www.bookland.net?

[mdmorrissey]

What is special about this site? Have the files been tweaked especially for PB? Does these work better than stuff directly from gutenberg.org, for example?

[mtravellerh]

Originally Posted by mdmorrissey

What is special about this site? Have the files been tweaked especially for PB? Does these work better than stuff directly from gutenberg.org, for example?

Yes, those files are all ePubs. It's quite difficult to download those on PG. Of course, Bookland will be growing in the next weeks and months.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by mdmorrissey

What is special about this site? Have the files been tweaked especially for PB? Does these work better than stuff directly from gutenberg.org, for example?

Have a look at the Ukrainian version of site
http://bookland.net.ua/
They have large selection of books in numerous DRM free formats for low prices..
I think they are trying to create English language counterpart.

[mtravellerh]

Originally Posted by kacir

Have a look at the Ukrainian version of site
http://bookland.net.ua/
They have large selection of books in numerous DRM free formats for low prices..
I think they are trying to create English language counterpart.

Not only english and not only trying. We actively working on it and will have about 200.000 commercial english books and most of the german books available on bookland pretty soon with a lot more to come.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by mtravellerh

... will have about 200.000 commercial english books and most of the german books available on bookland pretty soon with a lot more to come.

With or without DRM?

[mtravellerh]

Originally Posted by kacir

With or without DRM?

Whatever the vendor prefers. We are advocating No DRM or digital watermarking, but we will provide Adobe DRM on demand.

[mdmorrissey]

Is there any difference between the files available at bookland.net and Project Gutenberg? Is it better to upload them from bookland for the PocketBook readers?

...Download, I meant, of course. By the way, while my PB360 is being exchanged, I am trying to continue reading on my laptop what I was reading with the PB. Enormous difference. There are only two ways to read -- on paper and with an ereader. Those who say (cf. thread elsewhere) that ereaders are a temporary phenomenon are wrong.

[Yar-PocketBooker]

The idea behind the Bookland.net is to make it not only English book site, but to include there all languages possible. Of course we prefer non-DRM versions, but this publishers are dictating this now.

[mdmorrissey]

Originally Posted by Yar-PocketBooker

The idea behind the Bookland.net is to make it not only English book site, but to include there all languages possible. Of course we prefer non-DRM versions, but this publishers are dictating this now.

Gutenberg.org also has other languages. Not a criticism! The more the merrier. I was just wondering if there are any technical differences that make it better to download from bookland.net. I notice that the download process is slightly different -- at gutenberg.org you have to download and save whereas at bookland.net you click and get the (unreadable) epub file itself, then save.

Although I am an author myself, I think and hope the publishers will lose the battle for DRM et al., just as the music publishers are losing it. The huge majority of authors make very little if any money from their books. Stieg Larsson is dead, for heaven's sake, as are many (most?) other authors "protected" by copyright. The main interests involved in this battle are just greedy people trying to feed off the intellectual property of other people who do not benefit materially from their work. There are other rewards, which are quite enough for most authors. Copyright should serve to protect the author's "ownership" of his own work and prevent plagiarism (unaccredited copying or plain theft, or misrepresentation), but that is not the same as trying to keep a price tag on that work. I can't copy Moby Dick and claim authorship, either, even though it is public domain. I think this is fine.

The whole mess is particularly insane when it comes to songs. Strictly speaking, you cannot even sing a song, much less copy it -- either music or lyrics or both -- without permission, and good luck in trying to find out exactly what is in the public domain in what country when without paying a lawyer a fortune to find out for you. This is disgusting.

[orwell2k]

Originally Posted by mdmorrissey

Gutenberg.org also has other languages. Not a criticism! The more the merrier. I was just wondering if there are any technical differences that make it better to download from bookland.net. I notice that the download process is slightly different -- at gutenberg.org you have to download and save whereas at bookland.net you click and get the (unreadable) epub file itself, then save.

The books appear to be the same (identical) as the PG versions - even the names contain the same PG catalogue number (just without the 'pg' prefix).

The download process is very slightly different - on Bookland you should right-click the link and do a 'Save As...' to avoid the 'unreadable' ePub being displayed in the browser (it'a actually the ZIP contents being displayed, hence the non-readability in the browser window). It may pay for Bookland to adjust how the links work to avoid any problems by non-tech users.

