New trend? digitize your books for $1USD each.

[andyh2000]

Originally Posted by Arbait

...
Conclusion: I am very pleased with the result of collaboration with BOOKSCAN.US.
If you live - like me - in the EU, the cheapest way to send books to U.S. is the M bag, ask at the post office...

I didn't realise you were in the EU. May I ask which country and what this "M bag" is and how much is the postage?

Andrew

[Arbait]

Hy,
I live in Flanders (Belgium).
I think that for UK you can check here --->
In my particular case, I want to send a large quantity of books from Romania to U.S..
In this case here are the necessary information - in English
In brief:
INTERNATIONAL M BAGS: This is an abbreviation (Même= the same as in French) used to designate the special bag containing: newspapers, periodicals, books and printed papers or any such materials, sent to the same addressee by the same sender.
Specific weight requirements: Maximum weight: 20 kg (outbound international mail) and 30 kg (inbound international mail). Mail items containing only printed papers (without an other attached or associated items) are not bound by the weight limits set for printed papers but they must not surpass the maximum weight set for an “M” bag. The weight of each item containig objects associated to printed papers must not surpass 2 kg.
M bag (2-30 kg), VAT included
Non-priority - for each kg or fraction of a kg: 3 euros
Additional service
Registered M bag:- an additional fee of 2 euros for Priority and Non-priority

[andyh2000]

Originally Posted by Arbait

Hy,
I live in Flanders (Belgium).
I think that for UK you can check here --->
In my particular case, I want to send a large quantity of books from Romania to U.S..
In this case here are the necessary information - in English
In brief:
INTERNATIONAL M BAGS: This is an abbreviation (Même= the same as in French) used to designate the special bag containing: newspapers, periodicals, books and printed papers or any such materials, sent to the same addressee by the same sender.
Specific weight requirements: Maximum weight: 20 kg (outbound international mail) and 30 kg (inbound international mail). Mail items containing only printed papers (without an other attached or associated items) are not bound by the weight limits set for printed papers but they must not surpass the maximum weight set for an “M” bag. The weight of each item containig objects associated to printed papers must not surpass 2 kg.
M bag (2-30 kg), VAT included
Non-priority - for each kg or fraction of a kg: 3 euros
Additional service
Registered M bag:- an additional fee of 2 euros for Priority and Non-priority

Thank you so much for posting that info - I've never heard of M Bags and had been put off using a US scanning service due to the prohibitive postal charges from the UK. I might give this a go now (with some books I don't mind too much losing, just in case).

Thanks again.

Andrew

[blue_skies]

I am going to be moving soon and am trying to get rid of most of my paper books. I have already donated 10 large bags of books to local library book stores. I have a lot more to donate.

I am also thinking of using some of those large pre-paid USPS boxes to ship some books to Bookscan. A few of the books have some highlighting. (Yellow neon.) Can anyone tell me if they will still scan and OCR okay even with some highlighting?

I have a couple books with dark pink highlighting which I am tossing because I'm pretty sure the text won't show up well enough... but the neon yellow highlighting leaves the text with better contrast. Any opinions on whether it's worth paying to have the neon yellow highlighted books scanned?

Thanks!

[Apache]

Have you tried emailing them and asking if it would work?
Apache

[WaltC]

Originally Posted by blue_skies

I have a couple books with dark pink highlighting which I am tossing because I'm pretty sure the text won't show up well enough... but the neon yellow highlighting leaves the text with better contrast. Any opinions on whether it's worth paying to have the neon yellow highlighted books scanned?

You can try a DYI experiment-- Scan a few pages on your own scanner in color, 300dpi, and then first see how it looks on your computer. Does it still have nice contrast on the screen? If so, try an OCR program on it.

Finereader 11 can do OCR in B/W mode and color mode. I wouldn't think that B/W mode would work very well with highlighted text. Color mode might.

[blue_skies]

Originally Posted by WaltC

You can try a DYI experiment-- Scan a few pages on your own scanner in color, 300dpi, and then first see how it looks on your computer. Does it still have nice contrast on the screen? If so, try an OCR program on it.

