From: Robert Masters (rdm_at_enfield.lympago.com)
Date: Sat Feb 21 2004 - 16:39:34 PST
On Sat, Feb 21, 2004 at 04:24:52PM -0500, Dan wrote:
<Snippage>
> Microsoft Reader and Acrobat 6 can make non-encrypted files the others I
> mentioned *only* make encrypted files as far as I know. Often publishers
> will not publish a ebook unless it is in a encrypted format, and I know more
> than one author has switched publishers because they wanted to be able to
> offer a wider selection of ebook formats. Fictionwise.com (among other
> ebook sellers) do offer "mulitformat" for many of their titles. Basically
> "multiformat" is unencrypted ebooks in several formats (Palm Doc, Acrobat,
> rocketbook, franklin ebook, etc). Palm Doc is currently my favorite as it
> is easily converted to plain text and NewtonBooked (which I have done a few
> times now). Also Fictionwise.com has several free ebooks available so you
> can try your book reader (or method of conversion as the case may be) out
> before having to spend any money.
Also don't forget Baen. (http://www.baen.com and http://www.webscriptions.com)
Baen provide ebooks in MS, Palm, Mobirocket, /HTML/, and /RTF/ formats!
You can purchase individual tiles for about USD4 per book, or buy a
month's releases (usually 2-3 new titles and 3-4 back catalogue) for USD15.
You can then download your titles in whichever format(s) you want, as
often as you want. The new works start to become available 3 months
before the release date, and you get an additional 25% of the book each
month thereafter. So if the book undergoes a major re-write in the last
couple of months, you get to watch it happen :-) At the release date,
you can then download the completed books and the back-catalogue works.
Baen also have a free library (of about 50 books) that anyone can
download anytime. Lastly, one or two of their major hardback releases
each year include a CDROM of 30-odd books, being the series that the
book is a part of, and selected books from the library. This CD is
freely reproducable, provided it is not charged for. (We did a run of
them for a convention of 200 disks - all gone in about 25 minutes!)
Baen publish SF and Fantasy, with a focus on military SF (eg David Weber,
Lois McMaster Bujold, Eric Flint, etc) and classic SF&F (eg James H. Schmitz,
Andre Norton, Keith Laumer, etc). These are by no means exclusive
focii, though!
I am currently talking with their librarian, Eric Flint, to try to
arrange permission to duplicate the Library as NewtonBooks on UNNA.
More news on that as it comes to hand.
-Rob
-- Rob Masters |PARC- Model /\ "I spy, with my little eye, something that's about to be-" |Rocketry || "Dead in a minute" Mr C & Mr V - Neverwhere,Neil Gaiman |in Perth || "Reality might not get out of beta today." O.Timas - Bot,S.Gange|PARC#: 9-2 /||\ -- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries List FAQ/Etiquette/Terms: http://www.newtontalk.net/faq.html Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Feb 22 2004 - 22:00:02 PST