How To Build An ePub eBook Library For Your iPad

As everyone’s anticipation to own an iPad increases, I’ve discovered that some Mac owners have never dipped into the ePub eBook pool.

This post is a brief guide to building a library of DRM-free and legally-free ePub eBooks.

How To Pay Writer Harlan Ellison

I can’t give a link to this directly. Explanation at end.

HARLAN ELLISON
– Saturday, January 23 2010 14:3:4

IMPORTANT !!!!!!!!! please read & REPOST HERE DAILY!!
I’ve been reading your posts since Thursday, and I know you mean well, but if you TRULY wish to do me any financial good, stop going to buy my books for hefty prices, in crap condition, on Amazon and elsewhere…

IF YOU CANNOT FIND THE TITLE YOU WANT IN A SIGNED MINT EDITION HERE AT THE ELLISON WEBDERLAND BOOKSTORE…WHICH MONEY COMES DIRECTLY TO ME AND SUSAN…

Then just go to E.READS!!! They have 33 of my books in handsome downloadable editions with a nifty Dillon cover! They are, in most cases, Preferred Texts. And I get a decent part of the minuscule price.

PLEASE!

Keep passing this on, or perhaps Rick can pull down the AOL banner, now long out of currency, and plug in the above.

Spreading ANY kind of word will be useful.

But this ongoing ignorance of how to PAY THE WRITER and not Google or Amazon or any other server doddering under the weight and onus of stealing from the primary creator…requires some shucking-off of the perpetual naivete and ignorance!

E.READS is my agent for books, after this board’s well-run (by Susan)booksearch as your first stop!

Whatever is convenient for you to do….but do stop wasting your money on my work as appropriated by smoothyguts entrepreneurs!

Quietly, I thank you.

Harlan Ellison

I sympathize with his desire, but his Internet presence is rather primitive. It’s all volunteer labor, as I understand it, so I can’t criticize. But others have pointed out on his message board (where the above is from, and which doesn’t link to individual posts at all), the lack of a direct transactional link at his site is an ongoing frustration to all the people — especially internationally — who want to Throw Money At Him.

Previously here:

Pay The Artist!

ePub eBooks From Apple Will Use FairPlay DRM

This has never been a question in my mind so I’m really shocked to see posts around wondering if the ePub eBooks sold through the iBookstore will have DRM.

Of course they will!

iPad: iBooks Software Will Have Dictionary Lookup?

That’s what I surmise from a list of iPhone OS 3.2 SDK features listed over at Engadget.

Included dictionaries: Apple Dictionary, New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus, Shogakukan Daijisen, Shogakukan Progressive English-Japanese Japanese-English Dictionary, and Shogakukan Ruigo Reikai Jiten (may also be used for a Dictionary app perhaps?)

I understand the need for a dictionary for Pages. That’s necessary for spellcheck.

But with a dictionary baked in the OS anyway, adding dictionary word lookup to iBooks wouldn’t be a difficult thing.

Models of the Sony Reader with dictionary word lookup use New Oxford American Dictionary and Oxford Dictionary of English.

The Kindle uses The New Oxford American Dictionary.

The Barnes & Noble Nook uses Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.

Also important:

Much richer text API including low-level access to font data and highlevel support for drawing formatted text

I don’t know if that will help eCrap ePub any. I suspect it’s more for a future use.

Apple And eBooks: A Horror Story

This is the most difficult post I’ve ever had to write.

Steve Jobs hates ePub. He hates eBooks.

How can anyone with his refined sense of taste not hate them?

They’re an abomination. A tasteless — and incompetent — techie committee solution to electronic books.

Seriously, can any of you see Apple creating ePub? (If you can, leave now. You don’t know Jobs or Apple.)

And iBooks? iBooks?!!!?

From the company that gave us the delightful CoverFlow …

… we now get shelves?!

The Unfinished iPad

Sherlock Holmes would call this a two or even three pipe problem.

I understand what Apple is doing with ePub. That bit is now all clear to me and I’ll post about that later.

But there are too many bits here I don’t understand at all.

The Stevenote video hasn’t been posted at Apple yet. I had to rely on a faulty live audio feed today that took up so much of this crap PC’s CPU that I couldn’t even monitor live blogs at the same time.

So, there are many gaps in my knowledge of what took place today.

But still, looking over Apple’s site, something is really bugging me.

This iPad isn’t finished. Something is missing. Something more is coming.

And there’s going to be another Apple event before this goes on sale.

I need to think about this. Another post tomorrow.

iBooks: I Am Not Happy

No. No no no no no no.

Not ePub.

No.

This is all wrong.

I’ll have another post about this later.

But for now: No. This is all wrong.

Archos To Do Seven-Inch Android Mini-Tablet

I was waiting for this shoe to drop!

Archos 7” Android Tablet appears for iPad-killer Price

Right now, it’s only a rumor.

But Archos has had a seven-inch mini-tablet for some time. It’s a frikkin beast — a metal-clad brick.

The Threshold

Every. Thing. Changes. Tomorrow.

The I.O.U. Button

I’d really like to know what frikkin world print publishing lives in.

Because I live in one in which most people cannot afford to buy everything they’d like to have.

Including books.

I don’t think there is a single real writer out there who cannot sympathize with a reader who wants to read a book but cannot afford it.

That’s what public libraries are for.

But my fellow writers who will never enter the Gates of Hell known as traditional publishing and those who free themselves from its parasitic grip, will most likely offer digital books that won’t be available to borrow in a public library.

Do you want to turn that reader temporarily short of disposable income into a thief?

There are some books, for whatever reason, a person feels he or she must have. It could be to distract them from their current woes by reading a work from a writer whose books they’ve bought in the past but can’t right now not afford. It could be a book with practical instructions to help escape a dire situation. It could be advice, motivation, whatever.

The point is, don’t create a pirate.

Remember the times you were behind in your bills, the time you wanted something, the time when life had its fingers around your neck and was squeezing hard and you could have used a break.

Forget a “Donate” button. That’s a pussy move. That says, “I’m a beggar.” Don’t do that.

Offer a “Buy” button.

But for god’s sake, also offer an “I.O.U.” button. One that allows a fan of yours — a potential lifelong reader — a chance at some dignity. Something that says, “Look, I understand how it can be. You need this now, but remember to pay me later when it’s better for you.”

Do that.

The bastards currently running things never will.

This is your way to not be like Them.

February 7, 2010 Update: Buy Now, Pay Later (Maybe With Your Allowance) This Is Big. I’d like to see them extend it to self-hosted WordPress blogs and others (if they can get it offered by WordPress.COM — my free host — that’d be magnificent!), so writers can immediately incorporate it. It’s brilliant. I’m not sure how the Scoring works, but if it could be worked out for purchasers to set the time limit, that’d be excellent. I noticed on their Publishers contact page they ask for the size of the audience. This is backwards. PayPal didn’t ask people for their number of friends when it began. And it spread like a contagion. I’d like to see Kwedit spread that way too. It’d take everything to the next level for writers — and, in fact, for everybody.