blog.booki.cc

In the days before publishers the Print Shop played the same role as a publisher. Authors brought books to printers and they worked together to produce the book. Printers often used their own product as capital investment in the author. Hence the slow evolution to the publishing industry.

Today copy shops have more book producing technology than the old school print shop and they are used in the same way. People from all sectors of society (students being an obvious example) go to Copyshops to make books by either photocopying paper books or printing out a book from a digital version (these are becoming much more common now books are becoming electronic). Ironically while the print shop gave birth to the publishing industry, publishers now condemn the activities of their modern ancestors. Allowing books to be made this way is participating in copyright theft in their (and the laws) eyes. Better to stop it than encourage it. In a slow historical turn around Publishers are biting the hand that once fed them.

Enter Arthur Attwell and Paperight. In their own words Paperight “Turns anyone with any printer into a print-on-demand bookstore”. Paperight has had a close look at each part of this defacto component of the publishing industry and worked out an ecology to meet the needs of each player – publisher, copy shop, and buyer. Its a pretty ingenious and extremely practical idea.

The core of the idea lies in making legal copying sensible to all involved. Arthur has been to publishers and argued that photocopiers and printers are an extension of their distribution chain and one they do not currently have a role in. It makes no sense to throw away money trying to stop illegal copying, instead Publishers should provide services and generate revenue streams from these activities. How do they do this? Simple – make PDFs available to copy shops to print at a low price and under a legal license agreement.

These PDFs are formatted by Paperight onto A4 for quick copyshop printing. Customers of Paperight registered Copyshops can buy one of the books and the copyshop downloads the PDF and prints it out. Its legal, quicker and less hassle for copy shops and their customers, and publishers get a return.

The fantastic additional outcome is that Paperight can also offer out-of-copyright and freely licensed books through the same mechanism. Infact Paperight already offers a lot of this content – you can source many out-of-copyright classics from their service already.

On the ideological level Paperight is also arguably a pro-literacy and pro-education strategy since it is bringing works to people who would not otherwise afford the full cover price, cannot not otherwise access the material locally, or cannot afford an electronic reader such as an iPad. Paperight is expanding the channels for book content and getting to places an iPad will never get to in the next 20 years.

One of the questions is – does the publishing industry understand the value of this proposition? The proposal is not just addressed at publishers finding sensible ways to facilitate processes that are currently out of their control. The proposal is a future proofing strategy. Digital books are forcing the prices of books down and it seems pretty well accepted that books will go the same way as music. Either live with decreased sales of material products like CDs or printed books while everyone pirates your content or make it cheap and easy to get this material in a digital form. Publishers, like the music industry, are starting to realise they need to make money from services and a greater number of individual sales at a lower cost per unit to the customer. Make it cheap, legal, and easy is the answer to illegal content sharing.

Additionally there is great value for Publishers that adopt this service early since suing your customers (people that photocopy books) is never a good idea, but getting on their side makes for good PR. Add the pro-literacy argument to the mix and Publishers can make very good positive marketing material from such an alliance.

Paperight is offering exactly the service that could end up being of enormous value to the enlightened publisher. It would not be the only distribution channel – digital books in themselves need to be offered in the same way – but the Paperight approach is a strategy publishers would be wise to explore. However I fear that Paperight might be seen as more an antagonist at the moment than a positive move forward. It might take some time before publishers are forced into more of a crisis than they currently are to fully comprehend the value of a service such as this. Hopefully this is not going to be the case and we will see Paperight and similar strategies flourish quickly.

I just finished facilitating a Book Sprint about circumvention called “How to Bypass Internet Censorship”. We spent 5 days outside of Berlin updating the book we first created in a sprint in 2008. It was a ‘re-sprint’ if you like and was extremely successful.

New Update - http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/how-to-bypass-internet-censorship/15054026

Right now you can buy this book from lulu.com and you can also contribute to it through the FLOSS manuals installation of booki – http://booki.flossmanuals.net/bypassing-censorship/edit

It will also be available shortly on the FLOSS Manuals website – I just need to finish the integration with booki.

The first version of this book was extremely successful – being translated into Burmese, simplified Chinese, Russian, Vietnamese, Spanish, French, Farsi, and Spanish. Most of these were also distributed in book form :

English, Russian, Arabic, Spanish versions

The book formatted PDF for the above books, includingthose with bi-directional text (Farsi, Arabic etc) were all generated using Booki.

The new book is *much* better with beautiful illustrations and cover provided by Laleh Torabi (http://www.spookymountains.com) and many new chapters, updates of old chapters and some new sections. Buy it now or wait a few days for the free version…

http://openweb.flossmanuals.net

The Web was meant to be Everything. As the Internet as a whole assumes an increasingly commanding role as the technology of global commerce and communication, the World Wide Web from its very inception was designed to be a free and open medium through which human knowledge is created, accessed and exchanged. But, that Web is in danger of coming to a close. This book shows what is happening and how you can play an important role in keeping the web open.

An Open Web

An Open Web was written in 5 days by 6 collaborators. Zero to book in 5 days. It was an intensive process and loads of fun. The collaborators met 9am Monday with no more text written than the title and 5 days later published the book. This process is known as a ‘Book Sprint’ is an intensive and innovative methodology for the rapid development of books saw five people locked in a room in Berlin’s CHB for five days to produce a book with the sole guiding meme being the title – An Open Web. They had to create the concept, write the book, and output it to print in 5 days.

