MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - What would you pay for custom e-book conversions

hacker · 09-19-2004, 09:26 PM

I've been fielding a LOT of requests lately for custom works in eBook format. Many of you have seen my 9/11 Commission Report. That work apparently gained the attention of several very large companies who want their material converted in a similarly-professional manner. In fact, so many are interested, that I've started another company to handle it (can't say anything more on that right now).

But two of the largest works we've been asked to do, are the Wikipedia and IMDB, in a standalone mobile format.

Wikipedia required a LOT of rehandling of the upstream MediaWiki source, which I updated to fix quite a few problems. The approach taken by EVERY other attempt to get this Wikipedia content into a manageable format for the Palm size/memory, is wrong. I've seen several Perl scripts that try to take the SQL dump and translate that back into HTML. Bzzt.

We took a completely different approach (and one that will continue to transparently scale, including images), and we've been very successful so far.

IMDB is another sizable work. To redistribute it, requires extensive licensing, so we can't just give that away for free, without something to cover our costs to license the material.

So the question I'm proposing here is...

What are each of these two works worth to you?

What would you pay for IMDB, the FULL IMDB, on your Palm?

What if it was delivered on its own custom, branded SD card?

How much would the full Wikipedia, including images, be worth?

Are there other quality works you'd consider paying for?

Any other suggestions for works of this nature are welcome. Either respond here, or email me directly.

I'm working on 3 of these custom works right now (one, very timely, must be out this month, or the whole effort is wasted). I've now successfully partnered with 1/2 dozen companies who are very interested in these "custom" conversions of their works to formats suitable for handhelds. There's a lot of interest, and we're gaining more and more partners every week, it seems.

But I need your help, your suggestions and your input. Let me know how we can make the whole process better, and continue to provide better and better material for you, the reader.

09-19-2004, 09:26 PM	#1
hacker Technology Mercenary Posts: 617 Karma: 2561 Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: East Lyme, CT Device: Direct Neural Implant	What would you pay for custom e-book conversions I've been fielding a LOT of requests lately for custom works in eBook format. Many of you have seen my 9/11 Commission Report. That work apparently gained the attention of several very large companies who want their material converted in a similarly-professional manner. In fact, so many are interested, that I've started another company to handle it (can't say anything more on that right now). But two of the largest works we've been asked to do, are the Wikipedia and IMDB, in a standalone mobile format. Wikipedia required a LOT of rehandling of the upstream MediaWiki source, which I updated to fix quite a few problems. The approach taken by EVERY other attempt to get this Wikipedia content into a manageable format for the Palm size/memory, is wrong. I've seen several Perl scripts that try to take the SQL dump and translate that back into HTML. Bzzt. We took a completely different approach (and one that will continue to transparently scale, including images), and we've been very successful so far. IMDB is another sizable work. To redistribute it, requires extensive licensing, so we can't just give that away for free, without something to cover our costs to license the material. So the question I'm proposing here is... What are each of these two works worth to you? What would you pay for IMDB, the FULL IMDB, on your Palm? What if it was delivered on its own custom, branded SD card? How much would the full Wikipedia, including images, be worth? Are there other quality works you'd consider paying for? Any other suggestions for works of this nature are welcome. Either respond here, or email me directly. I'm working on 3 of these custom works right now (one, very timely, must be out this month, or the whole effort is wasted). I've now successfully partnered with 1/2 dozen companies who are very interested in these "custom" conversions of their works to formats suitable for handhelds. There's a lot of interest, and we're gaining more and more partners every week, it seems. But I need your help, your suggestions and your input. Let me know how we can make the whole process better, and continue to provide better and better material for you, the reader.