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Cory Doctorow has an ebook out - on the subject of ebooks at Book Glutton. This was the first time I have encountered the Book Glutton beta site. And it’s a very interesting concept.

Sign in - registration is free - and you have access to an online reader which has chat and annotation functions on each ebook read. Users - and groups of users can use these facilities to discuss the books they are reading - in fact consider this from an online reading group perspective.

Authors can upload their own books to allow these discussions and receive feedback on their work, and the Book Glutton site itself (launched in January 2008) holds over 1000 books at this time, with many groups of readers also.

Cory Doctorow’s Ebook, entitled Ebooks : Neither E, Nor Books, is currently sitting on the homepage books list. The ebook - based on a paper presented at the O’Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference, 2004, makes for interesting reading (even before the arrival of the Kindle and Sony e-readers).

Here are a couple of quotes -

For starters, let me try to summarize the lessons and intuitions I’ve had about ebooks from my release of two novels and most of a short story collection online under a Creative Commons license.

No, if I had to come up with another title for this talk, I’d call it: "Ebooks: You’re Soaking in Them." That’s because I think that the shape of ebooks to come is almost visible in the way that people interact with text today, and that the job of authors who want to become rich and famous is to come to a better understanding of that shape.

Go to Book Glutton to read this dissertion on ebooks, and to join in with reading several other books online, and chatting over them.

This is an old entry quoted from March 2008 and Matt Buchanan on the Gizmodo blog, and one which is fascinating reading from a copyright perspective. Whereas I’ve always considered when paying for something that I retain some rights of ownership (and usage), my own ideas must be seen to be incorrect when comparing a real life printed book with it’s electronic counterpart.

If you buy a regular old book, CD or DVD, you can turn around and loan it to a friend, or sell it again. The right to pass it along is called the "first sale" doctrine. Digital books, music and movies are a different story though. Four students at Columbia Law School’s Science and Technology Law Review looked at the particular issue of reselling and copying e-books downloaded to Amazon’s Kindle or the Sony Reader, and came up with answers to a fundamental question: Are you buying a crippled license to intellectual property when you download, or are you buying an honest-to-God book?

In the fine print that you "agree" to, Amazon and Sony say you just get a license to the e-books—you’re not paying to own ‘em, in spite of the use of the term "buy." Digital retailers say that the first sale doctrine—which would let you hawk your old Harry Potter hardcovers on eBay—no longer applies. Your license to read the book is unlimited, though—so even if Amazon or Sony changed technologies, dropped the biz or just got mad at you, they legally couldn’t take away your purchases. Still, it’s a license you can’t sell.

Further discussion can be found on the Gizmodo entry linked to below.

Link : Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader Locked Up : Why Your Books are No Longer Yours (Gizmodo site, March 21, 2008)

Let’s say you’ve put together a real kick-ass rock group that makes The Ramones sound like a bunch of choir boys!

You’ve finished polishing off an album-full of rockin’ tunes and you’re ready to launch your 3-chord wonders on an unsuspecting world.

The problem is, you’re still recording in your mom’s garage and the only ones who’ve ever heard you play are the neighbors — and they called the cops!

So, you log on the Internet in search of information on how to promote your group. Along the way you find two ebooks for sale that are exactly what you’re looking for.

The first one is called "Promoting a rock group on the Internet".

The second one is called "How to make your rock group famous using the Internet".

Now, ask yourself, which of these titles would tempt you the most.

I don’t know about you, but to my mind the second title is far more appealing. The first one promises to tell you how to promote your band, but that’s all. It describes what the book does very effectively but it doesn’t fire the
imagination. It sounds a lot like hard work without convincing you that your band will be famous if you read it.

The second title, however, promises exactly what you want. At the end of the day, you don’t want to ‘promote’ your band, you just want to make your band ‘famous’. In other words it promises the BENEFITS that you’re looking for.

Both titles could be used on the exact same ebook but the second one will be many times more successful
than the first because people don’t buy features, they buy benefits. I’ll say it again: People don’t buy features, they buy benefits! And that rule doesn’t just apply to ebook titles - it applies to every single aspect of your marketing and promotion.

Every time you create a title, write a sales letter, create an advertisement, or build a web page keep that rule in mind: "PEOPLE BUY BENEFITS". It’s the single most important thing to know in marketing. Understand
this point and you will succeed.

