For news, see teleread and mobileread and mobileread forums.
Source XML
- Docbook: Wiki, Docbook XSL Book, Docbook Definitive Guide; Converting to Docbook Tools
- TEI-Lite: TEI-Lite 5(draft); P5 Home Page; Simple Markup Guide; TEI-specific tools; TEI Download Page;
- TEI 5 Documentation
- Online mailing list archives, TEI for library archives ,
- , Roma TEI Schema Customizer/Generator,, (how to use this tool), (here’s another how-to guide on ROMA), Intro to ODD,
- Best TEI Practices (Digital library foundation), Women Writers TEI Encoding Guide,
- Tutorials/Intros: Everything You wanted to know about TEI 5, Intensive Introduction to TEI (Julie Flanders, Syd Bauman, Feb 2008), List of TEI Modules
- Basics of TEI: Most Common Elements. , Elements Common to all TEI Documents
- ,Oxygen Cheatsheet,, Xincludes and Inclusion,, On Nonhierarchical Structures
- PG-TEI; Quick Reference table
- Bookx (formerly named SimpleBook), a lightweight ebook system: DTD, Introduction by Jon Noring; mapping to BookXHMTL procedures;
- DITA: To Dita or Not to Dita? Tips for DITA Users DITA-Users Yahoo group, DITA Getting Started, DITA Overview by Founders. Ditausers group with access to tools.
- SISU: (warning: not xml!) a simplified markup language which (with a Ruby processing engine) can output easily to PDF, ODT , HTML and SQL databases. (currently the Ruby processor is available only in unix). See examples.
Web Standards/Ebook Standards
- Feature Comparison of Ebook Readers
- Mobile Design: Best Mobile Practices (Summarized by a blogger)
- IDPF/OEBPS: Main Specification Docs, , 1.0 Container Format Draft ,
- epub tutorial ,(here’s another)
- Epubbooks, a technical blog about emerging tools that support the .epub doc format
- Adobe epub resources, and epub best practices guide
- epub yahoo group
- epubcheck tool a command line tool to check that your epub file is correct
- workflows for using .epub (Oct 2007)
- Open Publication Structure 2.0
- Open Packaging Format
- Help Forum
- Past IDPF Presentation Slides (several years)
- NIMAS, a specification format for instructional books (NIMAS 1.1 Specification). Includes accessibility requirements.
Mobipocket
- Mobi Creator Online Reference
- Main download page for Creator & Desktop and Beta Download page
- Mobi Creator Forum
- Mobipocket Publisher Agreement
Creation Tools
Place to Find Ebooks
- Mobileread’s Ebook uploads is the best place for well-formatted ebooks in .prc, .lrf and .pdf. Check here first.
- American Verse Project–lots of well-formated poetry books. You can view in a single HTML page for easy conversion to pdf/prc, lrf, etc.
- Project Gutenberg search pdb, html, txt. The later additions have well-formatted html.
- Feedbooks free, creative commons and public domain classics available in well-formatted forms (PDF, Mobipocket, LRF)
- Manybooks.net: multiple formats, all free
- Ebooks for OLPC especially chosen for children; OLPC page for creating an .xol collection. (See list of OLPC collections).
- list of free book resources on Fried Beef
- DearAuthor list of ebook stores and free sites. (definitive)
- Openlibrary.org is supposed to have stuff from the Digital Content Alliance, a consortium of university libraries. Offline sporadically, this should be very big.
- Fictionbook.ru has many free ebooks in multiple formats. Lot is pirated. See their What’s New page
- Project Gutenberg bittorrent DVD (you can also upload your own PG collections). See also: the official PG p2p page
- Online Prize-winning books from the 1920’s and 1930’s.
- DPP Store (free stuff, multiple formats)
- Southern DocSouth literary collection. Interesting collection of public domain literary and history documents from the Southern part of USA. Badly organized, but markup is both TEI and HTML, plus images. Very nice!
- Baen
- Ebookwise
- Cory Doctorow’s Ebook Download page
- Project Gutenberg Australia (where copyright laws are Date of Death Plus Fifty Years). See their Not-for-US ebook list.
- Live Book Search , a beta search engine for ebooks.
Browser-Based Readers and .epub
- Adobe Digital Editions reader & forum
- OpenBerg Lector, a browser plugin
- Joseph Gray reviews epub compatibility for current readers
- Bookglutton–online annotated book reader.
- We-book, a wiki-novel site
Generalized Container Format. More general form of the IDFP Open Container Format. Introductory article by Jon Noring and Draft of Specifications (currently in progress).
- OpenReader:
- Microformats:
Sony Reader
- Sony Guide to Creating PDF’s optimized for Sony Reader (PDF) . See also this mobileread discussion.
- Sony Connect agreement thread
- Librie yahoo Group, Files & Software
- MobileRead review of Sony Reader
- Make Magazine article on making Librie content
- Sony Reader answers on MobileRead
- Thread re: screensize on MobileRead
- RSS2book, a script for converting rss to ebooks.
Naebl (Not Another Ebook)
- Current specs and Forum
Amazon Kindle
- Ebook Creation Community Forum
- Supported Formats and Supported HTML Elements and Custom HTML Elements
Other E-Ink Devices
- Amazon Kindle: Amazon Help page; Mobileread report, Kindle Formatting blog; Kindle Authoring Guide by April Hamilton
- Jinke Hanlin V2: Specs/FAQ, Developer Forum, Product Page/Release Dates
- One Laptop per Child Ebook Readers
- Engadget Forum: Best Gadget for Reading Ebooks? (May, 2007)
- HTMLDOC – converts HTML to PDF
- Tutorial by Branko Collin about converting PG HTML to PDF using Open Office
- Adobe Digital Editions–PDFs optimized for pocket devices: Official Adobe Page and user forum; teleread review, Jon Noring analysis
- Adobe LE (adobe reader for pocketpc)
- Adobe Acrobat: Adobe Ebook Tutorials. See also the thread about Adobe LE in the iriver ebook reader.