Finereader 11 can do OCR in B/W mode and color mode. I wouldn't think that B/W mode would work very well with highlighted text. Color mode might.

I was just coming here to post about that. I ended up testing it with a flatbed scanner and ABBYY Sprint 9.0, and it turned out great. I used color mode and 600dpi, and the highlighted text in the PDF I made had even more contrast than the paper book, and the OCR turned out perfect. The highlighting had no perceptible negative effect.

I would assume it would be the same for the scanning services.

With the Sprint software, I can't open a PDF to OCR it, so if I want to use Sigil to make an Epub, I have to convert my scans to a text file at the time of scanning.

With the $1 scanning service, I think I will just get a searchable PDF unless I pay extra, right? So if I upgrade ABBYY, I can use the professional version to make a .txt or epub. But if I don't buy the expensive upgrade and only use Sprint, I will either have to just read the PDF on my computer or pay for extra services from Bookscan. Is this correct?

[anamardoll]

I feed my 1DollarScan PDFs into ABBYY, save to HTML, and open that in Sigil. You have to scroll through and slap new chapters in place (there's a shortcut key in Sigil; I think it's Cntr+Enter to separate a new chapter at your cursor position), but then you just save as ePUB and done.

[blue_skies]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I feed my 1DollarScan PDFs into ABBYY, save to HTML, and open that in Sigil. You have to scroll through and slap new chapters in place (there's a shortcut key in Sigil; I think it's Cntr+Enter to separate a new chapter at your cursor position), but then you just save as ePUB and done.

Yes, but you have the professional version of ABBYY, I think. With the Sprint version I won't be able to feed the Bookscan or 1DollarScan PDFs into ABBYY Sprint. It won't open them.

I am not sure if it's worthwhile to buy the upgrade. I need to look into whether the scanning services offer a format I can easily import into Sigil, and if that is more cost effective. I suppose it will depend upon how many books I end up sending.

Right now, I am thinking maybe 1 large USPS flat rate box and one large box of paperbacks sent Media Mail.

Anamardoll, did you compare the cost of shipping paperbacks flat rate compared to media mail? I'm not in any kind of hurry. I don't own a scale, otherwise I could compare prices online.

[anamardoll]

Here.

[blue_skies]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Here.

Thanks. I may see if I can borrow a scale if I decide to send a couple boxes.

I'm leaning more toward bookscan than 1dollarscan since a lot of my books are under 300 pages... I think it will be cheaper overall.

I'm moving soon, so I have to stop procrastinating and either get the rest of my books scanned or just donate them to the library. (I've already donated ten bags and have at least ten more to go.) I'm so tired of carrying them around every time I move, and storing them.

[Terrysaurus]

I've been very happy with http://1dollarscan.com/ More people I know knew used them and they've had the experience being associated with the famous book service in Japan. There customer service has been nice and the quality is nice with no problems... that's my opinion anyway, but overall it's been nice to have my books digitally, I just need more time to read all of them.

[Wasgo]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I feed my 1DollarScan PDFs into ABBYY, save to HTML, and open that in Sigil. You have to scroll through and slap new chapters in place (there's a shortcut key in Sigil; I think it's Cntr+Enter to separate a new chapter at your cursor position), but then you just save as ePUB and done.

What's the quality like with this process? Does it feel close to the same as a purchased eBook?

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Wasgo

What's the quality like with this process? Does it feel close to the same as a purchased eBook?

When I'm done with them, absolutely.

But you do have to expect to put in about 1-2 hours per book, and ABBYY Fine Reader professional is not cheap.

It's really only valuable for books that will never, ever be made into eBooks because the rights are in Copyright Limbo.

[Terrysaurus]

Wow, that Abbyy reader looks pretty cool. I'll have to try it thanks for the tips. It never ceases to amaze me how many books are not in digital form yet, you'd think that everyone would be anxious to do that. Don't get me wrong, I love paper books still, they are still beautiful to me, but I feel like it's ok to embrace some changes.