The leadership book Swarmwise, which I published last Friday, has been converted to an Epub file on Ownshelf for use on e-book readers. Ownshelf is a social book-sharing site that brings traditional book lending to the digital sharing domain. Today, Ownshelf chose to feature Swarmwise on its welcome page.
As I published Swarmwise last Friday, including the source files, a lot of people starting reading and talking about it. That makes me enormously happy – I understand translation is already underway into at least two languages, and have yet to respond to all the interest in translations and conference keynote invitations that have started coming in because of it (yes, already).
Another effort that started immediately was conversion into more formats, and Epub – for small e-book readers – was a commonly requested format. I know a few people were looking at this, and I’m happy to see that Rick Marazzani of Ownshelf has made sure to not just do a good conversion to epub, but also choose to feature the book on Ownshelf’s welcome page. Thank you, Rick – I’m flattered!
Ownshelf is a social book-sharing site for epubs that lets you borrow books from your friends as well as pick books from a large library. In a way, it is similar to TUEBL, but Ownshelf adds a very strong social element.
(No, I’m not going to link directly to the epub – you should get it at Ownshelf, if nothing else because they did the conversion.)
For some reason http://ownshelf.com/ and http://www.ownshelf.com/ do not seem to be the same site.
That’s great, but Ownshelf requires users to connect to their Facebook account in order to log in.
Since I neither have nor want a Facebook account, I’m one of those left out in the cold.
But that’s okay, since I already converted the source files you posted last Friday to make my own ePub copy.
Thank you Rick for making your book so freely available – you’re a true inspiration!
It does. Like it or not, Facebook is ubiquitous at the moment. Still, I’m sure their epub (or others) will spread freely.
…even better!
Thank you for the kind words!
Cheers,
Rick
There doesn’t appear to be a way to explore Ownshelf at this time without a Facebook account.
You can download the book on TUEBL without needing to link your facebook account http://tuebl.ca/book/show/id/53695
Thank you, Travis!
Thanks, this will cut down the time needed to convert a chapter to wikiformat from over an hour to about 5 minutes.
just wanted to say well done, Rik. as this book has been made freely available, many tnx to you. i hope i’m right in saying that in doing so, you wont starve or fall on to other hard times. that being the case, what a shame others from various countries (USA, UK etc) make such a song and dance about how their artists are being forced into poverty because of file sharing, basically doing unwillingly what you have done willingly, and the rest of the world needs to pay through the nose for everything produced or/and be sentenced to 20years hard labour for even thinking about getting stuff for free! (nice sarky comment meant to the industries, not you Rik).
Awesome that Flattr added Bitcoin support. I’m able to continue my Flattr subscription to this page. Keep up the great work!
Greetings from Finland
Aulis
Facebook login? Fuck off.
Ownshelf doesn’t work, as I have a browser extension that is blocking malware. (Ownshelf has malware from Facebook.)
Rick, you mentioned The Right To Read. You said “When will this stop?” I suggest that you stop this immediately, and don’t support a site that tracks what people read and ties it to their identity.
http://falkvinge.net/2011/06/03/stallmans-the-right-to-read-becomes-dreaded-insane-reality/
Got the book from tuebl.
I notice it doesn’t have a proper epub TOC (and other possible errors)
Would there be any objection to fixing these and uploading the results to the
library at the MobileRead forums? (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/ebooks.php?forumid=130)
Done
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=219716
From page 92
>A tip is to hand out helium-filled balloons with the swarm’s colors and symbol to parents who pass by with kids. The kids love it, the parents will tie the balloon to the stroller, and they become a walking billboard for your swarm…
Please no. Loved everything so far but the Earth is running out of helium which is needed for advanced medical imaging. We must find another way.
Sorry, quote is from pg 96.
Isn’t it a mistake to request a Facebook login for Ownshelf?
You will be aware about the “safety” of Facebook and that lots of people don’t want it…
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