From: DJ Vollkasko (DJ_Vollkasko_at_gmx.net)
Date: Wed May 18 2005 - 11:18:47 PDT
[ANN] New E-Book Challenge
Everybody remember the book challenge I'd put up a while ago
(http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=newtontalk&m=111272299712933&w=2wtontalk>
Well, Digital Dan rose valiantly to the task and gave Newtonia an ebook
edition of
Richard Kadrey's brandnew, CC-licensed, commercially published fantasy
novel "Blindshrike"
(http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=newtontalk&m=111333892901350&w=2
Dan's ebook is available from the Temporary Newton Library (hmh, might
as well change the title to "Contemporary Newton Library" or just plain
"Newton Library"...?) at
http://www.stillnewt.org/library/_Fiction/_Fantastic%20Literature/
_Fantasy/Kadrey,%20Richard%20-%20Blind%20Shrike%20(2005).
Now I have two brilliant and exciting new challenges for you. If you
want to do something for the community, become as celebrated a
Newtonian as Dan (long way to go, but a journey of a thousand leagues
starts with the first step!), are bored, wanna learn some new tricks or
are just mentally indisposed to resisting my superbly suave and subtle
hustling -- THIS IS YOUR CHANCE! Resources to get you started with
ebook-making are available from
http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/index.php/MakeNewtonEbooksIndex .
So, without any further ado, let's plunge right in, shall we? --
(1) The non-fiction challenge: "The Daemon, the GNU and the Penguin",
by Peter Salus
"Historian Peter H. Salus is writing "A History of Free and Open
Source", and [...] he is going to be publishing it in serialized form
here on
Groklaw. We thought that [...] it would be useful to tell the FOSS
story truthfully and in a scholarly way, so readers now and historians
in the
future can rely on the facts. [...]
Dr. Salus is the author of "A Quarter Century of UNIX" and several
other books, including "HPL: Little Languages and Tools", "Big Book of
Ipv6 Addressing Rfcs", "Handbook of Programming Languages (HPL):
Imperative Programming Languages", "Casting the Net: From ARPANET to
INTERNET and Beyond", and "The Handbook of Programming Languages (HPL):
Functional, Concurrent and Logic Programming Languages". There is an
interview with him, audio and video,"codebytes: A History of UNIX and
UNIX Licences" which was
done in 2001 at a USENIX conference. Dr. Salus has served as Executive
Director of the USENIX Association." (From
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050327184603969)
Here http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050509140911151 you can
find the current installment (Chapter 8: "Free as in Freedom") and
links to the introduction and all 7 previous chapters. New chapters
will be published at Groklaw.net every Wednesday or Thursday.
Challenge:
1. Compile all available chapters in one nice RTF document, format,
make a nice ebook with cover sheet, electronic table-of-contents,
textual table of contents, and perhaps even hyperlinks where/if useful
(footnotes!), pagebreaks before new chapters, 12 pt Geneva font. No
graphics.
2. Create ebook (at least Classic, MP2k-Portrait and eMate Landscape
formats) and write short abstract/About.txt and mail to me for
submission to library.
3. Add new chapters and publish new release of the updated ebook
monthly (or announce on NTLK that you're taking up the challenge, but
will wait for the whole book to be available to do it all in one go).
Ready -- steady -- go!
################################################
(2) The fiction challenge: Dr Who novels.
The BBC has recently started to make a lot of its quality content
available to the public (much unlike other public media powerhouses
around the world where the taxpayers also PAID for the production of
the content, but nevertheless are forbidden to use it...). Now they
have put up not one, not two, no -- SEVEN rare and acclaimed Doctor Who
novels http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/ebooks! All feature brand
new artwork and extensive notes by the original authors. What this is
about:
"The New Adventures series of Doctor Who novels were an experiment by
Virgin Books to continue the Doctor's travels in print, following the
TV show's cancellation in 1989.
Between 1992 and 1997, 61 New Adventures were published, pitting the
Seventh Doctor - alongside Ace and new companion Bernice Summerfield -
against such scary monsters as the Cybermen, the Sontarans and the
Chelonians - giant tortoises with a penchant for flower arranging.
In 1996, BBC Books decided that as part of its merchandising plans to
accompany the anticipated rebirth of Doctor Who following the TV Movie,
Virgin's current publishing licence - coincidentally due to expire -
would not be renewed.
With the publication of The Eight Doctors in June 1997, a new era for
the Doctor in print had begun, taking with it much of the writing
talent that had developed over the previous five years.
Meanwhile, copies of the now out-of-print New Adventures became sought
after collectibles. Some could command as much as fifty times their
cover price on online auction sites such as eBay." (From
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/ebooks/ebooks.shtml )
Challenge:
1. The books are each segmented into chapters (see
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/ebooks/dyingdays/index.shtml ), use
the
printer-friendly version to copy & paste all into a RTF document. And
then there are the author's introduction (e.g.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/ebooks/dyingdays/intro ), author's
notes ("Making Of"-style commentary, e.g.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/ebooks/dyingdays/notes/) and a
gallery of artwork for each book! Compile all available chapters and
stuff in one nice RTF document, append introduction and notes at the
end (or introduction at the beginning, if they don't contain any
spoilers...) and format the stuff. Maybe decorate with a Dr.
Who-article taken from Wikipedia.org
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr_who)?
2. Make a nice ebook with cover sheet, electronic table-of-contents,
textual table of contents, and perhaps even hyperlinks where/if useful
(footnotes!), pagebreaks before new chapters, 12 pt Geneva font, and
liberally sprinkle the graphic across the book (where appropriate): 100
dpi BMP grayscale will do nicely, thank you.
3. Create ebook (at least Classic, MP2k-Portrait and eMate Landscape
formats) and write short abstract/About.txt and mail to me for
submission to library.
Ready -- steady -- go!
Note: Because there are seven titles, this challenge can be shared or
be a group effort or whatever. Just as long as something happens.
#########################################
Lastly, there's still an open ebook challenge, too:
"Democratizing Innovation", by Eric von Hippel
Interesting book about the way that "lead users" are making significant
contributions to the development of products and services. Von Hippel
is a professor of management of innovation and entrepreneurship, at
MIT's Sloan School of Management, and this is where you find his book:
http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/books.htm .
Looking forward to read your contributions --
DJ Vollkasko
-- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
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