Free E-book: The Infinite Sea, by Jeffrey A. Carver

[Robotech_Master]

Originally Posted by Hadrien

Anyway it's fixed now, and your books are available for all sorts of devices this way, including non-dedicated devices like the iPhone (http://www.feedbooks.com/help/iphone).

Because my eReader versions are, of course, chopped liver. :P

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by Robotech_Master

Because my eReader versions are, of course, chopped liver. :P

Of course not, but the ePub can be directly downloaded from Stanza.

[Robotech_Master]

And the eReader versions can be downloaded directly from eReader. You just have to tap the URL of Starrigger.net in and navigate to the download page. A little more trouble than Stanza, but fewer menus to go through to get there.

(I don't think the ePub version looks quite as nice on the small screen as the eReader version, as I went through and did some remedial formatting so over-long lines wouldn't wrap strangely and there was better separation between paragraphs, but it's good to have both versions out there anyway.)

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by Robotech_Master

And the eReader versions can be downloaded directly from eReader. You just have to tap the URL of Starrigger.net in and navigate to the download page. A little more trouble than Stanza, but fewer menus to go through to get there.

(I don't think the ePub version looks quite as nice on the small screen as the eReader version, as I went through and did some remedial formatting so over-long lines wouldn't wrap strangely and there was better separation between paragraphs, but it's good to have both versions out there anyway.)

You can easily do a search on Stanza, no need to go through the menus.

There's a lot of places where you can't really change the formatting in this book, for example in chapter 34. The ePub version is not just for the iPhone, but also the Sony PRS-505 and in the future, probably other devices with larger screen. It's pretty hard in this case to make such specific choices based on one device.

[starrigger]

I've edited out my earlier snap of anger. No need for that to linger for casual browsers here to see.

[starrigger]

When I started this free download offer, I figured I should take things one step at a time and see how it went. At that point, I opted not to have my books uploaded to the library here on mobileread; however, since that time they've been added to manybooks.net and feedbooks.com. So it seems silly not to have them here, as well.

My question:

Would those of you who did the markups and conversions like to upload your versions of the three books? I could certainly put them all up myself, but if you do it, then your names would be attached as credit (implied credit, anyway) for the work you did in formatting. That's kinda my first choice.

[Robotech_Master]

Sure, I'll be glad to.

By the way, I'll be happy to mark up The Sunborn whenever you want to get that source file to me. That way you could have it ready on the day it comes out.

Just sayin'.

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by Robotech_Master

Sure, I'll be glad to.

By the way, I'll be happy to mark up The Sunborn whenever you want to get that source file to me. That way you could have it ready on the day it comes out.

Just sayin'.

Thanks. Actually, "The Sunborn" is Greg Benford's book. Mine is just "Sunborn."

At the moment, the only fully corrected file I have of Sunborn is the PDF from Tor. (And it has a typo on the first page of Ch. 1, so technically, even it's not corrected.) I'm hoping to get a more usable format from them, because otherwise I have to type in all the copy edits; but we'll see.

I still haven't quite made up my mind about whether to put it up in all formats, given that Tor is going to have their ebook version supposedly available in a timely fashion. My crystal ball is all hazy and won't polish up properly.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by starrigger

I still haven't quite made up my mind about whether to put it up in all formats, given that Tor is going to have their ebook version supposedly available in a timely fashion. My crystal ball is all hazy and won't polish up properly.

So are you saying you are going to make the new release available for a free download?

BOb

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

So are you saying you are going to make the new release available for a free download?

BOb

In PDF, at least--yes. I don't have a complete vision of this yet. I don't want to undercut Tor's official ebook, but I am hoping that a free download will help promote the treebook--which is, after all, still going to account for the largest number of sales.

I do have Tor's blessing on the free download, so it's not like I'm sneaking it out under the table. On the other hand, I want to give the real ebook lovers a chance to support Tor's move into ebook sales. Which is why I'm thinking of a limited free download, not necessarily in all formats.

[Robotech_Master]

I would be inclined to suggest making it available only in formats that Tor wouldn't. (They typically do HTML, Mobi, and PDF.) And perhaps convincing Tor to make it available for free themselves as one of their monthly freebies like War for the Oaks was this month might be possible?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by starrigger

I do have Tor's blessing on the free download, so it's not like I'm sneaking it out under the table. On the other hand, I want to give the real ebook lovers a chance to support Tor's move into ebook sales. Which is why I'm thinking of a limited free download, not necessarily in all formats.