To sum up, always keep in mind that the title of your ebook is vitally important to its success.An ebook with a title that catches the attention of the potential customer and promises a benefit to that customer, will be infinitely easier to sell than an ebook with a ‘descriptive’ title.

Your title should do all the following:
- It should attract your potential customer’s attention.
- It should clearly show what your book is about.
- It should arouse your potential customer’s interest and/or curiosity.
- It should promise BENEFITS to the potential customer.

Put yourself in the position of the potential customer. Ask yourself what would attract you in a title. Take a look at other titles that cover the same subject area. Which ones are best? Which are the ones you would most
like to buy? Which ones promise the biggest benefits? What is it about these titles that make them better than
the others?

Do you know someone else who is interested in the same subject? If so, ask yourself which title would interest him/her. Which title would you feel happy and comfortable telling him/her about? Finally, keep your title as short as possible and use a sub-title to drive home other benefits. For example, "How to make your rock group famous using the Internet" with the sub-title "The secrets to rock promotion that will have the major labels scrambling to sign you up".

Remember, it doesn’t matter what the subject, you can create a sellable ebook in just a few hours. Give it a
title that promises BENEFITS to the target market and then TARGET that market, and you’re guaranteed to
succeed.

Hey Ho! Let’s Go!

NOTE: You’re free to republish this article on your website, in your newsletter, in your e-book or in other publications provided that you include the ‘About the author’ information (above).

As the owner / writer for three blogs, all of which are dedicated towards particular topics or niches, it’s sometimes difficult for me to keep my personal life away from the niches where I have a life-changing passion for. You see, I wouldn’t be blogging about the topic unless I was passionate about it anyway, and where such passions exist, things like life happens, and have repercussions on the overall blog, and on my way of thinking.

However, on my longest running blog, Scrapability, it’s noticable when I go off topic and start talking about - say - writing - or a personal life - that I suddenly lose one or two subscribed readers. Many on that blog are only interested in one portion of my life - that of providing scrapbooking information and news. When I start talking about something else, those particular readers get bored with my blog, and quite legitimately so, as they signed up for a reason. Such is the fundamentals of blogging in niches. It’s nothing personal, but it can sometimes find me, as a blog writer, feeling somewhat compartmentalised, and at the worst of times, demotivated. And that has obvious ramifications on my work and on how I face the blogs themselves.

From the Cutewriting blog comes the idea of incorporating a blog widget with text updates somewhere from within the blog - Cutewriting calls this a microblog within the blog. If it’s done in a widget, the contents won’t be published to the feed readers out there, but will remain visible to any who stop by regularly and are more intimate with the blogger as a person.

Read the rest of this entry »

Whilst writing my previous entry on Ebook Formats and Types, I realised just how some of those format choices in the creation of eBooks annoys me, as a reader of Ebooks. Although I completely understand the reasonings and objectives behind some format and distribution choices, perhaps my own thoughts as a reader might make that side of me more measured. And allow me to evaluate such choices when going to create my own eBooks in the future. My reading opinions may not be shared by many other eBook buyers and readers out there, and as I go about learning more about the industry and making those publishing choices myself, I’m sure some of my pet peeves will change also.

Read the rest of this entry »

EBooks come in a wide range of formats and types. Combining one or two of these will provide you with some additional add-on products and enhance your marketing opportunities. In this article I will discuss the various formats - from Electronic (exe) programs to PDF eBooks, and the various types of Ebooks - based primarily on content and page-sizes.

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This week in Ebooks -

1. Guardian Poll

The Guardian UK is still on it’s Ebook vs Real Book spiel (see Ebooks in the Media Today item) and has now posted a two-item poll for readers.

Link : Guardian Poll

2. Notethisdown’s Seth Godwin Ebooks

The Notethisdown blog has posted a small list with links to favourite Seth Godwin ebooks. I happen to have all of these myself, and even have a special category in my Ebook’s folders for Seth’s books so they are easily found. Practical information, and a great writing style. And most of these are free, and can be shared with friends.

Link : Notethisdown’s Post.

3. 20 Best Websites to Download Free Ebooks

The Hongkiat.com site has provided a great post listing twenty websites for downloading ebooks from, complete with screenshots of the sites also.

Link : 20 Best Websites…

4. Plastic Logic’s EReader Revealed

The latest buzz appears around the latest ereader, some suggesting as a Kindle-killer. Plastic Logic’s ereader is a larger flexible device to target business users, capable of showing Office applications, and PDFs. Now that’s what I’m talking about!

