How to promote a free e-book website?

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

I really don't get the negativity. Public domain books are easily obtained from well-eastblished sites, but often in careless formatting and with a lot of typos. We should be grateful for anybody who is willing to put in the extra work to make the books better.

And you may not be aware how many public domain books are NOT available from any of the well-established sites because nobody has bothered to OCR, proofread and format them yet. You should take a look around the Patricia Clark Memorial Library some time.

Thanks for your efforts, Robert. I like your site. (Though that sun/nipple cover IS a bit weird indeed.)

I was going to suggest uploading his books to the Patricia Clark Memorial Library.

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I was going to suggest uploading his books to the Patricia Clark Memorial Library.

They would certainly be very welcome here, but I am pretty sure that isn't what Robert wants.

[Deskisamess]

I’m not being intentionally negative. I asked some questions is all. I’m not going to spend any time on a site that is difficult to navigate and has only 41 books to offer. I wanted the OP to explain why I should change my mind.

Gutenberg has over 54,000 books. A search for Public Domain books on Amazon yields close to 90,000 books.

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

Gutenberg has over 54,000 books. A search for Public Domain books on Amazon yields close to 90,000 books.

And are you always happy with the quality you get from these sources?

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

They would certainly be very welcome here, but I am pretty sure that isn't what Robert wants.

I was trying to get more eyes on his work.

I am not trying to be negative either, but I just can't see a website with 41 books and requiring several steps to download a free book is going to get much attention.

BRB.

[Cinisajoy]

Just tried the website. I would also have to do the macarena to get it to readable.

Ok I just went and tried to get A thousand and one nights. Clicked on the link. I saw the download mobi and clicked it. It opened a second window with a pop-up for user and password. Clicked my back button. The pop-up disappeared and came right back. Had to click the x and close the entire tab.
Apparently I didn't see something on either the front page or the book page.
Nope, public domain book I know I can find it elsewhere so won't bother to find out how to get a password.
And oh crap it is a zip file anyway.
Really not bothering now.

Sorry OP. I admire what you are trying to do, but way too hard for free books.
Editing to add, if pop-up blocker is on, then the person may not ever get to the login window.

[Deskisamess]

I didn’t mention the zip file either, but my experience was the same as Cini.

[RobertDDL]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Just tried the website. I would also have to do the macarena to get it to readable.

Ok I just went and tried to get A thousand and one nights. Clicked on the link. I saw the download mobi and clicked it. It opened a second window with a pop-up for user and password. Clicked my back button. The pop-up disappeared and came right back. Had to click the x and close the entire tab.
Apparently I didn't see something on either the front page or the book page.
Nope, public domain book I know I can find it elsewhere so won't bother to find out how to get a password.
And oh crap it is a zip file anyway.
Really not bothering now.

Sorry OP. I admire what you are trying to do, but way too hard for free books.
Editing to add, if pop-up blocker is on, then the person may not ever get to the login window.

Sorry you had such troubles. But, above the link that you clicked, it says, "Download ZIP archive files containing Volumes 1 to 16" - so, that you get a zip file that contains 16 separate files shouldn't come as a surprise? It also says, "To download single files, see below."

It also says, above the download link, "To download PDF, ePub or Mobi files you need a free Library Card", with "Library Card" being a link to the page that tells you the user name and password - no need to register, you just have to memorize "Dunayzad" as the user name and copy/paste the password. You need user name and password here on MobileRead, too, and on Facebook, and Twitter, and a lot of other places, so, that should not be such an obstacle?

And, what you get, is a "1001 Nighs" edition that is different from those that you'll find elsewhere. I have reduced Burton's footnotes by about two thirds (if you are a Burton scholar, you'll need a different edition, but if you just want to read the tales, you'll probably be grateful), I've fixed some punctuation issues (e.g. clarifying where direct speech ends when Burton had it indicated by a preceding m-dash), I have introduced paragraph breaks to make the text better readable, and I have fixed a huge number of OCR errors (though meanwhile Gutenberg, at least, has a much better proofread version than there was when I started my work).

Other books bear fewer traces of my editing, but, for instance, Haggard's "King Solomon's Mines" exists in a version where in one chapter there occurs an eclipse of the sun, while in another version this scene happens at night, and involves an eclipse of the moon. I'm not a scholar, I just happened to notice this when I proofread the text against different sources. I stayed with the eclipse of the sun, but added the eclipse of the moon version as an appendix - I'm not aware of any other edition of this book, printed or digital, that offers both versions. That's the sort of things I'm doing ... that, and the very careful typesetting of the PDF versions, with manual hyphenation and line breaks.

And, while it's only 41 books vs. 54000 at Gutenberg, they are books that I have chosen, books that I like and that I think are interesting, and if you share my literary tastes, you can take my selection as a recommendation, and it may help you find something you might not have discovered among the fifty thousands.

OK, sorry, all this is getting off topic, I had just wanted to know if there were still places that have links to e-book sites or individual e-books ... Thank you all for the encouragement, and for your critical words, from which I'll try to learn!

[Cinisajoy]

Hi Robert,
I know what I would have had to do to get your books. Last off-topic advice and then I will tell you one other place I know of.

The first thing I thought when I saw the library card thing was why does this guy need my email address? Reason was 99% of the time on a site you need a log in, the site requires your email address. Just the thought will turn some readers off.

It was really no trouble as I was testing how user friendly it was.
I was just pointing out what the average reader would do. They are typically not going to read all the verbiage, they will see the download link and click it.

