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My FLOSS Manual on E-Books
by James Simmons 11 Aug '10

11 Aug '10

I am working on a FLOSS Manual on E-Books, specifically aimed at teachers and students working with One Laptop Per Child. I have some experience in this area, because I wrote the Activity that XO Laptop users use for reading PG Plain Text files, plus another one that lets you search the Internet Archive catalog and download the books you find in your choice of formats. As research for the book I designed and built my own book scanner and scanned and donated a number of books to IA. I'm working on submissions to PG and PG Canada. If you want to check the book out it's here: http://en.flossmanuals.net/bin/view/ActivitiesGuideSugar/WebHome This page will let you look at my work in progress. The normal link shows content that has since been updated. I have some people from the Rural Design Collective working with me on the book, including a young artist who is drawing illustrations for it. (The illustrations aren't in the book yet because she needs to pick out a CC license). I've gotten a lot of useful information and feedback on this but can always use more. Nobody is making a dime on this, with the possible exception of the FM website who will eventually sell bound and printed copies through Lulu. PDF, web, and EPUB versions will always be free. If you see anything in the book you disagree with don't hesitate to point it out. If you would like to contribute content to the book that would be even better! Thanks, James Simmons

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Re: Rule 6 Copyright Clearance requirements
by James Simmons 11 Aug '10

11 Aug '10

David, This is where the link to the blank page is: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Category:How-To This is the actual link: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Copyright_Rule_6_How-To It is not *literally* blank, but close enough. I have no idea how I would get from the PG website to the text file you shared with me. Thanks for sharing, though. James Simmons On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 9:23 AM, David Price <ccx074(a)coventry.ac.uk> wrote: > Hi James, > > The Rule 6 page is: > > http://copy.pglaf.org/rule6-new.txt > > Where's the blank page. > > As to Rule 6 clearances - I don't do them but there are plenty of them > every month so they are possible. > > All the best, > David Price, > UK Project Gutenberg Coordinator

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Project Gutenberg eBooks available on Boston Public Library's ‘Virtual Branch’ website
by Marcello Perathoner 11 Aug '10

11 Aug '10

http://blogs.overdrive.com/library/post/2010/08/10/Project-Gutenberg-eBooks… -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster(a)gutenberg.org

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Re: Trailers
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 11 Aug '10

11 Aug '10

greg said: > What announcement? well, he said chuckling out loud, i guess that answers _that_... ;+) search twitter -- always the very best way to see how the gossip-vines are misinterpreting the news -- for "overdrive gutenberg", and see... the two biggest descriptors are an "integration" between overdrive and project gutenberg, which is sometimes described as "a partnership"... you can thank paul biba at teleread for the "integration" blooper, but i'm not sure which poor comprehender kicked the "partnership" meme. on the one hand, i hear michael saying "they are doing our job for us". and i can see that side of the coin. still, i can also see the other side, which is that they're being paid a ton of library money to "do that job". do you know that some publishing houses are charging libraries some tremendously outrageous prices for e-books, via overdrive as vendor? and i don't mean something like $30 for an e-book when the p-book is $30, which would be shocking enough all by itself, if you think about it. nope, i mean more like _$120_ for an e-book, when the p-book is $30. and they'll order dozens of copies of one of these high-priced e-books! all because "patrons are requesting these books, in the e-book format." but i'm guessing the patrons do not know they are being ripped off so! overdrive is doing this highway robbery. and now they're using free p.g. e-texts as a come-on to lure libraries; to make them feel like they're getting more bang for their big bucks... do you really want to be in bed with a robber baron? does having an "integrated partnership" with a thief like this sound like a good idea? michael hart, maybe it's time for you to do the distribution job yourself. -bowerbird

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Re: Trailers
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 11 Aug '10

11 Aug '10

i think teasers should be clearly identified. or banned outright, if you were to ask me. but if michael says it's ok, then i'd have to accept it, because nobody knows p.g. policy better than the man who invented the thing. there are thousands of free e-books over at smashwords and feedbooks. will p.g. accept those complete books, too? or is this only a "by invitation" offer made available to a few? i'm more concerned about the announcement by overdrive. is p.g. being paid for that usage? because overdrive certainly is. also, in the past, several e-book producers have stated publicly that they are giving a percentage of their income to project gutenberg, including eucalyptus. have those programmers done so? -bowerbird

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Re: Trailers
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 11 Aug '10