Wiki/Blog Novels
- Blogs: Posting a Novel with Blogger , Metablog API
- Wikis: Comparing Wiki Software(Wikipedia), Analysis of Wiki and XML, Mediawiki-to-XML tool, WikiMatrix (Comparison Wizard, highly technical); Wikitext examples
- Wiki to PDF/Print: Mediawiki to Docbook export , and Wikibooks guidelines to creating PDFs from wikis. See also Wikipublisher’s cookbook, which includes recipes for printing.
FBReader/Plucker
- Roger Sperberg article on creating ebooks for FBReader
- FBReader technical spec, tech spec index plus links to tools.
- FBReader Google Group & Fictionbook Reader 2 XML Format (in English).
- Palm TX Ebook Forum on teleread
- Plucker Desktop Online Help
- Web Scraping(Plucker): Sunrise Web scraper (User Guide) and Tutorial
OpenOffice/ODF
- Help Index & Community Wiki
- OpenDocument Essentials Ebook (Download zip file)
- TEI 5 filter for Openoffice
RTF/MS Word
Comparison Tables
- Mobileread Comparison of Devices
- Dear Author Comparison of Different Ebook Reader Software
- Feature Comparison of Ebook Readers
- Manybooks list of various ebook software; Memoware has a more detailed (albeit out-of-date) list
Font Usage/Selection
- Usage Statistics
- Liberation Fonts , fonts which you can use for ebooks
- MS Typography and True Type
- Esperfonto Font Selection tool and Tutorial on Choosing Font
- New Vista Fonts (& how to download for xp)
Debates/Controversies
- IDPF vs. OpenReader: Fixed format vs. reflowability. Openthread re EPUB, standards, fixed formats, etc.
- OEBPS Standards: The Good and the Bad by Jon Noring
- For HTML in OpenReader/ Against HTML in OpenReader
- Andy Oram on the Pro’s and Con’s of Community Documentation
- Analysis of Open Container Format by Jon Noring
- Why the ebook market is broken by Charlie Ross (march 2007). Info about DRM, NAER, business models, etc.
Flash Player for PocketPC
HTML to print/pdf
Conversion Tools
- (See under each software)
- Zamzar, the universal file converter (free, online).
- ABC Amber LIT Converter (lit to pdf, html, rtf)
- Convertlit translates .lit files to html
- Ebook Conversion FAQ
- Manybooks list of conversion tools
Creation Tools/How To’s
- Book Designer 5 (Screenshots)
- Self-Publishing Guides by April Hamilton: How to Self-Publish for Amazon Kindle(PDF)(She has a blog here)
- How To create Ebook-friendly HTML pages (by Networker)
- Oxygen XML Editor, a good low-cost editor; web documentation, user forum and sceencast/documentation page
- Comparison of XML editors and servers (June 2006)
- Vex, a free visual XML editor (Eclipse plugin).
- Sophie, a multimedia book creation tool with reader software. Free. java + win/linux. Import multimedia.
- Scribus, free multiplatform print-only desktop publishing program
Forums/Discussion Groups
- Ebook-Community Yahoo Group
- Mobileread forums (divided by device, software, web).
Articles by Robert Nagle
- Amazon, Ebooks and Chump Change (Kurohin)
- DRM Sucks, but do we want an ebook reader without it? (2007)
- Latest Sony price Drop: Time to Buy Now (May 2007). Market predictions for the upcoming year.
- Why Ebooks? Why Not Web Novels? (Teleread)
- How big should an ebook file be? (Teleread)
- Best Designed Online Novels? (Teleread)
- Networked Novel (Teleread)
- Thoughts on Ebook Pricing
- Public Domain Paintings & Graphics
- Share the Music Day (Thoughts On Tipjars)
- Welcome to 1922: Copyright Ghosts (a series)
- Robert Nagle delicious bookmarks
Scanning/Public Domain/Project Gutenberg How to’s
- Distributed Proofreading project
- PG Copyright Clearance Group
- David’s In progress List , a list of what works are in the pipeline at Project Gutenberg.
- Image Processing Guide
- Abbey Finereader tips
- US catalog of books whose copyright has been renewed(1920s-1960s)
General XML Links
- Startknabel XML Links. See also XSL/T Subsection
- XML-Doc Yahoo Group
- Zvon XSLT Tutorial by Miloslav Nic
Creative Commons
- Creative Commons Licenses explained & CC-license mailing list
- CC Book Wiki & Creative Commons Search Engine
- OurMedia guide to publishing content
- Podcasting Legal Guide (also applicable for online content)
- CC License Compatibility Chart
- Freedom Defined License Compatibility Chart (includes more than CC licenses)
- Reasons not to use a CC Noncommercial License (By Erik Moller)
Business Models/Micropayments/Tipping
- Todd Allen on micropayments for comics
Dotreader/Osoft
Server Side Solutions (Integration with CMS)
- Plone
- Drupal
Submit-Your-Own-Ebook Site
- DPP Press: Upload, and Receive 60% Royalties
- Smashwords, an ebook creation site that lets readers preview books before buying it.
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