboard, formatting features for publishing, and the option to upload your own templates. Jill Duffy, writing in PCMag, gives a glowing review for scrivener as the best writing app for long projects.

Scrivener allows you to export versions of your work that change the formatting without changing the original text. Duffy notes that the key to mastering Scrivener and using it efficiently lies in hiding options that aren’t being used. Unlike many of the other subscription-based models, Scrivener comes with a one-time fee for continued use, making it ideal for people who don’t like to keep up with yearly or monthly subscriptions and plan to use it long-term. Duffy does note that for those who can’t master the myriad of options, Ulysses might be a better, more pared-down option.

World Anvil

Dave Chesson writes that World Anvil is great for the fantasy author designing complex constructed worlds. It has five different tiers with increasing benefits and storage, with the first tier free. World Anvil provides authors the means to collaborate with other authors, ways to link different ideas in their work, cork boards, and ways of keeping track of family trees and diplomatic connections.

Considering the bulk and complexity of worldbuilding that many fantasy authors find themselves creating, World Anvil may be a great choice for those crafting long complex epics, eliminating a lot of headaches. It is also compatible with Discord for fan outreach, allowing authors easy ways to give fans updates and market their work. The community aspect may be appealing to authors who enjoy sharing their work or have difficulty building a fan base. Shaelin Bishop, a writing Youtuber, describes how you can import and link maps and a host of other options, though notes it can get complicated for those with a more minimalist style.

Novel Factory

Bishop lists Novel Factory as a writing aid that will likely appeal to those who love outlining or who want to find help with their outlining process. Novel Factory has templates for multiple types of story outlines, though some story ordering aspects may seem a little arbitrary. It provides a step-by-step process for writing a novel while still providing flexibility. Ease of use may be an issue with limited text drafting space.

Plot Factory

Plot Factory has several similarities to Novel Factory. Yen Cabag at TKC Publishing.com writes that Plot Factory has multiple different templates for planning stories. You can create your own character templates or choose between two premade templates with varying degrees of detail. You can even import characters from other universes you’ve created. It makes scenes easy to rearrange with a drop and drag function, an especially attractive feature for non-linear story writers. It does have the limitation that there is no desktop app unlike many other versions, limiting accessibility for writers with spotty internet. Cabag also writes that it may be less useful for non-fiction writers and the multiple dashboards may be annoying to some.

Additional forms of Writing Software

In addition to the variety of options for novelists and content creators, there are writing aids geared to a range of other uses. For example, Jill Duffy writes that Final Draft provides professional screenwriters with prompts that help keep their work in conformance with industry standards.

Another example of writing software with specialized capabilities is MasterWriter. MasterWriter advertises a broad range of capabilities, but one prime feature is songwriting aid. MasterWriter’s website boasts a rhyming dictionary of over 100,000 entries and compatibility on all devices. They also list positive reviews from multiple grammy-winning songwriters.

Novels Made Easy

With the range of writing aid options, novelists and other writers no longer need stacks of note cards or files of character arcs cluttering up their desks or their Microsoft accounts. Writers can now organize their creative process more efficiently, allowing for fast formatting and organized note-keeping. Many writers who have stalled on complex writing projects in the past now have writing software that can make their work much less intimidating.

Ethics of Post-Publication Editing

In the digital media era, a new problem has arisen. Should pieces be edited post-publication? If so, in what situations? Amid the chaos of media distrust, misinformation, censoring, and “fake news,” questions of post-publication editing ethics have arisen. Editing published articles should be approached with transparency and caution as distrust in the media is rampant.

Digital Media Consumption

Digital media consumption has skyrocketed in recent years. In a Pew Research study conducted in 2016, only 38% of Americans reported often consuming news media digitally. In another Pew study conducted in 2022, 86% reported consuming news from a digital device. In the span of just six years, digital media consumers doubled.

Pew Research conducted another study, this time concerning Americans’ trust in the media in 2022. Findings revealed 61% of Americans trust national news sources and 31% trust social media. The usage of digital devices to consume media has increased yet trust in media sources is relatively low. In the same study, 64% of Americans noted that fabricated news stories or “fake news” creates confusion about the actual facts of an event.

While post-publication editing is not the sole cause of Americans’ distrust in the news, it is likely a contributor. Before digital media production and consumption, undetected post-publication editing was impossible. Edits can be conducted digitally post-publication without the consumer’s knowledge. With the rise of digital media, distrust in the media and those who produce it has risen. Knowing this, writers and publishers should attempt to mitigate the growing distrust.

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

Many journals have chosen to join the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) or similar organizations. COPE is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting ethical publishing. COPE does not allow editing of articles post-publication without specific criteria followed.

