January 2011 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 20 Jan '11

20 Jan '11

apple didn't update the announced total of ipads sold for a long time, but they were still selling lots of 'em... to date, they've sold 14.8 million, half in the last quarter. this surpassed even the wildest expectations. congrats! you might recall that michael and i have a friendly bet on when the ipad numbers will surpass the kindle numbers. (can't remember if it was just the kindle, or all of the dedicated machines; nook has done surprisingly well.) anyway, amazon still isn't releasing specific figures, but there were reports they had ordered 4.5 million chips for delivery in the first quarter for use in kindle3 machines, which indicates they still believe strongly in the product. with that kind of chip order, they will get a deep discount, and amazon is very good at passing along the savings, so we can look for kindles to get even cheaper than the $139. 2012 might be the year that we finally arrive at sub-$100. i predicted april 21, 2013 as the date when ipad will "win" the numbers race. we'll see how that turns out... whatever the case, as i said in an earlier post, 2010 was the year that _writers_ started making money, sometimes _big_ money, by selling their work directly to their readers, disintermediating publishers in the process. they still have amazon as a middleman, taking 30%, but amazon performs necessary services for their cut, so it might be a fair share. the important point is this: there has now been formed a critical mass of readers who are willing to buy e-books from authors "directly" (i.e., via amazon), so that authors no longer need publishers. this is a very beautiful thing. for a long time, i pooh-poohed project gutenberg because it was just "all those old books", when i was more interested in the _new_ books that were coming out from _new_ writers. but since the publishing industry had all of those new books tied up in its system, the only place i could really work with e-books -- develop them, do r&d on them, and so forth -- was here at project gutenberg. so i really appreciate the big opportunity which presented itself here, thanks to michael... that's especially true because it was hart's insistence on the "plain-text" version of e-books that led to my discovery that plain-text is actually _the_ superior file-format for e-books. you just have to store the styling and formatting information in amongst that plain-text, which isn't hard to do, not at all. but you then have a file-format which is very easy to work on. since even marcello, the most rabid of the x.m.l./t.e.i. diehards who'd attack me regularly, has converted over to light-markup, the bulk of my work is pretty much finished here, i would think. there was no announcement here, but over at d.p., rfrank said: > Project Gutenberg and DP management > have approved RST as a master format. and with that, i issue a loud "i told you so" and a big laugh... meanwhile, new authors with new books are now calling me... because the corporate publishing industry was in charge, and they wanted to make e-book creation as difficult as possible -- so as to make it more difficult for newbies to compete -- we are now stuck with jon noring's stupid complicated .epub, as "the standard" no less! except, just as i always predicted, the absence of an open-source authoring-tool prototype app and an open-source viewer-program means that we now have a bunch of different implementations of the .epub "standard", which means we're reliving our "web-browser incompatibility" nightmares all over again, except it's with e-books this time... great. that's just what we needed. of course, this is just what the corporate publishers _wanted_. they have been dragging their feet on e-books since the start, stalling things out whenever they could, so this was the tactic. but we knew they were doomed anyway. and we were right. and now we have a critical mass of readers who want to buy, and authors who want to sell to that critical mass, so there's a new opportunity now to make the e-book world a bit smarter, by adopting a better format, just like i made p.g. a bit smarter. i'll still hang around on this list. and i'll still have things to tell you that _would_ make you smarter if you would listen... but for the most part, my attention is now on the new books. the ones that'll be born digital. good luck with the old ones. -bowerbird

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Re: abbyy is in the cloud
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 20 Jan '11

20 Jan '11

if you do a lot of o.c.r., you have lots of options, one of those options being abbyy in the cloud... if you don't do much o.c.r., abbyy in the cloud is a very good option, allowing you to convert a minimal number of pages at pennies a piece, without having to maintain your own get-up... google-docs also offers a free option, albeit the quality often leaves a little to be desired. i am not taking sides, i am just listing options... more options is often better than fewer options. -bowerbird

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abbyy is in the cloud
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 20 Jan '11

20 Jan '11

abbyy now offers o.c.r. in the cloud... the rate is not cheap, but not expensive either... > 20 pages -- 3.00 USD > 50 pages -- 5.00 USD > 100 pages -- 7.00 USD > 200 pages -- 10.00 USD > http://www.abbyyonline.com -bowerbird

