Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

Macmillan Publishing is trying to screw up the way that ebooks work - they want to restrict libraries to purchasing ONE COPY of new ebooks for TWO MONTHS after the book comes out! From the CNN Op Ed: "Librarians to publishers: Please take our money. Publishers to librarians: Drop dead.

That's the upshot of Macmillan publishing's recent decision which represents yet another insult to libraries. For the first two months after a Macmillan book is published, a library can only buy one copy, at a discount. After eight weeks, they can purchase "expiring" e-book copies which need to be re-purchased after two years or 52 lends."

It's crazy. Libraries don't pay just full retail price for books: we pay MORE. And ebooks, we pay more than that even! And then, as she says, we pay it again, just so we can continue lending it. Macmillan apparently thinks that each library getting only one copy of an ebook is OK because, since ebooks are digital, a person in the LA County library district, where one copy of the ebook is servicing 1.something million patrons, someone could borrow that ebook from a library in, let's say Vermont, where a library might serve a thousand patrons.

One problem with that: libraries don't lend ebooks outside of their lending area. There are services that they subscribe to, like the Alamogordo library buys in to Libby as do many libraries, but Alamo is still paying for its copies within Libby - Libby is just a distributor. I can't borrow books - physical or electronic, from the Phoenix Public Library, because I'm not a Phoenix or Maricopa County resident.

Macmillan is being idiotic and leaving a lot of money on the table.

Opinion piece by a Vermont Librarian: https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/02/opinions/libraries-fight-publishers-over-e-books-west/index.html

The American Library Association's condemnation: http://www.ala.org/news/member-news/2019/07/public-library-association-condemns-macmillan-publishers-library-lending-model


In libraries and audiobook news, an embargo is being launched against publisher/distributor Blackstone. For six months, many libraries are ceasing new purchases. Blackstone is entering into a new agreement with Amazon, and wants all libraries to get their material through Audible. The problem is that there's lots of issues with licensing. It's just like if you lose a paperback that you checked out from a library, they're not going to charge you $7. They can't go to B&N or Amazon and buy a replacement, it has to come from a publisher or jobber to be licensed correctly so we have the rights to lend it indefinitely.

Big freakin' mess.

One of the reasons I quit doing film programming for science fiction conventions was they started going to Blockbuster and just grabbing videos off the shelf for the film program. Not correctly licensed, and they could have gotten in BIG trouble with distributors for that, and I couldn't be part of it.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/80658-citing-embargo-libraries-plan-boycott-of-blackstone-digital-audio.html

I expected I could, and found a plug-in that did it! Very easy, which was appreciated.

I spend over an hour a day nebulizing lung drugs, and I can't do a heck of a lot while doing it, and I figured comics are a good way to spend that time. Digging in to my old Humble Bundles, I found I had two collections that had 1-8, then individual epubs holding issues 9-20. And it SUCKED resizing them after loading them into Apple's iBooks program. I'd resize the window, and it would open two pages. Then I'd have to flip it back to single page, rinse, repeat. Then last night it occurred to me that maybe I could use Calibre to merge them into a single file!

And thus I did!

I had to load a plug-in, which was painless. I also loaded one for turning Wikipedia pages into epubs, which I look forward to exploring. Wikipedia used to have such a thing, but it disappeared. They have one that'll turn one or more pages into a PDF, but then you use your ability to reflow text if you change text size or margins.

Happy, happy!

By the way, there's a How I Built This NPR podcast with the founders of Lonely Planet that was quite interesting and entertaining.

ANYWAY, lots of good stuff! The bundle launched today and is up for two weeks. Myself, I'm just buying the $1 level, though that might change if I get the job at the school district. The books Epic Drives of the World and Epic Hikes of the World certainly have a lot of appeal.

As usual, the books are DRM-free and available in PDF, Kindle, and Epub formats. Top tier is $15, and the default charity is the National Park Foundation!

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/national-parks-2019-books

Packt has this excellent deal for computer professionals: they give away a new book every day! I've been exploiting this for the last 2½ years and have accumulated a library of 594 books, and probably 85%+ of those have an accompanying Zip file containing code examples or templates. And I have bought books and courseware from them. I'd say they focus 90%+ on open source but frequently have stuff on proprietary architecture that's in common use.

Well, they changed their game up with this new year.

Two things happened. I think it was last year they released their own ebook reader, as that seems to be a trendy thing to do. This year, after their year's end '$5 for any ebook' promo ended (runs mid December to mid January), they resumed their free ebook of the day, but with a twist.

My normal procedure was that on the first Saturday of the month I'd download all of the ebooks that I'd added to my account. I don't bother doing this on the first in February because the $5 promo goes well into January, and I've added so many books that I 'get' only 40% or so of the freebies offered. So last Saturday I sign on to my account to download books - and you can't download them anymore. Now when you add a book from their free book of the day, you are adding it to your library, but you can only access it through their ebook reader app.

On the plus side, they're now giving away video content, and you can still download the Zip companion. On the minus side, you must have WiFi at the minimum to read your books, which could be problematic at times. But it is definitely a smart move on their part.

