Meatros

All I can say is that I'm sorry that you are experiencing this - it's a travesty. I have no experience similar to it in which to draw from - I've never authored anything nor have I ever been paid for creative work.

I quoted the above because something that seems simple to me, apparently isn't, so I must be very confused about the process.

What exactly do you have to do in order to do a 'kindle conversion'? As I said, I've never written anything for publication, but I sort of assumed that you type up your stuff in a word document, convert it to PDF and submit it (maybe not even convert to PDF).

Again, I'm completely unfamiliar with this - but what type of files do the kindles use? I sort of assumed it was PDF.

andrewcriddle

I entirely sympathize with Earl Doherty's indignation at the blatant theft of his intellectual property.

However, my guess would be that Earl's loss in paper book sales is probably modest. I doubt if there are hundreds of people who would have paid for the paper book if it was the only one available but have downloaded a pirated e-book instead. (Most of the books I borrow from libraries I would not purchase if the library book was unavailable.) The damage to Earl's potential e-book sales is presumably much larger.

Even without pirated copies, independent scholars are unlikely to make financial profits from their books that are in any way commensurate with the long hours of work that went into writing them.

Andrew Criddle

stephan huller

If only we could turn skepticism into a religion, we'd all be rich.

The problem is that the pious donate to their church in order to get certainty. It's like going to a lawyer and he starts telling you all the possibilities which might exist or worse attacks the legal system without giving you a plausible strategy. Perhaps the example of Nietzsche arguing with the referee in the Monty Python philosopher's football/soccer match is more apt.

EarlDoherty

If only it were just pdf's. I've already got those (as do a few pirates). Kindle can't use pdf's. They recommend you start in Word, convert to a "Limited HTML" (if I recall the term correctly), then you have to get hold of a Mobi conversion program to "build" your ebook, then to check it you need a Kindle Previewer. Or instead of Mobi you can apparently use their program KindleGen--that is, if you can figure out how to read the instructions (their instructions in general are a mess--nobody seems to think linearly any more), which I have been unable to do since the process has only generated a screenfull of gobbledygook. Then, if--or rather when--you run into problems you have to find someone on "the Kindle team" (who are all located in India from the look of it) who knows anything more than just how to send you formula responses and links that don't tell you anything, or who can explain why indentations are erratic or why special characters are allegedly supported but for some reason don't work for you, then....well, you get the picture. I've just gotten a different set of procedures from India but haven't tried them out yet, I've sort of gotten sidetracked by something about pirated copies...

Selling pencils at the mall is looking more and more attractive all the time.

Earl Doherty

Roger Pearse

Me too.

As an aside, I am probably a deeply sad and disturbed person, but I have actually bought a paper copy of one book (Eleanor Dickey, "Ancient Greek Scholarship" (or via: amazon.co.uk) -- which I highly recommend as a guide to commentaries, scholia, etc, by ancient Greeks on ancient Greek books) that I found online as a pirated e-book. The reason was that I couldn't read the thing cover-to-cover on screen. And I kept the PDF, because it was searchable.

No real chance the Eusebius book of mine will make a profit, I can tell you that.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

judge

<removed>

David Deas

A lot of the people who pirate copyrighted work would have never bought the material to begin with. One pirated book does not equal one lost sale. OTOH, that doesn't mean piracy is insignificant to sales.

But I don't know. You might compare it to a library. Many authors are opposed to libraries because they believe libraries hurt sales. Guy comes in, reads your book and then returns it. Incentive to purchase the material, many argue, is lost. And maybe there is some truth in that. But on the other hand, one can argue that the guy going to the library to read your book was never in the market to buy your book to begin with.

I tend to agree that piracy is a problem. It's just hard to pin down how much of a problem it truly is, or isn't.

Sheshbazzar

The sad fact of life is that any writings critical of the Gospels and New Testament writings produced by Atheists and Skeptics are almost always at a huge disadvantage.

Earl seems to have completely missed the point of what I was originally attempting to convey to him in my first response in this thread.
This reply really had nothing to do with problems of Internet piracy, but rather the fact that the great people in history who have had something important to say, something that they deemed of great value to humanity and to human progress have often had to do so altruistically. -Or by way of developing the literary skills of men like Samuel Clemens, men who planned and learned how to subtly weave their thoughts and findings into highly entertaining fictional narrative tales that could then 'ride on the coattails' of controversial contemporary situations of popular interest, to become widely read and (being thereby by so subtly indoctrinated) come to be appreciated, remembered, and endorsed by millions.

Consider how the dissemination of the Bible and Gospel has for ages proceeded under a much different working model.
Earl has undertaken the difficult task of attempting to sell a small series of books that as they are, appeal to only a very small market demographic. Earl's problems in moving his books are now being compounded, he believes, by problems with Internet piracy. (Would he have sold an additional dozen or so if there were no 'pirates'? me thinks people are only downloading them because of the fact that they are interested, but can obtain them for free, yet they are not -enough interested- to go through the hassle of ordering and having them shipped from Amazon,-and having to pay. I very much doubt that many of these would have ever ordered his books even without piracy.)

Now in the light of Earl having difficulty in moving his 1250 or so unsold copies of his works, take a look at Gideons International -giving away free- around 80 million Bibles a year (that's a rate of near 220,000 per day!) And that is only one of the many organizations out there distributing free Bibles.

What the Bible's critics, atheists, and skeptics so sorely lack is that 'missionary zeal', that has compelled individual Christians to be willing to sacrifice for the sake of spreading the Gospel. Motivated by their convictions Christian missionaries have traveled to some of the most god-forsaken remote and impoverished places on the face of the earth, and been willing to live (and to die) under the most miserable of conditions.

Certainly most of us who regularly participate in these Forums fall somewhere within the stratum of Biblical critics and skeptics (with the exception of those few pet Fundies whom we get to play out our cat and mouse games with) And I sure that all of us who are very familiar with the Biblical texts are also aware of their glaring faults, and not about to bulldozed into buying into Christianities claims regarding them, or more importantly to this matter, their claims to hold the moral high ground.
So this gets us back to the need to be 'doing the right thing', simply because it needs to be done, for the sake of the present world and humanity, and for making a better and more sane world for future generations.
We need to be motivated by OUR convictions, feel as strongly for, and stand up as staunchly for, the rightness of our unbelief as our religious adversaries for their beliefs. To overcome this Goliath and army is going to take commitment.

Religious superstition and stupidity has held mankind in its grasp for far too long already. It is high time for good and honest men to be willing to sacrifice their own comforts and pecuniary interests to the cause of bringing this Goliath of all lies to come crashing down.
It is my perception, A big book of lies is what has built this Goliath and army, but a little book, of solid truth, well aimed, and forcefully delivered, is all that it will take to bring it down and scatter its troops.




Sheshbazzar the Hebrew
(We are not 'Jewish' nor 'Christian', and are free to take advantage of ancient, non Jewish, non Christian, HEBREW cultural mythology to make a point. )



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manwithdream

Earl,

http://www.fonerbooks.com/selfpublishing/?p=581

Maybe this site can help you with Kindle formatting.

Kenneth Greifer

manwithdream

Earl,

I think you should write shorter books that cost less for you to print and your customers to buy. You don't need inventory if you use print on demand self-publishing which costs more per book, but is not so terrible. Look at the link here:

http://www.newselfpublishing.com/

Also for Kindle setup:

http://www.newselfpublishing.com/WordKindle.html

Kenneth Greifer