“Any necessary changes will be accompanied with a post-publication notice which will be permanently linked to the original article so that readers will be fully informed of any necessary changes. This can be in the form of a correction notice, an expression of concern, a retraction and in rare circumstances a removal. The purpose of this mechanism of making changes which are permanent and transparent is to ensure the integrity of the scholarly record.”
(COPE)

However, most publications that are not peer-reviewed scholarly journals do not subscribe to any regulations for editing published material. Even if a publication does not wish to join a committee, the publication should introduce regulations on post-publication editing specific to them. With the increasing fear of misinformation, editing articles post-publication could be necessary in order to correct any realized mistakes. These mistakes should be corrected to protect the perceived accuracy of the publication. However, corrections should be rare, and the publication should be transparent about the edits.

When should post-publication edits be conducted?

Sometimes the information within an article is false and either slipped through the cracks while undergoing editing, or the correct information was simply confused by the writer. For example, maybe the name of an individual referenced or discussed in the article was misspelled, or a date was incorrect. Perhaps, however, a larger mistake was made, with greater repercussions, like a statement made about the wrong company that could affect their business.

In the first situation, it could be appropriate to simply change the spelling of the individual’s name. Most people would agree that in that case there is no need to make a public statement justifying the decision. However, with an incorrect piece of information with larger ramifications, it would be appropriate to notate the date of the edit and the information changed.

Occasionally, another contributor to the published article will argue that they deserve recognition for their contributions to the piece of media. An author’s name may not appear on the piece, but they greatly assisted in writing it. In this case, it would not be inappropriate to properly recognize the article’s contributors.

In extreme situations, an article may necessitate retraction. If the information is suspected to have been intentionally fabricated or misleading, the article may need to be removed. In this case, it would be appropriate to mark the article as having been retracted or as undergoing investigation. However, this should of course be reserved for extreme cases.

Trust

In a research article from “The International Journal of Press/Politics,” a statement was made regarding the importance of trust. “Trust can be understood as an asset on which news organizations capitalize to generate reputation and economic profit.” As we move to a digital world, retaining trust in the media is critical. Editing an article post-publication was unheard of before the current era of digital media. Print publications cannot simply press a button and delete or edit an article that has been released to the public. The ability to quickly edit with ease is both a blessing and a curse. While it may save a writer, editor, or publisher from a difficult situation, it also creates new problems as they navigate how and when to utilize that ability. Writers, editors, and publishers should do their best to maintain consumers’ trust as they utilize post-publication editing.

AI Writing, Self-Publishing, and the Culture of Instant Gratification

The digital age has ushered in a culture of instant gratification, where people expect to get what they want when they want it. This is especially true with the advent of AI writing and self-publication tools that make it easier than ever for anyone to become an author or content creator almost overnight. But while these new technologies have made creating and sharing content faster, there are some potential drawbacks as well.

The traditional process of publication is a lengthy one. The process from submission to publication can take an average of nine to eighteen months, or even upwards of two years. This time excludes the writing and editing process, which, depending on the book, can add months or years. In the age of instant everything, that is simply unacceptable.

Enter Self-Publication

Self-publication has gone through many evolutions in the digital age, with each iteration becoming more accessible to the public. Desktop Publishing, was introduced in the 1970’s with the adoption of word processing software. Though this form of self-publication was easily accessible by the masses, it was still costly. “Print on demand” revolutionized the self-publishing world. Publishers were no longer responsible for mass printing costs, inventory, and distribution, which further opened the world of self-publication to the public. The blog era allowed authors to reach the masses and publish their works via PDF, with even Stephen King joining in.

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing was introduced in 2007 to “democratize” the publishing industry. Amazon made it easier than ever to self-publish a book and offered authors 70% of royalties and has since grown to offer more incentives and opportunities to authors. In 2011, authors who gave full digital rights to Kindle were offered KDP Select. KDP Select members exclusively received a higher percentage of royalties and promotional tools. Amazon expanded KDP again in 2016 to include print publishing and has added options for hardcover and lower-cost color printing in the following years. Amazon adapted to the bite-sized market and introduced Kindle Vella in 2021, allowing authors to publish “serial” style stories.

Self-publication and all of its advancements have reduced publishing time from a year and a half to fiv e minutes. It makes sense that the writing process is next on the proverbial chopping block.

Instant Gratification and Independent Authors

In the age of instant gratification, authors are racing against the clock to produce content before readers move on to another writer. Jennifer Lepp, a self-published “cozy paranormal mystery” writer, gets about four months to produce a new work. That deadline is doable, barring any creative setbacks. When those setbacks do happen, it could be catastrophic for reader engagement. Enter AI, specifically Sudowrite in Lepp’s case. Sudowrite is an AI writing tool specifically geared to creative writers. Before we ask if we should use AI, we should understand what it is.