Note: Plastic Logic has offices in Cambridge UK, my own major city, and I first read about this particular reader some months ago in my local newspaper business section. On the photographs, I can personally see myself being quite comfortable using such a reader like a magazine (in fact, it can have PDF magazine editions on it) and tucking it back into my saddlebag when traveling or commuting. Also good for all those huge technical manuals I used to heft around as a software test manager.

I personally think they may be missing a target market here, concentrating on the business user. Most retail magazines now come in electronic formats, and with the bluetooth and wireless technology incorporated, could be provided as downloads and updates as often as the paper-version. When commuting or even traveling off on holiday, I tend to take large quantities of books, manuals, and magazines with me, and being able to hold them on the one flexible device - including perhaps all those travel brochures or travel guides, just seems immensely hopeful for the future in ebook / ereader technology. Hey, I could even get my latest House & Garden and BBC Focus (Science) magazine fixes at the airports as downloads, on my way out of the country. How kewl is that?

Note: the Plastic Logic ereader still is in demo, and still needs colour.

Link : TrustedReview’s Plastic Logic writeup.
Link : Plastic Logic website

The ZaidLearn blogsite is giving away a free PDF directory for free e-learning ebooks, directed at the Net Generation (as against the Next Generation) of online learners.

Zaid Ali Alsagoff has published this ebook via the Open Source Books section of the Internet Archive, where you can view the PDF online, or download it. This is a 46MB ebook, full of graphics, so pay attention to your timing on this one, as I struck peak hours on the internet and had a very slow download.

The eBook has also been published via a Slideshare version, and SlideBoom version. The Boom version is available to view onsite at Zaidlearn.

The 60 Page "Amazing Free e-Learning eBooks Collection" features one page per book, with a brief description of the contents of the ebook, a link and covershot". Zaid has amalgamated an absolutely awesome collection of ebooks which are free to download, and provide a lot of information about e-learning, appropriate to not only educators but anyone interested in providing e-courses and e-content to a virtual audience.

The last twenty pages of this directory does not provide more links to actual ebook downloads, but helpful tips on methods to find our own resources (the first being the expected google search) and links to searchable sites. Zaid also advertises his free ebook inside, which features 69 Learning Adventures in 6 Galaxies. He also have two other learning ebooks coming out soon.

Zaid also provides all of the ebooks and links as a quick link list on his blog, giving readers permission to replicate this list here. As a wonderful marketing device, I would suggest that you do go and get this ebook from Zaid’s site itself (the links are below) to share in the fun cartoons and graphics, and details towards what each ebook contains before you select from the many available. Go and get it (or watch it onsite) at ZaidLearn now.

Links :

• Zaidlearn - Amazing Free e-Learning eBooks
• Ebook Download

Zaid’s Quick Links List:

1. LEARNING 2.0
   
2. Educating the Net Generation
3. Learning Spaces
4. Theory and Practice of Online Learning
5. Open Educational Resources Handbooks: One, Two, Three
6. The Insider’s Guide To Becoming a Rapid E-Learning Pro
7. Top 100 Tools for Learning
8. MASIE’s Free eContent!
9. FREE eBooks from The eLearning Guild
10. e-LearningGuru’s 5-Minute Summaries
11. ICT in Schools: A Handbook for Teachers
12. E-Learning Concepts and Techniques
13. Coming of Age: An Introduction to the New WWW
14. Knowing Knowledge
15. Moodle E-Learning Course Development
16. Using Moodle
17. FREE Guide to Online Education
18. Informal Learning
19. Engaging Interactions For eLearning
20. The Cluetrain Manifesto
21. Stephen Downes Papers, Presentations and Books
22. KINEO Magic!
23. Learning Technologies (250+ Articles!)
24. Horizon Reports
25. Clive’s 33 Columns
26. Creating Learning Communities
27. Digital Education
28. Web-Teaching
29. Brandon Hall Free Resources
30. elearningeuropa Papers
31. Learning Circuits Field Guides
32. eLearn Magazine Articles Archive
33. EDUCAUSE Books
34. Google Book Search
35. Project Gutenberg
36. Scribd
37. LearnOutLoud.com
38. LibriVox
39. Great Books Index
40. CIA World Factbook
41. FreeBookSpot
42. FreeTechBooks.com
43. OnlineComputerBooks
44. Free-eBooks
45. ManyBooks
46. Globusz
47. BookYards
48. The Online Books Page
49. Wikibooks
50. Free eBooks