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iBookstore to Include 30,000 Free eBooks From Project Gutenberg?
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Great news! That, plus the Kindle app for iPad will go a long way towards my reading needs, since I already have a bunch of books in Kindle format.
of course. there are many apps for that, even if the iBooks app doesn't support it (though I read somewhere that it does).
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I don't get how those exist even now. Stanza, anyone?
fifthworld said:
I don't get how those exist even now. Stanza, anyone?
Outstanding news.
As much as Steve thinks people don't read any more, I wonder if we might be about to see a renaissance of reading. Apple more than anyone is putting the new tools in people's hands.
And this should be a great day for the PG people - their whole desire is to make these classic works available to as many people as possible. Props to them for having to foresight to work for over a decade on getting the texts ready for our new digital world.
EDIT - and with the ability to lock the screen from rotating when reading in bed, this is the first time I think I really could abandon my books.
As much as Steve thinks people don't read any more, I wonder if we might be about to see a renaissance of reading. Apple more than anyone is putting the new tools in people's hands.
And this should be a great day for the PG people - their whole desire is to make these classic works available to as many people as possible. Props to them for having to foresight to work for over a decade on getting the texts ready for our new digital world.
EDIT - and with the ability to lock the screen from rotating when reading in bed, this is the first time I think I really could abandon my books.
As a content provider to Project Gutenberg (and in no way speaking for PG), I am happy enough to see these books become available through the iBookstore. Even if Apple decided to charge something, it would be no different from the dozens of other sites/business that have repackaged and sold PG books for years. Volunteers get used to the idea, and if they don't agree with the concept that Public Domain means Free to Use, they stop helping.
That said, I'd like to clear up a couple of misconceptions. First of all, not everything in the PG catalog is a "classic" or in the Public Domain. Sure you can find that stuff you were supposed to read in Lit class, but you can also find other stuff, like books in Chinese, Tagalog or Finnish (to name 3 of the more than 50 languages, including FORTRAN); books about Natural History, Folklore and Cooking; and of course, science fiction old and new (including works by Cory Doctorow, whose Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom appears in the picture accompanying the article). Yes, many (most?) of the books are dated -- that's what you get when copyright lasts so long -- but it's not all Frankenstein and The Time Machine (in fact, you might be surprised to read some of the other HG Wells books...).
I don't know if Apple approached PG or what, but I do know that PG has been converting its texts to epub format for a while now. It's done automatically, so there are likely some formatting issues, but I'm looking forward to seeing how some of the books I contributed end up looking (I haven't been happy with the Kindle versions).
And if you'd take some advice from a newbie Macrumors poster, consider looking for books with numbers >10000. These books have been mostly produced by Distributed Proofreaders, who have been improving the quality of the ebooks for nearly 10 years now.
In fact, if you can't or won't donate money, consider donating your time or expertise to DP. The site is awful for UI/UX, and could use some programming help, but the minimum that's asked is for one page a day of correcting OCR text. That's how you get >30,000 books in the Apple iBookstore for free.
That said, I'd like to clear up a couple of misconceptions. First of all, not everything in the PG catalog is a "classic" or in the Public Domain. Sure you can find that stuff you were supposed to read in Lit class, but you can also find other stuff, like books in Chinese, Tagalog or Finnish (to name 3 of the more than 50 languages, including FORTRAN); books about Natural History, Folklore and Cooking; and of course, science fiction old and new (including works by Cory Doctorow, whose Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom appears in the picture accompanying the article). Yes, many (most?) of the books are dated -- that's what you get when copyright lasts so long -- but it's not all Frankenstein and The Time Machine (in fact, you might be surprised to read some of the other HG Wells books...).
I don't know if Apple approached PG or what, but I do know that PG has been converting its texts to epub format for a while now. It's done automatically, so there are likely some formatting issues, but I'm looking forward to seeing how some of the books I contributed end up looking (I haven't been happy with the Kindle versions).