AI Writing

AI has gained increasing notoriety in the past few years by tackling everything from editing and proof-reading to content creation in a few minutes. Most AI geared towards writing has been trained with GPT-3, a program specializing in text completion. This AI program can “understand and generate natural language.” Proofreading, editing, and even writing can be given to most AI software with relative ease. In fact, the introduction paragraph to this article was written by Jasper, an AI program commonly used for text generation. AI is incredibly useful in writing shorter bits of text and it saves writers a ton of time, which is necessary in today’s fast-paced world that demands new content at all times.

The ethical question of AI writing

Just because something is useful does not mean it should be used. The ethical dilemma of AI writing is one that has hounded its users since its inception. In an interview with The Verge, Jennifer Lepp expanded on the ethical dilemma of using AI tools that the writing community is facing. Questions concerning authenticity and intellectual ownership are at the forefront of these debates.

Many authors fear that their work will no longer be original if they allow an AI to write for them. The Author’s Guild argues that human art and literature is advanced by individual experiences, and that AI works will stagnate without human input. AI learns from other people’s work on the internet and compiles that knowledge to generate new work. It could be argued that the writing is plagiarized because it is informed by other author’s works without giving them credit; however, every piece of media informs and is informed by other pieces of media. True originality is not possible, especially in a society that is so digitally connected.

Another concern with AI writing is ownership of the piece. Should the AI program be listed as the author? According to US copywrite laws, no, and others agree. The Alliance of Independent Authors added a new clause to their code of standards regarding AI. The code calls for the author to edit the generated text and ensure that it is not “discriminatory, libellous, an infringement of copyright or otherwise illegal or illicit.” The responsibility of legal compliancy falls on the author, not the AI.

Some writers fear that the AI will take over their writing. In a Plagiarism Today article, Jonathan Bailey goes as far as to say that writers are completely powerless when using an AI. Jennifer Lepp certainly experienced this power imbalance in her writing. She would give Sudowrite an outline, press expand, and keep feeding the algorithm until it spat out a finished product. This process led to a disconnect between herself and the stories she was creating. Now, Lepp offloads certain details to the AI, like the description for a hospital lobby. With her current system, she is still seeing an uptick in productivity while still being much more connected to her work.

The integration of AI is unavoidable if self-published authors are going to keep up with the demand of readers steeped in a culture of instant gratification. Though there should be self-imposed limits to the use of AI, authors should not avoid using it entirely. It is the responsibility of the author to inject the humanity into the writing.

Is Kitaboo the Right Fit for Your Business?

Kitaboo is an interactive eBook reader app as well as a publishing site. Whether you are a businessman needing a professional corporate memo or a teacher trying to create a curriculum you can publish and distribute your material through the Kitaboo Digital Publishing and Distribution Platform. Kitaboo markets itself as the best option for corporations, publishers, and institutions for their content delivery and distribution needs because of its user-friendly design, easy access to material, and individualized reading experience. In all reality though, what makes Kitaboo different from its competitors? What would make it more, or less, compatible with your business?

Positive aspects of Kitaboo

Digital Rights Management is one contribution Kitaboo makes that its competitors do not seem to have. They make sure that the content you upload on their site remains solely yours. Kitaboo allows you to digitize any print document and add multimedia to it, such as audio, video, and photographs. Even enhanced documents can be published onto many platforms (iOS, Android, Windows) and multiple devices (smartphones, tablets, and PCs). Kitaboo provides thorough analytics of your reader’s content consumption habits. Kitaboo offers tools for companies seeking to enhance their work and digital distribution, including small companies still figuring out their brands, and larger ones with slipping analytics.

Competitors

A few of the players in this market include Joomag, Readz, Zmags, and Magloft. All share the same interactive features as Kitaboo except Magloft. Zmags, on the other hand, caters specifically to magazines, giving them a much more specialized experience for those businesses as well as a smaller audience to work with. The small and agile team of Magloft, with only ten employees, may not be a suitable fit for larger companies. However, they are perfect for small publishers who want that hands-on experience.

Where Kitaboo and other services digitally distribute your work, Readz just gives you an easy experience in converting, editing, or enhancing your documents. For businesses that are well-known and don’t require assistance in reaching their audiences, this is a terrific resource. Joomag is the most similar to Kitaboo and therefore, one of their biggest competitors.

Price Difference

Pricing is the primary distinction between Kitaboo and Joomag. Joomag’s pricing structure and list of features for each plan are fairly rigid. You can upload PDF files, make links, and add images, sound, and even video to your digital magazine in the free edition. The Silver Plan, which costs $15.95 per month, comes with branding, selling memberships, and no ads. With the $39.95/month Gold Plan, readers may browse your magazines directly on mobile devices without the need for an app thanks to HTML5 for Mobile, Native iOS and Android Support, Native iPad Support, Multi-User Accounts, and other capabilities. The most expensive and complete option is the Platinum Plan, which incorporates CRM, mass mailing, and multi-branding services for $95.95/month. Kitaboo’s pricing requires an estimate that varies based on the project. You must get in touch with them to let them know what you need, and they will then create a proposal for you based on those needs. Depending on your perspective, the absence of upfront costs may be a disadvantage.

