Google and Internet Explorer are both free services. If you don’t like them, don’t use them. It’s that simple.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Crikey, Brother Rene. I see you sneaked out of the window of the monastery and down to the local internet cafe again!
]]>Free domain books scanned ? already done before by academic centers and available online.
Recent books scanned ? publisher permission ? already online by the publishers them self.
I made a search on Google books, what i found ? pieces of books ? all what google or yahoo or Microsoft want is that you click on where to buy. they will present a mass as usualy but in fact you will be only able to see a couple of hundred imposed to you to see and to buy.
the fact is that preservation and researcher they will continue to go to the academic centers where they will find what they want. others will only see straps of books it a pure trade business.
Some poeple belive that knowledge must not be traded - i.e. available only to who can effort the price - and the works does not belong to the writer or the publisher as much it belong to the humanity, whatever this phylosifie is based on religion belives, and therefor in many contries, governements has published a lot of books (mostly literature, history,politic, phylosophie, technologie)on a low price (less than the cost price), I donn’t think google , yahoo or Microsoft are from this party.
Can the you stop making noise, you only do what they want you to do.
thank for your times ]]>
Scanning books and putting content online does not necessarily mean anything in terms of people being able to read it for free — I work for a publisher with full online content, but it is access-controlled. (I am not making any predictions, just pointing out what is possible).
In my opinion, what will happen to books is what has happened/is happening to the scientific journal part of the publishing industry, and what Amazon is very much into just now. That is, reader ranking and “citation tracking”. Google Scholar will show you the kind of thing — scholarly content is user-ranked. What comes up to the top of your search is what most people like reading.
On the “scan this book” model, best-sellers could become best-sellers because people like reading them…get a book returned in your online search that has a high ranking/citation, and order it (POD).
So could the whole thing mean more power to the author and the small independent publisher, and less power to the conglomorates and marketeers? I don’t know, of course, but surely it is possible? (Booksellers, as you, Glenn Reynolds and others have said, Lynne, need to speed up their self-reinvention as wi-fi-ed coffee houses in which people like to spend their time running their one-person businesses, writing their books or whatever. Maybe they should even get together with the beleaguered libraries to provide a combined book buying/lending service as part of a multi-environment for people?)
]]>However, as much as I agree with everything you are saying, I do have to add that, as an author who has yet to be published with a traditional house, there is that dream of holding YOUR book in your hands, that has yet to be fulfilled.
Admittedly, seeing my writing online has been a thrill, but I still aspire to hold my ‘baby’ in my hand and drop a tear onto that first page…
Perhaps it is the traditionalist in me.
I have thought about self-publishing many times, yet again, that traditional spirit rises up to argue that going that route may be in fact ‘cheating’.
Then again, why do I feel that I can only succeed if somebody sitting behind a desk with a fancy title of Acquisitions Editor ’says’ I can??
The money isn’t an issue for me. {guffaw!!}
Really, I don’t stand to make much either way, unless of course Hollywood gets wind of my genius…for me, it’s just the reward of seeing all the blood, sweat and tears become validated through sharing the gift I have been given with others. And if they ‘get it’, all the better!
I love books and I would hate to see them become obsolete, yet I can also empathise with the struggling author who just wants to get a foot in the door, dang it!!
It will be interesting to see how all this develops over the next few years. Perhaps, for the generations coming behind us, a UL will be the only way to get them to read! Hey, go pick up the computer and read for an hour…hmmm….don’t think my son will buy that one, but you never know…
Note from The Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Cathy, I think of you as a published author; your book is available to the public. While it is true that Miriam Webster’s online dictionary defines publish as “to produce or release for distribution; specifcally: print, I believe that dictionary is due for an update to include online versions of books.
]]>We used to have telephones with wires that strangled the cat. Then we had mobiles that looked like bricks. Now we have phones that connect to everything and are the size of credit cards.
We used to have books. We will always have books, but…….
]]>Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Valerie left a comment. See above!
]]>