The harder you make your readers work to get your works, the less readers you will have.
Your versions may be the best out there (spoiler: typically anytime someone says that about their own work, it is not the best by a long shot), I don't know and whybecause it is too much work when I can go click once or twice and hopefully get the same text at a site I know.

If you really just want readers and they really are the best, upload your books to the library here on Mobileread.

Now as to where to promote, you might try kboards. I do believe they have a self promotions area.
That is the only other ereader forum I know about.

[RobertDDL]

I feel uncomfortable to increasingly bend, or actually break, the "no self-promotion" rule by continuing to discuss the flaws (thank you for pointing some of them out) and maybe merits of my Library project here. The question remains, where could it be done?

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

(...)
Now as to where to promote, you might try kboards. I do believe they have a self promotions area. (...)

They do, but, "KBoards - a community forum for Kindle Users and Authors (...) KBoards is a discussion board for owners of Kindles, readers of Kindle ebooks, and writers of Kindle ebooks" - I'm neither.

There are places where authors can present their books and have them discussed, or at least linked to, but are there no places anywhere on the Internet where this can be done for an e-book website, or for a particular edition of a classical text?

[gmw]

The practical approach: find others doing similar things (on the Internet there are always others doing similar things) and see if you can find out more about how they work.

Here are some other public domain ebook "libraries" that I know about:

Project Gutenberg you will already know about.

But did you know about sites like: Project Gutenberg of Australia (PGA)? That site also links to this Roy Glashan's Library.

Adelaide University has been doing this sort of stuff for a long time.

Do some Internet searches of these and similar sites and see if you can find out what sorts of places link to them - perhaps they are the sorts of places that would link to yours too. The fact that PGA linked to Roy Glashan's suggests that some of these libraries are happy to collaborate - so perhaps your emphasis on PDF might complement these sites that concentrate on HTML presentation. You might try contact some of the smaller ones that show an inclination to link to alternative resources (such as PGA).

(Given that these have been active for many years, you might also take some lessons from them about what works and what doesn't work on a website for public domain ebooks. eg: I didn't come across any library cards at these sites.)

[RobertDDL]

Originally Posted by gmw

The practical approach: find others doing similar things (on the Internet there are always others doing similar things) and see if you can find out more about how they work.

Here are some other public domain ebook "libraries" that I know about:

Project Gutenberg you will already know about.

But did you know about sites like: Project Gutenberg of Australia (PGA)? That site also links to this Roy Glashan's Library.

Adelaide University has been doing this sort of stuff for a long time.

Do some Internet searches of these and similar sites and see if you can find out what sorts of places link to them - perhaps they are the sorts of places that would link to yours too. The fact that PGA linked to Roy Glashan's suggests that some of these libraries are happy to collaborate - so perhaps your emphasis on PDF might complement these sites that concentrate on HTML presentation. You might try contact some of the smaller ones that show an inclination to link to alternative resources (such as PGA).

(Given that these have been active for many years, you might also take some lessons from them about what works and what doesn't work on a website for public domain ebooks. eg: I didn't come across any library cards at these sites.)

Thank you! I am beginning to doubt that anyone else is doing something similar. I'm aware of the sites you've mentioned, but I'm afraid it would be hubris to hope they might link to my little site, which has little to do with what they are doing (Roy Glashan obviously cooperates with PGA, that's a different thing).

I did rather extensive searches for places that link to e-book sources, and I also contacted the few I've found, with little success. My impression is that such sites that once existed have disappeared, and others that still exist are not maintained, and/or have no visitors. Anything I could think of, I've already tried - I had hoped someone here might know some sites that I've missed.

Yes, the library card ... for reasons that may make sense or not, it's going to stay, but I'll make it easier to memorize ...

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by RobertDDL

Thank you! I am beginning to doubt that anyone else is doing something similar. I'm aware of the sites you've mentioned, but I'm afraid it would be hubris to hope they might link to my little site, which has little to do with what they are doing (Roy Glashan obviously cooperates with PGA, that's a different thing).

I did rather extensive searches for places that link to e-book sources, and I also contacted the few I've found, with little success. My impression is that such sites that once existed have disappeared, and others that still exist are not maintained, and/or have no visitors. Anything I could think of, I've already tried - I had hoped someone here might know some sites that I've missed.

Yes, the library card ... for reasons that may make sense or not, it's going to stay, but I'll make it easier to memorize ...

Well now, if you insist on making it hard for your users, all I can say is the best of luck to you.
Sorry, I don't know of any other sites that promote blogs.
Thanks for the update on the site I suggested. I won't recommend it again.

[arjaybe]

Robert, thank you for your labor of love. Take heart in the motto of The Vinyl Cafe: "We may not be big, but we're small."

Your little statue doesn't bother me. I can see that you're trying to add a "classical" flavor. Is the image unencumbered by copyright?

I appreciate what you're doing, especially since I also give away my work. I understand the desire to put something nice back in.

You can put my books and audiobooks on your site if you want. Read up on Creative Commons first. I'd prefer the download links come back to my site so I can keep track, but it's not necessary.

Don't give up. You might never make a big impact with this, but you're doing a good thing. If it rewards you as well, so much the better.

rjb

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

Your little statue doesn't bother me. I can see that you're trying to add a "classical" flavor.

Oh, that was what someone objected to... I totally didn't get that and thought they were referring to the cover of that [Link to erotic content deleted - MODERATOR] which I found rather cheesy myself... But how anyone could have problems with that sketch - the mind boggles.