This presentation accompanied a workshop at the Klopotek Publishers' Forum in Berlin, 2013. APIs offer huge opportunities to grow your customer base, engage your readers and increase the efficiency of your business. In this workshop, we show how APIs can be applied to publishing, using ValoBox as one of the examples. We'll take you through many options, from using APIs within the internal production process to providing individuals and companies with access to your metadata and content.

1. Targeting
customers with
APIs
Adam Duvander @adamd
Anna Lewis @anna_cn
Oliver Brooks @cn_oli

2. Workshop overview
Session 1
Talk: What is an API?
Interact: Try an API
Session 2
Talk: Productivity through APIs
Interact: Ask about specific use cases
Session 3
Talk: How ValoBox use APIs to distribute books
Interact: Q&A

3. Workshop format
Ask questions. You get out what you put in.
You are probably not alone - if in doubt, ask!
Aim for a solid understanding of APIs

4. What is an API?
Session 1

5. What is an API?
Application Programming Interface

6. What is an API?
A conversation between machines

7. What is an API?
Humans are smart
Interpret messages
Fill in the blanks
Filter noise
http://www.picstopin.com

8. What is an API?
Machines are dumb
Missing data = error
Unclear instruction = error
Unexpected response = error
http://nerdywithchildren.com/

9. What does an API look like?
Information or action accessed via a URI
Converse using simple, structured data
Communication between cloud services

10. What does an API look like
Human - Human
Q) Can you give me the details about A futurist
manifesto'?
A) Sure, its ISBN is 9781449305598 and it was
published by O'Reilly media. It was written by
Brian O'Leary and Hugh Mcguire.

11. What does an API look like?
Human - Machine

12. What does an API look like?
Machine - Machine
GET http://valobox.com/streams/565

13. Example: Amazon product API
Free product data
Link to purchase
Used by every
social book site

14. Example: Amazon product API

15. Example: Foursquare
GET: https://api.foursquare.com/v2/venues/explore?near=berlin
Server
locations: [
{
id: 5892,
name: "12 Apostels",
lat: xxxx,
lon: yyyy,
image: "http://images.foursquare.com/452342.jpg
}
]

16. Interactive
1. Open chrome/firefox browser
2. Enter URL
valobox.com/tornado/v1/streams/565
3. View JSON data
4. Can you find the title?

17. Interactive

18. Interactive

19. IFTTT Recipes

20. Productivity
through APIs
Session 2

21. Productivity through APIs
Machines:
• Love repetition
• Are very fast
• Don't make mistakes

22. Importance of housekeeping
But machines:
• can only follow
instructions
• can only complete a task
if they have all the data

23. Case study: CompletelyNovel
Publishing platform for self and small
publishers
Automated
• book production
• printing
• order management
• royalty management
• ...

24. Case study: CompletelyNovel
Some APIs in use:
• 'Print-talk' printer communication
• Barcode generation
• Paypal checkout
• File conversion system
• Amazon Product Advertising
• ...

25. Case study: CompletelyNovel
Result
70k users
12k Titles
2-5k orders / month
14hrs / week staff overhead

26. Preparing for APIs
Ensure data is:
• complet
• accurete
• exportable
• avoid duplication
• in a common standard
• avoid duplication

27. Preparing for APIs
Map your processes
Identify:
• repetitive tasks
• tasks requiring no intuition
• time-intensive tasks
• which people/processes
need the information

28. Implementing APIs
Developing in-house vs. use services
• What/who is it for?
• Do you have in-house skills?
• Who will maintain and develop it?

29. Implementing APIs
Support existing standards
• http://openlibrary.org - catalogue of books
(free to add to)
• http://opds-spec.org/ - format for transfering
book data and catalogues
• http://www.editeur.org/83/Overview/ - ONIX
data format

30. Implementing APIs
Common places publishers use APIs:
• File-sharing/management
• Sharing metadata with third parties
• Printing from internal systems
• Working with startups

31. API tips
Super simple
Break up processes into parts
Think hard about different ways of solving the
problem before choosing one
Write good documentation

32. API tips
Advertise your APIs
• Internally
• Externally

33. Interactive
Do you have a process you think could benefit
from an API?
Ask us about implementing APIs
What barriers do you encounter?

34. Public APIs
Session 3

35. Web-friendly Books

36. Launched October 2012

37. How do you
sell to people
who aren't
looking for
books?

38. Web-friendly = bigger audience
Global Monthly Searches:
“business books” 201 thousand
“how to start a business” 1.5 million

39. Make your
content
a part
of the web

40. ValoBox offers a viable solution
Takes advantage of the web’s ubiquity,
speed and flexibility
Preserves value of books
Works for customers AND publishers
[Image: screenshot]

41. Make it quicker, easier, cheaper
Full text search
Cloud-based storage
Web-friendly purchasing
• Login with Facebook/Twitter
• Preview pages from anywhere
• Buy by the chapter
• Pre-pay system

43. Share and embed on social networks

44. Business model: Revenue share
Create a million book stores by
empowering others to sell your book
ValoBox: Marketing:
15% 25%
Publisher:
60%

45. APIs inside ValoBox
The 'company' structure:
• User management
• eBook Production
• Accounting
• Distribution

46. APIs inside ValoBox
Server Customer
User
Accounting
Management
Reading
Distribution
app
Book
Production

47. Metadata API
What books are available?
Search for books
Get more details about a book
Get book images
Get links and embed codes

48. Metadata API
Create your own
• bookshops
• information services
http://api_demo.valobox.com/books

49. Reader API
Embed books within a context
Control reader from parent page
Control parent page from reader

50. Reader API
Create your own:
• Reading experience
• Mashups
http://api_demo.valobox.com/books/show/2125

51. Social sharing
One click sharing
One click access
Target specific pages

52. Search API
Google search API so specific (paid) content
can be found via search engines

53. Find out more
www.valobox.com/api

54. Questions
Specific use cases - ask us about APIs
Questions about ValoBox?
Adam Duvander @adamd
Anna Lewis @anna_cn
Oliver Brooks @cn_oli