If you are or know a serious IT programmer or open source techie, point them to this, it's an excellent source. The free book changes at midnight or 1am UK time. Sometimes I've had problems with their web site, and recently it's always been solved with deleting my local cookies for Packt.com. You will have to register on their site to get these books, but you won't have to give them any address information or even a credit card, unless you buy stuff, and then you don't have to save it permanently.

Among the books that I've gotten from them is how to write web scrapers in Python. I wonder if their TOS have been updated... (not that I'd do such a thing, just as an intellectual/programming skill exercise: I wouldn't want to get banned!)

https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-learning

Available on Archive.org. The first issue, dated February 1951, contains the Ray Bradbury story The Firemen, which he would later publish as the book Fahrenheit 451. These are available to read online or as free downloads in epub, Mobi and other formats. They're not formatted well, but they're perfectly readable. From the web site: "Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980."

https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine

It is truly one heck of a deal.  Work by Asimov, Bradbury, Ellison, Clarke, Zelazny, and many more.  You can spend as little as a dollar and get eight books, but if you pay the full $20, you get FORTY ebooks, and anyone can pick up a free app with 31 short story by the 2016 Nebula nominees.

The sale is available for another 13 days.  A portion of sales go to the SFWA Givers Fund, but you can also select from a list of charities.

You can't beat that with a stick!  You can't.  It's a web site, it's an HTML text file, it's just ones and zeroes.  Well, you could beat your computer with a stick, but where would that get you?  You'd end up with a broken computer, and that doesn't help anyone.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/super-nebula-book-bundle

Their fourth bundle went live last week, I'm late posting it because it came at the same time as I had my second cataract surgery and using a computer isn't the easiest right now. I'll post more on my cataracts later, but I will say now that I'm doing better than I did after my first operation.

Anyway, many books in many formats, supporting both Kindle and ePub formats. Titles currently include: Wizzywig: Portrait of a Serial Hacker by Ed Piskor, March: Book One by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, The Sword & Sorcery Anthology, From Hell by Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell, Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind, The Alchemist by Paolo Bacigalupi, The Executioness by Tobias S. Buckell, Jam by Yahtzee Croshaw, and Lovecraft's Monsters: Anthology by Various including Neil Gaiman. Ellen Datlow, Editor. The first three are available with any donation, the second four with donations above the current average (which is about $9.50 right now), the last two you get for a donation of $10 or more. More books are planned to be included, they've just not been announced yet.

The bundle is available for another nine days, and the charities supported by this bundle are Doctors Without Borders and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, both worthy organizations IMO.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books

No physical books. Period. 10,000 ebooks. LOTS of computers and you can check them out for use with your ebook reader.

I'd like to see this place if I ever get down around San Antonio.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/09/14/222442870/bookless-public-library-opens-in-texas

Turns out that you probably shouldn't to a global find and replace to change Kindle to Nook when an author likes fires and enjoys talking about kindling them.

You end up with such masterful turns of phrases as:
WAR AND PEACE: THE NOOKED VERSION
'When the flame of the sulphur splinters Nookd by the timber burned up, first blue and then red, Shcherbinin lit the tallow candle...'
'Captain Tushin, having given orders to his company, sent a soldier to find a dressing station or a doctor for the cadet, and sat down by a bonfire the soldiers had nookd on the road.
'Believe me,' said Prince Dolgorukov, addressing Bagration, 'it is nothing but a trick! He has retreated and ordered the rearguard to nook fires and make a noise to deceive us.'
'Fly to a brother's aid whoever he may be, exhort him who goeth astray, raise him that falleth, never bear malice or enmity toward thy brother. Be kindly and courteous. Nook in all hearts the flame of virtue. Share thy happiness with thy neighbor, and may envy never dim the purity of that bliss.'
'It was as if a light had been nookd in a carved and painted lantern and the intricate, skillful, artistic work on its sides, that previously seemed dark, coarse, and meaningless, was suddenly shown up in unexpected and striking beauty.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2155955/Publisher-replaces-instances-Kindle-rival-e-book-reader-Nook--ends-destroying-War-Peace.html

The last bundle scored a total of $1.25 million for a group of charities in two weeks, not a bad thing! You can pledge what you want, the average price is now just a bit over $9, and if you pledge more than that, you'll get some additional releases to be announced over the next few days. The package is only available for the next 11 days, so hurry now while supplies last, they might run out of electrons to send you the ebooks! And as always, they're DRM-free and available in PDF, Mobi, and ePub formats.

As of me writing this post, they've raised over $262,000 and have had 27,000 contributors. Your donation is split between authors, charities, and the Humble Bundle organization. You can set sliders to control your split.

Currently announced as part of the bundle:
* The Last Unicorn (deluxe edition), by Peter Beagle
* Just a Geek, by Wil Wheaton
* Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow
* Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest
* Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson
* Shards of Honor, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Spin was, IMO, a fantastic book, and you can't go wrong with Bujold's Vorkosigan books. I thought Priest's Boneshaker was pretty good and I thought it was good steampunk, but it didn't appeal much to me.

https://www.humblebundle.com/