Wikipedia lets you create books(en.wikipedia.org)
en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia lets you create books
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Books
6 comments
There's unfortunately already a whole boatload with extremely poor quality control, totally crapping up Google Books and Amazon results, especially for more niche topics. They're generally automatically compiled by a script for tens of thousands of titles, and then printed on demand, attempting to pass themselves off as original books on the subject (no mention of "Wikipedia" anywhere). Two of the more notorious publishers are Icon Group (some examples: http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks:1&tbo=1&q=%22we...) and Alphascript (example: http://www.amazon.com/dp/6130070446). Sort of a meatspace version of content farming.
(That doesn't mean a non-scammy version isn't still a good idea. But the market for bookifying Wikipedia articles is definitely currently not too upstanding.)
(That doesn't mean a non-scammy version isn't still a good idea. But the market for bookifying Wikipedia articles is definitely currently not too upstanding.)
Discussed here, 6 months ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1183986 (similar 'Betascript' in Amazon UK)
(The numbers I collected haven't gone down - they're at 36k/23k today, and the "books" seem available. Actually, the listed prices now seem higher than I remember back then, e.g. currently 32 GBP for 124 pages worth of Wikipedia articles.)
P.S. also, last April: http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/04/03/2112203/Print-On-Dem...
(The numbers I collected haven't gone down - they're at 36k/23k today, and the "books" seem available. Actually, the listed prices now seem higher than I remember back then, e.g. currently 32 GBP for 124 pages worth of Wikipedia articles.)
P.S. also, last April: http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/04/03/2112203/Print-On-Dem...
Not new but something very useful.
Creating school and college projects is now whole lot more easier :P
Creating school and college projects is now whole lot more easier :P
Ironically, that page doesn't have the "Print/export" box on the left hand side, which made it a bit confusing for me to get started... and made me wonder how easy the rest of it would be to use if this (first) usability issue hadn't yet been noticed... All other pages seems to have it. It's probably because it's a "help" page, not a regular page. But why shouldn't someone want to print it out? It's a confusing exception. </rant>
I'm thinking something like this would really make a great gift for someone.
Any recommendations for a new book author? I currently use Emacs and org-mode to organize my notes, but I will need something more suited for book writing.
I have a notebook where I write sample code, tables, and draw diagrams. It's becoming difficult to maintain 'state' between text and supporting materials, and I find myself leaving notes such as "Table showing Foo of Bar".
Established book authors, specially those using emacs/vi/$POWERFUL_EDITOR, what are your tricks?
I am currently interested in proof-readers and beta-testers who can hack some Lisp and have a decent command over the JVM. Priority will be given to Android and J2EE hackers. Shoot me an email please.
I have a notebook where I write sample code, tables, and draw diagrams. It's becoming difficult to maintain 'state' between text and supporting materials, and I find myself leaving notes such as "Table showing Foo of Bar".
Established book authors, specially those using emacs/vi/$POWERFUL_EDITOR, what are your tricks?
I am currently interested in proof-readers and beta-testers who can hack some Lisp and have a decent command over the JVM. Priority will be given to Android and J2EE hackers. Shoot me an email please.
People thought it was worth downvoting me to -1 because I am writing a FREE book?
WOW!
WOW!
No, because what you wrote is entirely unrelated to the original post.
Given the abundance of online communities for computing book authors .. oh wait! there is no such a community. So excuse moi if I piggy-back on this thread; I don't have that many options, except contacting individual authors and asking them for help in private.
At least when I ask here others will have a chance to see the feedback. Unlike email.
At least when I ask here others will have a chance to see the feedback. Unlike email.
This isn't the best place for that, since most people will never see this thread a month from now, and because it's irrelevant.
Much better, IMO, to either:
a) Ask this question as an "Ask HN" thread. Would still disappear, but at least be more relevant and might attract more people who know this stuff.
b) Even better, ask it on some StackExchange Q&A forum. Perhaps on the superuser.com site, since they deal with general computing, but maybe you can find an even better one.
Much better, IMO, to either:
a) Ask this question as an "Ask HN" thread. Would still disappear, but at least be more relevant and might attract more people who know this stuff.
b) Even better, ask it on some StackExchange Q&A forum. Perhaps on the superuser.com site, since they deal with general computing, but maybe you can find an even better one.
It would be more appropriate to do an askhn: post instead of piggy backing on this thread. If people think your question is interesting enough it should get attention and I think it would.
I never thought "I am writing a programming book" would be off-topic on HN. This hatred is both out of place and unwarranted.
Nevertheless, I am off to find real help where I am most likely to find it; among friends and acquaintances. Thanks for fostering a curious community!
Nevertheless, I am off to find real help where I am most likely to find it; among friends and acquaintances. Thanks for fostering a curious community!
There is a difference between off-topic on HN and off-topic in this specific topic. No one on HN hates you, and if you were to make a Ask HN post about it instead of continuing to post here, I'm sure you could even get some valuable feedback.
Check out org-babel.
http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/
http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/
Ignore the rabble. :-/
What happened to the old account, Tim?
Using a new account is providing me enough cognitive dissonance to post again... TBH it's kind of arbitrary I'm using this account. :-p
I'd be happy to proof read (in addition to Computer Science I also study English). Although admittedly my experience with the JVM approaches zero, so I can't be of much help there. Good to go on the CL pieces though.
I'd be happy to proof read (in addition to Computer Science I also study English). Although admittedly my experience with the JVM approaches zero, so I can't be of much help there. Good to go on the CL pieces though.
I am trying to get Lispers/FPers to hack on Android. It's pretty delicious, and Java is a decent language, if you ignore the, now gone, hype.
I'm thinking about topics that would make good study, reference, or entertainment material, like "weight training," "atomic physics," "Bay Area travel," "Paradoxes" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paradoxes) or "50 most interesting Wikipedia articles" (http://copybot.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/the-50-most-interest...). Needless to say, there are thousands of potential good topics.
I would happily pay a dollar or two to read these on the Kindle/iPad etc. As far as I can tell this is neither against the letter nor the spirit of the GFDL or CC-BY-SA. There are a few value adds here compared to reading Wikipedia directly: 0. the obvious one of figuring out which articles to include 1. ebook reader-specific formatting 2. for study topics, creating a more-or-less linear flow out of a web of articles on a topic 3. quality control -- checking for vandalism, etc.
I really hope someone will create the infrastructure for this: i.e., a web interface much like the one under discussion, but which also formats the books in AZW, ePub, and whatever other formats and lets you automatically push them to all the self-publishing stores. (I envision a revenue sharing arrangement with users who create books.) I will even offer to put together a dozen books for free to sweeten the deal :-)