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Project Gutenberg of Canada Passes #700
by Michael S. Hart 19 Jan '11

19 Jan '11

This week Project Gutenberg of Canada produced their 700th and are already on their way to #800!!! My huge thanks and congratulations!!! Michael S. Hart Founder Project Gutenberg, Inventor of eBooks

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Re: Invitation to write mobile device documentation
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 15 Jan '11

15 Jan '11

that's a good positive step. congratulations on taking it. it's also interesting and encouraging to learn that there is overwhelming demand from the mobile end-users. michael has always stressed phones; it looks like he was right once again. a lot of people like to grouse about the old man, but time and time again, _his_ crystal ball proves to be superior. -bowerbird

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Invitation to write mobile device documentation
by Greg Newby 13 Jan '11

13 Jan '11

The main Project Gutenberg support page for mobile devices is here: www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:MobileReader_Devices_How-To It is deficient. We need some volunteers to write specific documentation on how to get PG content onto the devices. I offer a bounty: $100 in store credit, gift certificate, devices or cash for a detailed section for a device, device type or a related topic. For Kindle, Sony ereader, Nook. For various mobile phones. Android tablets, iPads. Using iTunes, using Mac, using Win7, XP and Vista. How to "save as" to be able to find the book on your computer. Especially, how to transfer those files to the various devices. If you are *seriously* motivated and can commit to be helpful with supporting PG in answering user questions and testing our Web site and content, I'll buy you your choice of device device (like a Kindle or whatever you are interested in) and/or subsidize your access/utilization/subscription costs. Adopt Kindle support. Or Nook, or iPad, or Android, or a variation. Submitted documents don't need to be perfect, there will be ongoing updates and revision. Single document sections can go to me, for posting to gutenberg.org, or if you will be engaging in longer-term work we can provide direct edit access for the Wiki area. Documents should link to external sites (when they're persistent, useful and accurate), but we need to grow our own documentation specific to the PG content & Web site. Why am I seeking this? Because the few people who run the Web site, answer help@ email and process errata are overwhelmed by questions on mobile devices and content, and we need to point people at better documentation. There will still be questions, but we need to do a better job at enabling self-support. Thanks! Greg Dr. Gregory B. Newby Chief Executive and Director Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation http://gutenberg.org A 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization with EIN 64-6221541 gbnewby(a)pglaf.org

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Requests for eBooks
by Michael S. Hart 11 Jan '11

11 Jan '11

Can we have more works by PG Wodehouse and an English translation of The Water Margin, please?

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Report of the 'Comité des Sages' on bringing Europe's cultural heritage online
by Marcello Perathoner 10 Jan '11

10 Jan '11

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/doc/re… -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster(a)gutenberg.org

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Re: "the jungle" updated
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 07 Jan '11

07 Jan '11

al said: > Thanks for the cheap seat sneer <g>. well, you're welcome. i don't know that i'd call it a "sneer", but it doesn't surprise me that you'd interpret it that way... and yes, i'm glad the audio-books are being brought over to the "new" cataloging system, as it is an improvement... it would seem to me that that wouldn't be that big of a job, surely not compared to bringing over the _text_ of a book... i'd even wonder if you couldn't bring all of the audio-books over to the "new" cataloging system in one simple batch job. if that's not possible, perhaps you could enlighten me why... i've also been wondering how much more there is to be done, in moving e-books to the new catalog. when'll it be finished? -bowerbird p.s. i can assure you that no sneers (none) were formed in the composition of this message...

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Re: "the jungle" updated
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 07 Jan '11

07 Jan '11

al said: > Should be an interesting exercise--it was an audiobook. > But, don't let that stop you... the posted message said this: > The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair 6556C > [Link: http://www.gutenberg.org/6/5/5/6556 ] > [Files: 6556-readme.txt; 6556-index.htm] > > This file has been updated with the new header, removed > from its old address in etext04, and filed under the > new directory system. An HTML file has been provided, > with links to the audio files. silly me! here i thought you'd "updated" the text, and provided an .html version of the book itself, when all you "updated" was a puny .html file that links to .mp3 files. oh well, thanks for "updating". -bowerbird

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