It has been more than a year since Amazon.com announced that sales of electronic books had overtaken those of printed versions for the first time. This is a trend that Amazon is delighted to publicize, and an indication of the growing dominance of its Kindle digital reader. Self-promotion or not, the growing popularity of e-books isn’t lost on local authors — particularly those involved in the tourism and Hawaiiana space.
Of course, e-books are much more than just an electronic version of the existing analog original. Kaimuki-based e-book designer Malcolm Mekaru (malcolmmekaru.net), says e-book content can be engineered to accommodate mobile platforms from iPhones to iPads, integrating photos, video and audio.
Because tourism is so much a part of our economy, Mekaru reckons that Hawaii is a perfect laboratory to develop e-books as communications tools.
Local writer Floyd Takeuchi is a perfect case in point.
A peripatetic broadcast journalist and newspaperman, Takeuchi has worked in locales as divergent as Fiji and Tokyo. One of his latest projects is Pasefika, a tome that chronicles the 10th Festival of Pacific Arts, held in American Samoa in 2008.
The arts festival features the finest dancers, singers, carvers and other cultural masters from across the Pacific. Working with Mekaru, Takeuchi has transformed his coffee-table book into a multimedia showcase that leverages audio and video technologies. Each chapter, which is dedicated to a participating island nation, has a short video (shot and edited by Oscar Betham, a veteran American Samoa videographer) highlighting its culture. For example, Miss American Samoa, in her full dance regalia, sways her way across your iPad screen, all the while providing a short discourse on "fa’a Samoa" (the Samoan way), in a manner that both complements the text and gives you a taste of the event.
If you didn’t make it to the festival, Takeuchi’s e-book is surely the next best thing.
Travel books are also an interest of UH linguistics professor emeritus Albert J. Schutz, whose pioneering language primer "Say It in Fijian" has been a mainstay for Fiji visitors since the 1970s. Although excerpts are available on Fijiguide.com, Schutz is all for converting the reference into an e-book.
Mekaru reckons that a language primer could easily be adapted to the iPad, iPhone and Android platforms for use by tourists. "Say It in Fijian" can ideally leverage an e-book’s capabilities by embedding photos and audio so that visitors can hear Fijian phrases by native speakers.
Nonfiction is not the only theme for Hawaii e-books.
Local author Moloka‘i Kehlor has penned a novel called "Alanui-Pathway" — a fantastical Hawaiian mystery that can only be solved by modern-day practitioners of the ancient Hawaiian healing arts. Although the subject is otherworldly, her sales are very much grounded in 21st-century reality. She sells two versions of the book — one in e-book format and the other a print-on-demand version available from Amazon.
"The great thing about e-books", says Schutz, is "they offer an author the opportunity to republish their works on a new platform that expands their readership." The Manoa-based writer says he has several other titles that cover Hawaiian and Fijian topics that he’s also considering for e-book publication.
The opportunities for other local scribes are endless.
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Mike Meyer, former Internet general manager at Oceanic Time Warner Cable, now manages IT for Honolulu Community College. Reach him at mmeyer@hawaii.edu.
