Posts by Mark Harris
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And my point, Mark H, was that the downloads were free - which is why there were/are so many readers. There almost certainly wouldnt have been if professional writers holding copyright & charging for use had been involved.
Oh. Right. That must be why Barnes and Noble just bought Fictionwise. And why Amazon brought out the Kindle in the first place. Because, like, no-one reads e-stuff they have to pay for.
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Umm, didn't the Conchords do that one?
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I actually do carry a digital orrery around on my PDA. 2, in fact. It's the best orrery ever, because it has it's own lighting, which is needed any time you are looking at the stars.
Excellent. What sort of PDA and where did you find the orrery?
I was looking at that new magazine that's been advertised a lot recently, Build a model Solar System but 52 issues @$16.95 is going to be a bit pricey.
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Note, Rob, those 'novels' are all free-to-air/e-dom by amateurs
I think Rob's point was about the readers, not the writers.
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Yep, BenWilson, I have a similar library of classics (the actual Greek and Roman ones) plus the stuff of English literature for just that reason and for searchability when I'm trying to nail down a quote. That's where it's most handy, actually.
I also bought the hardback Potters, although a kind soul had sent me an electronic copy as soon as they downloaded it. It wasn't how I wanted to read it so I didn't use it, but I did read the complete Sherlock Holmes on my PDA over a period of months. I have a few ebooks (usually non-fiction) that I bought specifically for the search factor and many more downloaded from Gutenberg. It's not the same as a physical book but it is a lot easier to carry and use.
What is a book? Is it the chunk of wood pulp or is it the words on the page. As readers and authors we all have to address this, because the world is not standing still because we might cry "foul".
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Bugger, Ben beat me
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And, in case anyone is wondering how I know that, I had to do it for a friend whose hard drive crashed and he lost all the electronic copies of his thesis (which was a substantial piece of work) and only had a bound copy left. So, it was the only way to get a version that he could revise for general publication.
I've also done it with reports by my father written with typewriters, back in the day (I don't think there's an OCR system on the planet that could have dealt with his handwriting).
It's also how some of the pirate versions of Harry Potter and others reached the net in such a short time after publication. I didn't do those ones ;-)
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scan to txt could work but scanning a 500 page book wouldn't be easier unless they've got automated scanning sorted.
This is long solved, including the OCR. Manually, about a day. Automated, 2-3 hours, tops.
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writers *dont* have to do signings, reading tours et al. Your publisher will have a clause in about "reasonable publicity" but a writer can define this.
And you can still not do this under robbery's model. As I noted, nothing would change there. My point was that writers do this already. I'll amend that to some writers do this already.