And if you'd take some advice from a newbie Macrumors poster, consider looking for books with numbers >10000. These books have been mostly produced by Distributed Proofreaders, who have been improving the quality of the ebooks for nearly 10 years now.
In fact, if you can't or won't donate money, consider donating your time or expertise to DP. The site is awful for UI/UX, and could use some programming help, but the minimum that's asked is for one page a day of correcting OCR text. That's how you get >30,000 books in the Apple iBookstore for free.
I live in California. I don't pay sales tax on iTunes Store purchases. Of course it depends on where you live; I never wrote that nobody gets taxed on online purchases.
I don't even know why it's relevant to this discussion. Sales tax don't affect Apple's bottom line. They collect sales tax on behalf of the government authorities. Apple doesn't keep the money. It's passed on to the government agency in question.
I would gladly welcome increased reading if it was also accompanied by improved reading comprehension.
The comment forum of this site certainly would stand to benefit.
Addition of the Project is AWESOME!
I hope that if formatting glitches come up that Apple throws some money their way to finance the fixing and upgrading of files.
I hope that if formatting glitches come up that Apple throws some money their way to finance the fixing and upgrading of files.
As has been said many times, you can download and read any unprotected epub books.
It is interesting that people view the iPad differently than other computers. Everybody who reads a book from project Gutenberg uses a computer of some sort to download the book. Does Dell give money to PG from each computer sold? Of course not, that is the responsibility of the people who consume the content, not the corporations who sell the devices used to read the content.
Nah, you don't need a computer to download a Project Gutenberg book.
I get them on my iPod touch via Stanza. I don't consider the iPod touch a computer and neither does Apple, the company who sold the iPod touch to me. Likewise, I don't consider the iPad to be a computer. Looking at the marketing materials from Apple Inc., neither do they.
The goal of Project Gutenberg is to get books into people's hands. I think I remember reading that they have a goal of one trillion books: 10,000 books each given to 100,000,000 people. If Apple manages to achieve one percent of Project Gutenberg's goal with the iPad for them, that would be excellent from the Project's point of view.
I have no issue with Apple repurposing the books and also advertising compatibility/etc with PG.
At the same time - and I am not bashing here - don't fool yourselves into thinking this is all Apple's "generosity" per se. Or that they are doing it do benefit the project. That's great spin. Not that part of it probably isn't true.
But if you're going to launch a device that could be used as an eReader AND you are setting up an iBookstore AND you are busy running around trying to get publishers to sell via your bookstore, I can't think of an easier way to INSTANTLY had 30,000 titles to your "store" to keep it from looking "empty."
Again - this isn't meant to bash Apple. It's very smart in fact. Make sure the iBookstore has at least SOME content before launching. Otherwise people would see it as "meh".
This was without a doubt a well thought out BUSINESS decision.
At the same time - and I am not bashing here - don't fool yourselves into thinking this is all Apple's "generosity" per se. Or that they are doing it do benefit the project. That's great spin. Not that part of it probably isn't true.
But if you're going to launch a device that could be used as an eReader AND you are setting up an iBookstore AND you are busy running around trying to get publishers to sell via your bookstore, I can't think of an easier way to INSTANTLY had 30,000 titles to your "store" to keep it from looking "empty."
Again - this isn't meant to bash Apple. It's very smart in fact. Make sure the iBookstore has at least SOME content before launching. Otherwise people would see it as "meh".
This was without a doubt a well thought out BUSINESS decision.
I just hope they do not make a commercial saying "we have 30K books!". Instead, they should take that $1 million they would have paid for the commercial to be run and donate it to PG. Or, if they are going to make such a commercial and pay X amount of dollars, then donate an equal amount of dollars to PG.
And what I would absolutely hate is if they made an "in-app purchase" where readers could donate money and then take their 30% cut from this donation (which I could see Apple doing, actually).
And what I would absolutely hate is if they made an "in-app purchase" where readers could donate money and then take their 30% cut from this donation (which I could see Apple doing, actually).
Why would they make such a commercial? They have way more than 30,000 books, and 30,000 books is not at all impressive.