Category Archives: E-Books

One of the problems that will hang over the Digital Revolution for a while yet is the problem of how to convert all the published text into digital form. Digital Divide Data is a company with a solution, but there are some questions to be asked about it. One things that always brother me is when a private company choose to use .org.

The Cleveland Public Library is preparing to launch a new e-book system, powered by Overdrive .

Is it just me, or is it pretty damn ironic that Mac OS X: The Complete Reference is available in Acrobat eBook Reader format, yet the Acrobat eBook Reader is not available for MacOSX? Yes, I’m bitter. And stupid. While I didn’t buy the MacOSX reference, I did buy a book in eBook Reader format. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Can’t read it now. Bastards. And no returns on eBooks. Crooks! Mental note: Next time remember to buy books whose only compatibilty requirements are sight and literacy. Unless I decide to learn braille or go for audio books, that is. – l. m. orchard

Remember the Baen Free Library ? It drew plenty of rave reviews from everyone. Now they have taken things a step further. The latest Honor Harrington book comes with a CD containing electronic version of every previous work. And now they also offer Webscriptions.net , which allows members to read books that have not even been released yet.

Adobe has no evidence that anyone ever Elcomsoft software to crack an Adobe e-book.

I had a conversation today with Adora Mitchell Bayles, the author of Wagons South . which is available only as pdf or html. Since it concerns our community, she would like to have it added to our collection. Thus presents the challenge I mentioned before. How best do we circulate something like this when most of the patrons who would be most interested in this sort of work are those least likely to have the technological skills to read it?

I just got an e-mail inviting me to attend the The Book Conference 2003 . Sounds interesting, but Cairns, Australia is a long way away.

I’m not the only writer who has become frustrated with the publishing process, although I have had considerably more luck in that department than many. In answer to this frustration and an increasing number of writers whose dream it is to become a published author, Web sites like iUniverse.com have popped up on the Web. – Michelle Kennedy

One of the sessions at Necronomicon this year was entitled the same at this post. It was interesting to see how things have changed in just a few short years. There was a similar session several years that I recall where all the participants pretty much looked at e-publishing with disdain, since they considered it not really real. This year participants, Ed Howdershelt , Kevin Kinne , Ray Gettman Bush , and Lynne Hansen have all had success with the new publishing formats. Mostly through places like iUniverse and Hard Shell Word Factory , but Ed sells his works strictly in electronic form from his own website. POD presents no change for libraries since they can still be ordered through the traditional jobbers via their ISBN numbers, but the strictly electronic route will present some interesting challenges as libraries determine the best methods for dealing with them.

Which is the preferrable format: PDF or EXE? (or neither)