What To Choose

At the end of the day, each of these resources offers valuable opportunities for a business. Finding the right one comes down to what your business needs and can afford. With all of the options out there, finding one tailored to fit what you need is not a difficult task. However, there is no doubt that enhancing abilities and conversion to each format is crucial for digital publishing in general. There are various solutions available to you whether you need to simplify that for yourself or your staff. As far as digital distribution goes, Kitaboo, Joomag, Zmagz, and Magloft are all great resources. It truly depends on what fits your company best.

Writing News for Twitter

According to research conducted by Pew, 86% of U.S. adults report they get news from a smartphone, computer, or tablet “often” or “sometimes.” 60% report they “often” do so. One of the most common ways of consuming digital news, particularly with younger generations, is through social media. “Of Americans aged 18-29, 42% use social media as their primary source of news,” Pew says.

While all social media platforms are often utilized for news consumption, the practice of using specifically Twitter for this purpose is commonly known. “As of December 2022, Twitter’s audience accounted for over 368 million monthly active users worldwide.” Knowing this, how should writers adapt? To create consumable content, writers must move with the times, including creating news content for Twitter.

To write successful and consumable news on Twitter two things should be kept in mind: length and style.

Length

While it may potentially be expanded, Twitter currently has a 280-character limit. Sentences must be concise and information-packed to fit within the character limit. Because of this, many writers and news sources have opted for a link to a full-length article with a short commentary or headline.

Another option is to utilize threads. Threads break up the content into bite-sized parts that are linked together in order to beat the character limit. While this is acceptable with a few tweets, it
quickly becomes tedious and confusing to read with a long thread. In such a situation, linking to the entire article would be preferable to slicing and dicing the material. Another option is to both link the full article and include a thread of Tweets.

Facebook notes how quickly readers scroll from one piece of content to the next. “In the News Feed on Facebook, we’re seeing people spend, on average, 1.7 seconds with a piece of content on mobile compared to 2.5 seconds on desktop.^” All writing must be incredibly succinct due to the ability to quickly scroll away from a piece of content and immediately consume fresh media. The shortening of attention spans calls for concise writing, especially online.

Style

Former President Donald Trump is infamous for his questionable Tweets. Whether the information in the Tweets was accurate or not, the style of the Tweets was mostly to blame for the criticism he received. He utilized slang terms, overcapitalization, and over-punctuation. To retain credibility, these stylistic choices should be avoided.

The limited length calls for snappy concise Tweets. Information should be succinct and eye-catching but avoid becoming sensational. If posting a summary or headline along with a link to the entire piece, the headline should be strong without sacrificing any formality. It can be tempting to include flame or siren emojis to attract attention, but this exaggerated choice may not be the best for prefacing a news article.

When using a thread, the opening tweet should have the greatest impact. The initial tweet in the thread will receive the most attention and, if written correctly, may entice people to read the rest of the thread.

Images of tables or graphs or polls can be utilized to increase engagement. Using hashtags associates the tweet with others with the same hashtag, potentially increasing traffic.

Personal Accounts

Writing choices made on an official news company account, such as @CNN, could be different than those made on the personal account of a writer or journalist. Many writers utilize their personal accounts to share news as well. Retweeting and quote-tweeting are commonly used by writers on their personal accounts, as well as pointed political statements about current events. While potentially inappropriate on a company page, these tactics could be acceptable and effective on a personal page.

Twitter Controversy

Twitter has recently undergone a change in command, after being purchased by Elon Musk last year. Musk has altered and experimented with Twitter’s components, receiving both support and backlash.

One of the major changes is the introduction of Twitter Blue. Instead of receiving the blue checkmark as a verified account, the checkmark is received with the purchase of a Twitter subscription.

Another controversial decision by Musk was the reinstatement of previously restricted or suspended accounts. Many of these accounts were restricted due to being labeled as “fake news” or “misinformation.”

Because of the leadership changes and evolving aspects of Twitter, writers utilizing it should stay informed on its developments. Writing tactics and stylistic choices that may work now may not in the future. Just as writers have had to adapt to digital writing, they will have to adapt to follow the ever-evolving world of social media.

Paraphrasing Tools: Capabilities and Drawbacks

The wide availability of AI summarization and paraphrasing tools allows writers to automate previously tedious processes with the click of a button. Many have free options with more available features for those who pay for subscriptions. Now, writers can rewrite or summarize their text with minimal effort and allow readers to break long texts into easily read summaries.