An Open Web was written by Alejandra Perez Nuñez (Chile), Christopher Adams (USA), Bassel Safadi (Syria), Mick Fuzz (UK), Jon Phillips (USA), and Michelle Thorne (DE) with Sprint Facilitation by Adam Hyde (NZ).

The process opened up a new and networked discussion focusing on a new vocabulary about the Open Web. As the transmediale.11 publication the Book Sprint was based on an idea by Adam Hyde and Stephen Kovats to enact the festivals investigation of this theme.

This web is not only about the Open Web but it was made by the Open Web. Open Web publishing at its best – written in 100% free software and open for anyone to contribute – including YOU. You can improve the book and and keep it alive! All contributions are welcome!
http://booki.flossmanuals.net

You can also read the book online, download the free EPUB (for mobile devices and ereaders) and buy the beautiful paper book. All available from : http://openweb.flossmanuals.net

The Book Sprint crew would like to acknowledge and deeply thank Stephen Kovats without which this sprint would not have happened. Also many thanks to The CHB, Aleksandar Erkalovic, Barry Threw, and Mike Linksvayer.

An Open Web available NOW : http://openweb.flossmanuals.net

For Information about the Free Software platform this book was written with please see: http://blog.booki.cc

The Book Sprint was held in Berlin January 17-21 2011, sponsored by Transmediale and FLOSS Manuals and the CHB.
http://transmediale.de
http://www.hungaricum.de
http://www.flossmanuals.net

all enquiries to: Adam Hyde adam@flossmanuals.net

see also the fabricatorz site for more info http://fabricatorz.com/2011/01/an-open-web-book-launched-in-berlin/

A few weeks ago I wrote about wanting to see students writing their own textbooks using Booki…well, crazily it seems this has just happened ‘all by itself”. I was watching the activity on Booki over some weeks (its building steadily) and I noticed a book appear that seemed to have a lot of activity immediately. As it happens it is a project lead by Kieran Nolan who teaches at DkIT in Ireland (http://www.dkit.ie/creativemedia).

Kieran has asked students to create a book together using Booki. The project is for a module called ‘User Theories’ which Kieran leads for 4th year students in the BA (Hons) in Communications and Creative Multimedia. The course looks at different interactive media types, different user groups and the creative ways in which people repurpose and reuse all the digital creation and distribution.

In Kierans words:

“The topic we had last week in class was ‘Emotive Design’ and trying to reduce user frustration with interactive media. In other words looking at ideas of giving interactive products personality (for instance, avatars) so that users feel some sort of connection and less alienated to the product. So the student’s are been asked to reflect on the readings and come up with their own idea for an ‘emotive interface’.”

Rather than create the content individually, Kieran has asked the students to create a book collaboratively and likes the idea of Booki because the class can share their ideas, learn from each other, and are practicing using a collaborative online tool. The fact that the students can produce a book from the result adds another dimension for Kieran:

“It bridges the gap between digital and print media and produces a tangible product.”

Kieran will utilise the history feature of Booki to track a student’s contribution to the project. The work will count towards 15% of the courses final mark.

This week a select group of Google Summer of Code (GSoC) Mentors are working with Booki to produce two books. GSoC is a program dedicated to paying students to work with Free Software projects for their summer job.

The first book is an extension of the GSoC Mentors Guide written last year at a Book Sprint. This book will be edited and tidied up and new material will be added including a section written specifically for Org Admins. The second book is a guide written for Students that wish to participate in the program. This second book also leads the students through the process of applying and participating in GSoC.

The books will be written over 3 days (Oct 20,21,22) and then exported by Booki to print ready PDF. The PDFs will then be turned into bound books by a local printer and distributed at the GSoC Mentors Summit on the 22nd.

There are some interesting projects utilising Booki to create books. Some are groups, others individuals, some work with Book Sprints and rapid development strategies, others try the Book Slog…Of course, Booki being what it is, means you can also help these projects ‘get written’ (or illustrated, edited, proofed etc) or you can also just open up the book-in-progress and watch it develop over time.

One project I want to highlight is the 3rd book in a series of 4 by API – the Arctic Perspective Initiative (http://arcticperspective.org).

This project is a large collaborative effort made up of people from all walks of life from all parts of the globe. Many of those involved gathered for a conference in Dortmund (Germany) a few days ago to talk about the project and to also kick start a book on Arctic Technologies. This book is of course being created in Booki and you can follow its progress here (log in first):

http://www.booki.cc/tech-cahier/edit

API is, to quote from their website, :

“Arctic Perspective Initiative (API) is a non-profit, international group of individuals and organizations whose goal is to promote the creation of open authoring, communications and dissemination infrastructures for the circumpolar region. We aim to empower the North and Arctic peoples through open source technologies and applied education and training. By creating access to these technologies while promoting an open, shared network of communications and data, without a costly overhead, we can allow for further sustainable and continued development of culture, traditional knowledge, science, technology and education opportunities for peoples in the North and Arctic regions.”

API are using Booki as the center for a collaborative process to create a book on Technology in the Arctic.