Overall I think the site is good, and as has been said, the more the merrier for providing access to public domain works - a kind of modern version of the Great Library of Alexandria, but with access for all!

[mtravellerh]

Originally Posted by orwell2k

The books appear to be the same (identical) as the PG versions - even the names contain the same PG catalogue number (just without the 'pg' prefix).

The download process is very slightly different - on Bookland you should right-click the link and do a 'Save As...' to avoid the 'unreadable' ePub being displayed in the browser (it'a actually the ZIP contents being displayed, hence the non-readability in the browser window). It may pay for Bookland to adjust how the links work to avoid any problems by non-tech users.

Overall I think the site is good, and as has been said, the more the merrier for providing access to public domain works - a kind of modern version of the Great Library of Alexandria, but with access for all!

Beginning in September, the Bookland site will be available with a lot of commercial books with as many languages as we can find.

[mdmorrissey]

Originally Posted by mtravellerh

Beginning in September, the Bookland site will be available with a lot of commercial books with as many languages as we can find.

Sounds good. You can list my books if and when I figure out how to make decent epub versions from the PDFs. Two tries with Calibre didn't turn out well, and since they are my babies I do want them to look decent, not just readable. Another reason why I wish ereaders would stick with PDF as the standard format. The less tweaking required, the better (of course).

[kacir]

Originally Posted by mdmorrissey

Two tries with Calibre didn't turn out well, and since they are my babies I do want them to look decent, not just readable. Another reason why I wish ereaders would stick with PDF as the standard format. The less tweaking required, the better (of course).

How did you make the pdf files you are trying to convert?
You should use the same "sources" for producing epub and other formats.

pdf is not a good choice for an e-ink reader, unless you produce several pdf files with various options, like 5inch, 6inch, 9inch version, small margins, large margins, small font, normal font, large font, serif, sanserif. Even then you end up with something like 3*2*3*2=36 versions and there will be people that will complain about your formatting, choice of fonts, line spacing ... .
A reflowable text file where readers can set up their preferred presentation on a reading device is much better IMHO.

If you need help formatting the file, just ask. This is Mobileread ;-)

[mdmorrissey]

Originally Posted by kacir

How did you make the pdf files you are trying to convert?
You should use the same "sources" for producing epub and other formats.

pdf is not a good choice for an e-ink reader, unless you produce several pdf files with various options, like 5inch, 6inch, 9inch version, small margins, large margins, small font, normal font, large font, serif, sanserif. Even then you end up with something like 3*2*3*2=36 versions and there will be people that will complain about your formatting, choice of fonts, line spacing ... .
A reflowable text file where readers can set up their preferred presentation on a reading device is much better IMHO.

If you need help formatting the file, just ask. This is Mobileread ;-)

I get PDFs from my Word files from lulu.com, and there are a couple of places online where you can convert for free. Google docs also saves as PDF. I know that Mac's Pages PDFs are different, but I thought generally PDFs were pretty much the same (hence the advantage and attraction), but obviously I'm wrong. Still, all the PDFs I download from the net seem to come up in my both Mac and Windows without any problems. That's what I meant, from my non-expert point of view: if only an ereader could just download and read those PDFs as easily as the computer will do...

[mtravellerh]

Originally Posted by mdmorrissey

I get PDFs from my Word files from lulu.com, and there are a couple of places online where you can convert for free. Google docs also saves as PDF. I know that Mac's Pages PDFs are different, but I thought generally PDFs were pretty much the same (hence the advantage and attraction), but obviously I'm wrong. Still, all the PDFs I download from the net seem to come up in my both Mac and Windows without any problems. That's what I meant, from my non-expert point of view: if only an ereader could just download and read those PDFs as easily as the computer will do...

Yes, but that only works seamlessly if your PDFs are formatted accordingly. The best way to go for you is definitely feedbooks. Take your doc files and create a book there. Or, alternatively, give them to an ePub expert (like jellby, for example) who will use those files as source and create ePubs from scratch.. If you have a little more time and absolutely want to do it yourself, get acquainted with Sigil and use those docs as source per copy and paste.