Popular Paraphrasers

Popular paraphrasing tools boast slightly different capabilities. Quillbot comes with two different modes. One mode extracts key sentences and puts them into bullet points, the other mode rewrites sentences as complete paragraphs. Users also have the option to choose how long the summary is when length or brevity are issues, an attractive feature for writers working with strict word counts.

Wordtune Read advertises its software as a key tool for avoiding overload by simplifying text into its core components, saving readers time. Wordtune’s site offers services including summarization of online articles, PDFs, and even online videos. Wordtune Read advertises that their AI software can create summaries from multiple points of view depending on which you subscribe to.

Mass access to different, tailored versions of the same text has fascinating implications for how people digest political and social commentary in a polarized society. It also lets writers recreate their content with multiple different versions highlighting various social perspectives, allowing them to pitch their work to a broad range of platforms. With summarization and paraphrasing tools widely available, many readers can access dense texts or create a more tailored reading experience, allowing for much broader accessibility of written works to the average reader.

Paraphrser.io can paraphrase in over twenty different languages including Spanish and German. It touts its ability to improve readability and fluency, key advantages for second-language speakers wanting to ensure their work is professional and grammatically correct. It may also encourage broader access to complex or obscure works in languages readers have only basic proficiency in, or for younger readers who do not have the necessary proficiency in their native language to understand more advanced works.

Performance Issues

But as impressive as the claims for AI summarizing features sound, how well do they actually perform? Summarizing tools still struggle to comprehend the meaning of a text. Sometimes the length of the summary needs to be tweaked to eliminate nonsensical summaries. “It is a well-known fact that existing abstractive text summarization models tend to generate false information”. While simply rephrasing text is less challenging for summarization tools, more expansive rewrites risk errors. Summarizing tools still struggle to comprehend the full meaning of text even if they are useful for supplying quick synonyms or alterations. While paraphrasing tools can greatly speed the rewriting process human inspection of summarized or paraphrased works is still essential to maintain accuracy.

Implications for Academia

Wide access to easy summarization has interesting implications for academia. Paraphraser.io states that their software prevents plagiarism when used appropriately: “our tool provides plagiarism-free content while keeping the original meaning of the context. Our paraphrasing tool helps users to rephrase text and avoid plagiarism”.

However, others differ in their views on paraphrasing software. Writing about plagiarism detection for summarized work, Enago Academy takes the stance that “there is no comparable mechanism that can detect the usage of a paraphrasing tool if the reader suspects the writing is not original and the source material is not cited.” This makes it difficult to determine whether a student wrote a unique essay or put an existing one through paraphrasing software, creating works that are immune to normal plagiarism checkers.

It is also debatable whether students who choose to paraphrase their own writing are plagiarizing by letting a paraphrasing tool rewrite their papers. Enago argues that “the use of a paraphrasing tool means that the writing is not truly original or attributable to the author. This becomes a gray area and a new frontier of plagiarism for which the handbooks must be revised.” Considering how difficult it is to spot the effects of summarization software, schools may have difficulty relying on papers as proof of academic proficiency or may need to create new methods for detecting paraphrased work. Are summarization and paraphrasing tools necessary assets that students entering the modern workplace need to master, or do they allow students to make passing papers without demonstrating proper writing ability?

While they are not without bugs, summarization tools give writers and readers the ability to cater to shrinking attention spans, form unique word choices, and adapt content to widely differing audiences. Summarization tools may also require academia to adapt as well and create new criteria by which academic rewriting is assessed and judged.

Covid-19 and The Use of Digital Textbooks in Schools

The Covid-19 pandemic sparked a broad technical expansion across the United States, especially in the educational sector. Schools had to adjust to new means of reaching their pupils during the lockdown period. The phrase “digital education” refers to all aspects of online learning. In 2020, the digital education market for 2022 was projected to be worth over 243 billion U.S. dollars. Print textbook publishers, e-book sales, and the number of computers in classrooms are still being impacted by this.

Technology in Public Schools

The rate of technological adoption was dramatically accelerated by the Covid-19 outbreak. Computers were certainly available in the classroom before, but in much smaller numbers. Now, instead of schools having a few computers here and there, almost every student has been issued a device. Aine Givens reported that during the 2019-2020 academic year computers were only available to every student in 45% of schools. Schools were just starting to make the transition to remote learning, and many simply lacked the resources to do so. Since then, schools have evolved to reflect the changes, and these figures have dramatically increased. More recently, Kevin Bushweller stated that 90% of public schools surveyed said that each middle and high school student would have a digital device for the 2022–2023 academic year.

