The Future Of Publishing Blog by Thad McIlroy

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April 2nd, 2011

Is 19 eBook Formats 18 Too Many?

Which ebook formats do we really need? By “need” I’m thinking only about consumer needs, not what the vendors want. * I think the only ones we need today are: 1. ePub – Not because it’s any good, but because it’s an industry standard, not just one vendor’s idea. 2. PDF – Because there’s already…

July 23rd, 2010

E-books Just Want To Be Free

I’ve known about the excellent Project Gutenberg for a long time now. It was founded in 1971 by Michael Hart and is the oldest digital library. I hadn’t been back to the site for several years because in my mind it was still the place where all you could download was ASCII text versions of…

September 17th, 2009

E-books Won’t Stay Ugly Forever

A subject which receives far too little coverage in the great eBook orgy is just how much is lost in the conversersion from books-on-paper to eBooks in one of the many eBook formats. What is lost: nearly every visual element, from typeface choices to page design. As this May 2009 article on Wired.com states: “Ultimately…