It's a pleasant surprise to find a sanctury from all that modern inane garbage they call music.

I’d like to post a review of BooksShouldBeFree.com, a site I found that is very well laid out. It has only around 100 eBooks but they are the 100 most popular books in the public domain. Also, the site has photos of every book so you can be sure of what you're downloading. As the website's name suggests (BooksShouldBeFree.com), all mp3 audio book downloads are free.

Free book a day
The Mad Professor points out Project Gutenberg now has an RSS feed listing its new titles.

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I say we must take a stand now! Raise your voices with me, brothers and sisters: "No to tablets without psychotropic effect!"

The future of reading. Think Star Trek. But clunkier. And on a rental basis, most likely. Sigh.


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e-Books are so square...

BoingBoing points to a tutorial on how to turn your ebook in a wall-sized readable cube. Geekalicious. Speaking of which...


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Ringy dingy

HarperCollins Oz is going to be sending book info to cell users. This is the kind of thing Lady Ninja uses to damn me for getting us cell phones. We resisted for years and years, but a kid in the big city was too difficult. (I don't know, dear, How did everyone survive before...?) Who wants to be reachable everywhere by FRIENDS much less Rupert Murdoch? (From The Saloon)


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Going digital, despite the two-finger typing

Many publishers, notorious holdouts in the tech world, are releasing books and excerpts digitally. Free internet books don't seem to hurt sales. In fact, they seem to help them. And the nerds can get involved too.

Digital text also allows fans of fiction to engage with the story in a way most readers can’t. Baen Books doesn’t encrypt its electronic text “in any sense whatsoever,” according to Jim Baen. Visitors to the site can read books on their browsers, they can download e-books, or they can download it to their desktop in Microsoft Word. “It’s great,” says Baen. “They can go in and mess with it. They can do what they want.” Doctorow is similarly enthusiastic about the modifications his fans make to his work, and asks them to notify him of their projects. (One of Doctorow’s readers in Georgia recently emailed him to tell him he’d converted a book into a format that allows him to transmit the story to his own eyeglasses. “He uses it to scroll text across his vision as he walks down the road,” says Doctorow.)

Awww. Nerds. Don't you just love em?


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The ransom model of publishing...

Clive points to an example of a couple of dudes reinventing a way to sell e-books over the internet. Interesting concept, especially for e-publishing. I wonder if it will ever fall prey to bystander syndrome -- wherein every person hoping to get the book thinks someone else will make the donations needed and nobody makes a move. If I held my book ransom, I'd have to eventually cut it's pinky off and send it to myself in the mail.


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Gutenberg-schmutenberg project plain text--this is suhweet.

Free e-book Friday!

Okay, before you snort and wrinkle your nose, I have two words for you: searchable text. Eh? Not so snooty now, are yeh? (From BoingBoing)


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E-pistolary

I'm pretty sure I coined that term a few years back. I also invented the comma, light on sunflowers, and the word "wholphin".

Both e-pistolary and epistolary novels reflect a shift in the culture -- new technology for e-mail books, an increase in literacy, and by extension letter writing, during the 18th century. And interestingly, two of the greatest epistolary novels, Pamela (1740), the very first example, and Clarissa (1748) both written by Samuel Richardson, concern the romantic and sexual lives of a young heroine -- much like modern e-pistolary books.

Susan Swan's Stupid Boys Are Good to Relax With did this years ago. Years!


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Random House phones it in

Speculating that the foreign success of the cell-novel may come to North America, Random acquires a significant stake in a cell-tech company. Hey, I thought publishers were all in trouble and had no money... How about acquiring a significant stake in me?



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The e-pistolary

A new mystery novel, delivered by email.

Is e-publishing the saviour of books that don't sell?

The pros and cons of e-Publishing examined. The real news here being that there might be "50 Australian-based specialists in German cross-dressing"...



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The boom before the bust?

I can't help but be pessimistic when I see figures like this...

Between April and May, worldwide sales of ebooks rose by 5 per cent to 389,882, while revenue from sales grew by 23 per cent to $3m (£1.7m) compared with the second quarter of 2003, according to newly released figures from the New York-based Open eBook Forum. The figures were even better for the first quarter of 2004, leaping by 46 per cent.

Do these kinds of articles lead to unsustainable investment and hurried decision-making? Or does that just happen anyway...? (P.S. Notice a pattern in the leading ebooks? Hm.. I wonder who it appeals to...)



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