A quick post to tide this blog over until I unpack from a long weekend jaunt…
Recently I went looking for a copy of a classic bit of literature which, while not terribly well known, surprised me at how unavailable it was. Only a few copies on Amazon or eBay, and at much higher prices than expected. You can get almost any classic book that’s in the public domain via Project Gutenberg or CCEL, but who wants to sit at a computer and read it?
On a whim, I downloaded the book text from Project Gutenberg, fed it into one of those online publishing-on-demand websites, and got a quote of $8, far cheaper than the $30-$100 being asked for commercially available copies. I’m probably the last person to figure this strategy out, but I rather like getting away with creating something physical (a book I can take with me anywhere) from the massive data dumps on the Internet.
That’s awesome…any one publishing site that you’d go to over another?
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:05 pm
No idea it was so affordable– I should make my relatives books for Christmas! Thanks!
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Wow, that is different; I’d have never thought of it. Good thinking!
June 3rd, 2008 at 9:05 pm
This was so great I posted it verbatim on my book blog with a link. Hope you don’t mind. If you do, let me know and I will change it.
June 5th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
[…] out-of-print books, Project Gutenberg, rare books oop books, scarce books, used books | A great idea from NYCO’s Blog. I would have never thought of it myself. A quick post to tide this blog over until I unpack from a […]
June 5th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
JS, I used Lulu.com. The books arrived today and look pretty good. Price varies by type of binding and size. You do have to provide a formatted Word doc or PDF for it to print out well, though, so it takes a little time and effort once you get the raw text from Project Gutenberg.
June 6th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
NYCO’s Publishing House?
June 6th, 2008 at 7:49 pm