11 Aug '10

jamie said: > Rest assured that the royalties /are/ all accounted for here, > and will most certainly be paid when the time comes. very cool, jamie, very cool. and just so people know, you could have proceeded in such a way that you wouldn't have had to pay _anything_ to project gutenberg, so you've most definitely acquitted yourself in an honorable manner, and your dignified response (and presence) here reflects admirably. and if any of the other app producers had created anything that is half as good as eucalyptus, i would've name-checked them as well. so, greg and michael -- any answers on the other app producers? and on overdrive? -bowerbird

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Re: !@! Amazon Says E-Books Now Top Hardcover Sales
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 23 Jul '10

23 Jul '10

a whole chorus of whiners popped up after amazon's "kindle sales triple" press-release to heap their usual crap on the online giant. they accused the big seattle retailer of being "misleading", betraying their own ignorance and a lack of reading comprehension skills. as usual, these whiners want _specific_ info, on how many devices that amazon has sold, how many e-book units it has moved, etc. it's as if they think they have some kind of god-given right to riffle through amazon's books -- meaning its financial ledgers... and the teleread idiot rothman was on his usual blathering kick about pulling in some kind of federal government oversight dogs... he doesn't even realize how stupid he sounds. the funniest part of all is that some of these whiners claim amazon is "in deep trouble"... yeah, right. meanwhile, according to publishers weekly, a number of publishing houses have now all confirmed the e-book/hardcover differential: > http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/retailing/article/43926… but that's not the biggest amazon story today. andrew wiley, who is some big "super-agent" (with clients like andrew mailer, ralph ellison, saul bellow, john updike, philip roth, etc.) has just signed with amazon to bring backlist titles to the kindle -- in an _exclusive_ arrangement. > http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/books/22odyssey.html the exclusivity only lasts for 2 years at present, but i suppose that it can be reconsidered then, giving everyone time to see how it shakes out. (and believe me, a _lot_ will change in 2 years.) amazon already signed unknown authors and midlist authors (like joe konrath) to deals for kindle exclusives, and now extends its range to backlist titles from quite well-known authors, including "fear and loathing in las vegas", by that famous bullet-kisser hunter s. thompson, which is the first of these e-books i will buy... and publishers who thought they had a vault full of money from their "intellectual property" now find that agents are picking their pocket, claiming that e-books were never a part of the contracts from the old days, an assertion which courts have sided with whenever it's been tested. amazon is most decidedly not in a weak position. it is _strong_, and way out in front in the quest to make e-books a solid reality in the 21st century. -bowerbird

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Re: !@! Amazon Says E-Books Now Top Hardcover Sales
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 22 Jul '10

22 Jul '10

darn, just came to post that, and michael beat me to the punch. and, remarkably, notice how this is describing the last quarter? if memory serves me correctly, april was when the agency model was put into place. those stupid publishers. before that change, which they instigated, amazon was subsidizing its kindle e-books, taking a loss on many of 'em, just to get the business kick-started. since then, amazon makes a cool 30% on every e-book they sell -- from the agency5 anyway -- and they use that money to advertise the kindle. so their commercials are pervasive on t.v. these days. oh, and it also allowed amazon to drop the kindle price, to $189. thus, unsurprisingly, kindle hardware sales are steadily increasing. meanwhile, the agency5 publishers are making _less_ money on every e-book they sell these days, so as the consumer shifts from hard-backs (which was _the_ cash-cow for corporate publishers) to e-books, the agency5 publishers see they cut their own throat. and -- just to provide the ironic twist serving as poetic justice -- the absence of any price difference between e-bookstores means customers are _increasingly_ turning to amazon, because that is the only format they know they can read on any and all platforms. amazon sold _3_times_ as many e-books in the first half of 2010 than they sold in the first half of 2009. yes, three times as many! and of the 1.14 million _total_ e-books sold by james patterson, amazon sold 867,881 of 'em. that works out to a whopping 75%. three out of four e-books sold in the marketplace are by amazon. the corporate publishers thought they were cutting amazon down at the knees, when in actuality they have only boosted it higher... -bowerbird

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!@! Amazon Says E-Books Now Top Hardcover Sales
by Michael S. Hart 20 Jul '10

20 Jul '10

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/technology/20kindle.html?_r=1&hp "Amazon.com, one of the nation’s largest bookstores, said Monday that for the last three months, sales of electronic books for the Kindle, Amazon’s e-reader, outnumbered sales of hardcover books for the first time."

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zen markup language dot com
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 16 Jul '10

16 Jul '10

yes, it does appear zml.com has been shut down by the government for breaking copyright laws... no, that's not my site for zen markup language... i'm here: > http://z-m-l.com copying content from the corporate cartel just plain doesn't interest me. i would rather create new stuff, content that uplifts the human condition and society, not crap that drags it down into a commercial sewer. -bowerbird

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