E-book Sales in Schools

During the peak of the pandemic, e-book and audiobook usage in the classroom reached an all-time high. The Sora student reading app reported an 80% increase from 2019 to 2020 in schools borrowing books from their service. This was nearly triple their numbers from 2019. Due to this exponential growth, in 2022, several state legislatures moved to do away with print textbooks entirely and make that switch to e-books. Texas, Indiana, Michigan, and California have already hopped on the bandwagon.

What This Means for Print Textbook Companies

Five companies largely dominate the textbook market: Pearson, McGraw-Hill Education, Scholastic, Cengage Learning, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Jim Milliot reported that print book sales held up very well during 2020 and 2021. However, from 2021 to 2022 the sale of print books fell by 6.5%. People’s increased access to entertainment options and the lifting of COVID lockdowns were two major factors in this decline. Predominantly print textbook companies have made shifts to digital publishing to work around these growing changes. For example, Pearson started making their resources digital-first in 2019. Print textbooks are far from dying out entirely, but the threat is still there, and companies are preparing for it. For elementary and high school students, McGraw-Hill introduced Rise, a program to help educators identify and fill the learning gaps caused by the pandemic. Simon Allen, Ceo of McGraw-Hill commented on the digital shift in the market, and how they have overcome it:

“McGraw Hill’s strong performance over the past several months is a testament to the hard work and investment the company has made in digital learning solutions. Even as sales of print textbooks decline, McGraw Hill’s Higher Education digital business is growing at a rate that markedly outpaces that decline, thanks to our continued digital product expansion and our swift response to the demand for online learning brought on by the pandemic. By investing in smart, affordable, and accessible digital learning tools, we are leading the industry in meeting the shifting needs of educators and students as they navigate the current challenging education environment.”

Before long, print textbooks may phase out entirely, but textbook publishing companies continue to adapt and overcome each shift in the market.

Looking Forward

The world around us continues to enhance technologically with each passing day. Almost every high-school student has a computer, e-textbooks are becoming more prominent, and the standard for learning is rapidly changing. How will this affect student learning and development in years to come? Will print textbooks die off entirely? With all these questions hanging before us, we can be certain that wherever the market goes, companies will follow. Demand will be met with supply.

What Publishers Can Do to Increase Learning in Digital Textbooks

Focus, comprehension, and critical thinking are shallower when one is reading on a digital device rather than on paper. An Insider article with Patricia Alexander and Lauren Singer showed that reading is faster on a device than on paper. Most people tend to skim through the text in order to find the “answer” rather than closely reading the text.

Despite the overwhelming evidence in favor of print books, we live in a digital age. Many students use free, or even illegal sites to get their textbooks because of the rising costs of education. While e-textbooks are significantly cheaper, that price cut simply cannot compare to a free resource when the student is getting the same experience. Digital textbooks must go beyond simply offering the text and give students an immersive and intuitive approach to learning that has adapted to the digital world.

Limit amount of text on a page

One of the biggest obstacles to close reading in a digital format is text overload, especially when it is formatted as a big block of text. Something that gives digital textbooks an edge over sites like Project Gutenberg is the ability to break up text. Project Gutenberg is popular among students for its free and legal access to many required readings; however, the site is clunky and the HTML format means that the student is forced to read through a wall of text.

Scrolling

Scrolling is one of the worst things a student can do when trying to read online. Even if the student has put away their phone, scrolling through their required reading is one of the biggest distractions for a student. In a study done by Pablo Delgado, Cristina Vargas, Rakefet Ackerman, and Ladislao Salmeron, “scrolling may add a cognitive load to the reading task by making spatial orientation to the text more difficult for readers than learning from printed text.” The mind diverts attention that could be used for comprehension to tracking the text as the reader scrolls, telling the finger to scroll, and when to stop scrolling.

Length

If scrolling is bad, how do publishers fit all the information on the page? Well, they don’t. The best way to help a reader digest information is to limit the amount of information on the page. According to Laura Singer, any more than 500 words on a digital “page” will overload the reader and impact comprehension. You eliminate text overload by fitting a section to a page. This also carries the added benefit of geospatial recognition that is similar to print books.

Headings

The physicality of print books is something that has been increasingly hard to replicate on the digital scale. The geographical place of text within a codex is a key point in how students remember details and it is extremely difficult to digitally replicate. This is where headings come in. Headings and subheadings help to position the reader in the text and break up the text into easier-to-digest sections.

Remove Distractions

The biggest edge that print books have over digital books is their lack of distractions. Many digital textbooks must be accessed online, which requires the student to navigate to a search engine, type in the name of the publisher, log in, and access the textbook. Not only does this limit study time to times where the student has access to the internet, but there are so many opportunities for students to get distracted. It would be easier for students to access their text through an app that allows offline access.

