[sdiy] Making eBooks [was: IP, copyright etc]

[Seb Francis]

A couple of comments on the subject of eBooks ...

>=-  The author has to put the book in a format readable - this
>means PDF. This entails either working with a word proccessor and
>massaging the work to convince the word processor to create a
>good PDF file.
>- or - Paying About $1000 for a copy of Adobe Acrobat.
>
>  
>
It's not necessary to buy Acrobat to make a PDF.  Ghostscipt, a freely 
available open source software, will make PDFs from a postscript file.  
A postscript file can be produced using the Print function of any piece 
of software (e.g. MS Word) providing you have postscript printer driver 
installed (there are plenty of postscript printer drivers included with 
Windows).

The resulting PDF file will look exactly the same as if you had printed 
to paper.

If you can't be bothered to download and install Ghostscript you can 
even make PDFs online for free ..
http://www.ps2pdf.com/convert/convert.htm

>=-  The aurthor has to convince a service like Amazon to sell
>it. - or - Create a publishing company so that he can take
>Paypal. For me to sell in Florida, Paypal wants my Tax ID.
>
>  
>
I don't know about Florida, but most places in the western world it's 
very easy to sell things using paypal via your own website.  Now, more 
than ever before there exist the tools for small businesses to self 
direct to customers without any involvment from big corporations (well 
ok, paypal gets their 3.4% cut, but it's still a cheap way to be able to 
accept credit card payments from anywhere in the world).

>=- Figure out a way to lock the book, if he delivers it
>directly. - and - I've found far more information on the web on
>how to defeat the locks, then how to lock a PDF doc. without
>Adobe.
>
>  
>
Personally I wouldn't even bother locking it.  There is no secure way to 
lock anything in the digital realm - whether it be downloaded music or 
eBooks.  And really even with a paper book you have the same problem - 
people can still scan it and distribute it electronically, or photocopy 
it.  IMO you have to live with a certain amount of piracy and trust that 
most people are honest enough to want to pay a reasonable price to 
acquire something legally.

>Total cost: $2,000 to $3,000. Anyone want to buy 2 copies @$1,500
>each?
>  
>
My estimate of costs to make an ebook and distribute and sell it:
£0 to make it (ok, you need to own a computer and some word processing 
software!)
£15 / year website hosting
3.4% paypal fees on sales

This should allow an ebook to be sold for a reasonable price which in 
turn will encourage people to buy it legally rather than try and obtain 
a pirate copy.

Seb