Oh... excellent. I thought you were giving away to previous books to promote the new book. I was getting all ready to buy the new one. However, I will probably end up buying it anyway by "tipping" you.

Any chance the PDF will be sized for readers? Or are you just doing this to frustrate us device users that will have to convert it for ourselves.

So, you are saying that TOR will be selling this as an ebook along side you giving it away? Are they selling it DRM free through Bean or Webscriptions?

BOb

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by starrigger

In PDF, at least--yes. I don't have a complete vision of this yet. I don't want to undercut Tor's official ebook, but I am hoping that a free download will help promote the treebook--which is, after all, still going to account for the largest number of sales.

I do have Tor's blessing on the free download, so it's not like I'm sneaking it out under the table. On the other hand, I want to give the real ebook lovers a chance to support Tor's move into ebook sales. Which is why I'm thinking of a limited free download, not necessarily in all formats.

When is Tor making available a reflowable version?

We have the first three of the series in a format we can actually read the way that suits us best and here we'll get PDF first and then who know when we'll get what. Will Tor be offering such a wide variety of formats?

[starrigger]

I'll try to answer several questions and comments in one go here. First, regarding Tor's ebooks, all I know is that they're supposed to be on sale through Baen's Webscriptions, soon, and DRM-free. Beyond that, your guesses are as good as mine, and maybe better.

As for what I can or might offer with Sunborn: there are several ways of looking at the question, and they don't all lead to the same conclusion. To best satisfy the ebook audience, Robo's suggestion of putting it up in the formats that Tor doesn't offer makes the most sense.

But, much as I want to support the ebook community, that's not my only need here. My need is to promote the Tor hardcover and, to a lesser degree, the Tor ebook. If I am to continue being happily published by Tor (not to mention happily paying my mortgage), they need to see books moving out of the bookstores. To do that, it makes the most sense to put up for free download the format that's likely to be downloaded (and, one hopes, read) the most. And that's PDF.

I don't even like the PDF format. But if there's one thing my project here has shown, it's that people download more PDFs than all the other formats put together. And that's an audience that draws heavily from this community right here, an audience that's far more ebook-savvy than most. Even more surprising: when offered the choice of PDFs optimized for big screens, or tagged to reflow on small screens, far more people pick the former. Weird, huh? Or maybe not. Maybe the majority of people still download books to try them out on their computers, and if they like them, they go looking for the paper edition. I don't know.

In any case, it appears that offering the book in PDF will get the attention of more readers at large than any number of formats that most of us here would rather read it on. Plus, I have a PDF in hand right now. I didn't design or create it. It was provided by the printer for archival purposes. And no, unfortunately, it's not tagged for small screens. (I don't have any way to tag it, but maybe someone here could help out with that.)

For other formats, I need a clean source file. That means either:

1. Sitting down with the manuscript and laborious entering all the changes, and doing all of the other prep work to get from original submission file to ebook-ready file. It's a lot of work. Trust me.

2. Converting, if I can get my hands on it, the publisher's Quark file to something I can work with.

3. Waiting until Tor puts out their ebook, and if they offer it in html, using that as a source file.

Now, I did all of the hard work in (1) for these three books, in part because it was the only way to get them into ebook, or even to have them widely available at all. But with the new book being available in fresh new hardcover, as well as in Tor ebooks, you can see that it's a lot harder to justify putting all that time into creating my own versions.

Probably I'll do something like this: when the book is published, make the PDF available online. (Maybe ask help here in getting a tagged version made, if someone can do it from the existing PDF.) Then, when the Tor ebook is out, see what formats they're missing and, if I can get a workable source file, ask help here in filling in the gaps.

That's my working plan at the moment. Of course, it might all change tomorrow, if I see the flaws in my reasoning by light of day, or if a good source file comes my way. Fair enough? :)

[koland]

Originally Posted by starrigger

Plus, I have a PDF in hand right now. I didn't design or create it. It was provided by the printer for archival purposes. ...

For other formats, I need a clean source file. That means either:

Why not just convert the PDF directly to html (free w/ mobicreator or many other tools)? You can then just read it into word (or even do a direct to mobi conversion, hopefully after fixing that one type you've found so far). Another benefit would be you could switch to a different editor than Word and perhaps avoid all the hidden text problems of before). It is too bad that publishers are still somewhat in the dark ages when it comes to the final stages of editing a text; perhaps wide spread adoption of epub may someday fix that (although not likely if MS does their usual proprietary implemenation of such).