The use of flashy colors and animations can succeed at grabbing a student’s focus, but they can also steal attention away from the material. This is the same concept as scrolling. When the brain has to take in any kind of movement and read a text, comprehension is going to be compromised.

Offer Customizations

The largest benefit over both print books and free websites is customization. The ability to customize the textual space goes beyond aesthetics. Accessibility is easiest in the digital format, where one can quickly change between fonts, colors, and text size. A student with dyslexia can change to a font that better supports reading. A visually challenged student, or a student that learns better through auditory input, can use a text-to-speech feature.

The ability to take notes in the margins is an important part of gaining a deeper understanding of the text; however digital textbooks are unable to provide comparable in-text note taking features. The options are so abysmal that the UNC Learning Center suggests creating a word document for each individual chapter, or writing notes out on a separate sheet of paper. These options take away valuable time and focus from comprehending the text. Furthermore, these options will quickly become bloated and confusing. Publishers must develop an in-text note taking and annotation system in order to have an edge over print books and free resources.

There are benefits and drawbacks to every type of textbook, but the purpose behind every one of them is the same: To help students learn. Education is rapidly moving towards a digital model and students demand textbooks that can keep up.

Fahrenheit 404: Censorship?

While burning books have been a practice going as far back as 213 BC, it is not something that can be done with digitally published works. In that regard, platforms simply remove and ban content that violates community guidelines and ban individuals from posting. Nevertheless, in means of less drastic measures, many states and counties have leaned into banning books from the public education systems that cross their conservative views. Book banning, in this case, has risen in practice over the years. As of this year, there was even a book burning in Tennessee back in February where a pastor burned Harry Potter and Twilight books.

Banned and Censored

To combat this censorship, many digital media platforms like OverDrive and Scribd have taken measures to ensure these banned books are still available. For example, doing events like banned book week. However, as of this year, Hoopla and OverDrive have removed books centering around what can be construed as hateful content and misinformation. Hoopla CEO Jeff Jankowski states, “Due to the hateful nature of these specific titles, I have no regrets about having our team remove them from hoopla.” Then he says, “I must acknowledge that this situation highlights a complex issue that Libraries have always faced in curating their collections — avoiding a culture of censorship.”

OverDrive CEO Steve Potash has not made any comments.

The removal came about through librarian suggestions and assistance from the Library Freedom Project. The demand to remove books on behalf of librarians who found them offensive is a paradoxical and inconsistent practice in digital platforms designed to be unbiased in the variety of curated viewpoints held. This is why Scribd continuously has a wide range of voices as a digital library. Ryan Holiday, who partnered with Trip Adler, CEO of Scribd, to make banned books more available, even says:

“America has a lot of problems but people reading books is not one of them. I’m appalled by this campaign to ban or remove books from school libraries and as a bookseller, it’s my obligation to do something about it.”
https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/freedom-of-speech-book-banning-in-2022

It is also why the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) fights to defend the “freedom to speak, the freedom to publish, and the freedom to read, as promised by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.”

Radical Text

However, as of recent hate crimes like that of the shooting in Buffalo, New York, the shooter allegedly published a manifesto citing the “Great Replacement Theory” that was recently removed from online platforms. While it wasn’t published on any digital publishing platforms or libraries, a new law is emerging out of Texas that could later be used to affect digital American publishing platforms. The law is currently known as H.B. No. 20, it prevents censorship of Texans on prominent social media platforms in spite of the potential to incite violence through radical views.

The law would fall in line with the America Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights, where the first three rights are:

I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.
II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.

In the future, this could protect books like God is Bigger than Covid by Frances Deanes and A New Nobility of Blood and Soil by Richard Walther Darré. Books that were removed from Hoopla and OverDrive, world distributors of digital content for libraries and schools, due to the nature of their content.

Error Code 404

According to Rebecca Knuth, an author on book burnings and the destruction of libraries, books are targeted because they “are the embodiment of ideas and if you hold extreme beliefs, you cannot tolerate anything that contradicts those beliefs or is in competition with them.” While the books that are being censored aren’t being burned or banned from these platforms because of opposing ideas, they are being censored for promoting radical thought and presumably extremist actions like that of the shooter in Buffalo, N. Y. resulting in missing or deleted webpages—error code 404.

This could signify a new road for rules and regulations in screening works for digital library spaces and platforms in America and for what should be censored on public platforms, affecting all authors alike. Should public digital media platforms adhere to unbiased curated content like Scribd, and soon most major social media platforms, or should certain content be screened for and removed as OverDrive and Hoopla have done?

The Rise and Fall of Gawker

Once a flagship model on the internet, Gawker ignited debates about celebrities, challenged societal norms, and trailblazed what could be said in the new world of digital media. Founded in 2002 by Nick Denton and Elizabeth Spiers, Gawker envisioned a new frontier for fearless journalism. Their stylistic journalism forced them into bankruptcy in 2016 with the infamous Hulk Hogan case. Up until 2016, with its sister sites Deadspin, Jezebel, Gizmodo (io9), and Kotaku, Gawker had its tentacles wrapped around the digital publishing industry. Gawker’s advocacy for free speech over the internet and mischievous articles kept web surfers from being bored. The first amendment was often under fire as Gawker made its impact on American media through its reckless journalism.

As Gawker looked to industrialize the online gossip industry, early articles such as “Gawker Stalker Maps and Emily Gould” (2006-08) and Alex Balk’s article “Accused of Antisemitism” (2007), gave good examples of their satirical editorials. “Gawkers vs. Sarah Palin” provided a controversial area for Gawkers leakage of Palin’s unreleased book excerpts. Backed by publisher HarperCollins, Palin sued Gawker for leaking her book without her permission. Gawker lost the case when a federal judge ordered them to take down the posts.

Gawker’s assessment of journalism, implored writers to be innovative and creative through the idea of the utopian impulse. As described by Adrian Chen, a former writer for Gawker, the utopian impulse demonstrated Gawkers eagerness for its authors to be free and innovative. Through Gawker’s content-management system, the publish button was only a click away from either the success of a writer or their self-implosion. While the platform encouraged their journalists to be free, their aspirations drove the company into the ground. Through battling people such as Peter Thiel and Hulk Hogan, Gawker’s aspirations didn’t stand much of a chance.

Eccentric billionaire Peter Thiel, (cofounder of PayPal) became Gawker’s public enemy number one. Thiel was portrayed as being gay by Gawker’s articles which damaged Thiel’s character. Thiel and Gawker exchanged many punches through the years. The covert financer, made Gawker struggle at times with the number of lawsuits he imposed on Gawker for defamation. Thiel, in 2015, funded the popular Hulk Hogan case that involved the leakage of a sex tape causing questions about invasion of privacy and free speech. With financial backing from the billionaire, Hulk Hogan won his lawsuit against Gawker. Engulfed in $140 million dollars’ worth of damages the company posted for bankruptcy and was bought out.

Later through auction, Gawker was acquired by Univision Communications in 2016, for approximately $135 million. Fortunately, Gawkers sister companies remained unaffected. The articles of Jezebel, Gizmodo, Deadspin, and Kotaku don’t quite match Gawker’s intensity, but portrayed similar creative aspects. For example, Jezebel discusses celebrities, politics, and entertainment in a stylistic manner. Gizmodo has a sci-fi take on journalism and debates anything relating to tech or spaceflight. Deadspin deals a unique take on sports by providing topics such as “Drew Brees’ midlife crisis is right on time.” Providing unique articles about gaming and tech, Kotaku submerges its readers with creative articles such as “Genshin Impact Dev’s Rad AF ‘Urban RPG’ is Living in My Head Rent Free.”.

Gawker pushed the boundaries of free speech on the digital platform. In Nick Denton’s eyes, anything that was interesting validated an article. Denton illuminated his readers by pushing through articles no matter how controversial they were. He wanted everything to be a fair game in his empire. Former Gawker editor Max Read categorized Gawkers life as “endlessly scrolling, eternally accessible record of prattle and wit and venom.” Built on young journalists who look to strike it big, Gawker feared no one and didn’t necessarily care if they hurt feelings. As Nick Denton stated in an interview with Joe Mullin of ArsTechnica, he would not change Gawker’s image one bit.

Recently Gawker has relaunched in 2021 with the Bustle Digital Group. Leah Finnegan, the new editor-in chief who originally worked for Gawker in their heyday envisions a fresh new start for the platform. Ms. Finnegan understands that the old platform got out of hand, and wants to get back to the funny bits. In an interview with NY Times Ben Smith, Ms. Finnegan stated that she wasn’t interested in ruining people’s lives, but would rather focus on satirical literary criticism. Through the creation of “Religious Guidelines”, authors now have much more direction when writing for Gawker.

Gawker specialization in gossip, made it difficult to prosper when something was accidentally leaked. Nonetheless, the company helped popularize the early goings of the blogging scene. Under Leah Finnegan’s new management, a historic comeback attempt is looking promising. Even if the company looks at making fun of people, Ms. Finnegan intends on doing it in a professional manner.

Companies like Gawker forged a new industry and helped set the guidelines for freedom of speech on the internet. Through their satirical approach Gawker blazed a trail for companies such as BuzzFeed to take over the gossip market. Gawker passed down a lot of qualities to the newly forming industry and created controversial journalism. With Ms. Finnegan’s advisement, Gawker looks at diversifying its platform to be more suitable for casual laughter from the audience instead of hurting people with defamation.