If you are looking for a web-based ePub book reader then look no further than Bookworm. Developed by Liza Daly (see also tei2epub Converter), the Bookworm ePub reader will allow you to read ePub books directly from your web browser, there is also a “mobile web-optimized” version for those of you with an iPhone.
The reader is currently in an open-beta status, so as always, expect some bugs and of course many improvements over the coming weeks and months.
To use the reader you will need to create an account on the Bookworm site, all your books will need to be uploaded there. At the moment there is no way to organise your books so if you upload more than a couple dozen, navigation may be a little cumbersome. Liza is working to improve this.
Unlike most other ePub readers, Bookworm allows for full use of stylesheets and images, which is especially critical for technical books which include HTML tables and code samples.
Continue reading ‘Use the web-based Bookworm reader to read your ePub books’
Last month O’Reilly announced that they will be starting an experimental pilot and selling selected titles in an eBook bundle. The bundle includes a PDF, Kindle-compatible Mobipocket and of course an ePub formatted version.
Today, O’Reilly announced the availability of 30 eBook titles! The cost of the bundle is a little lower than the paper version and if you wish to pay a little more you can get the print book with the eBook bundle included!
Here is the full list of those thirty titles;
Ready … Set … Read!
This is the headline on the Lexcycle website for their new iPhone eBook reader, Stanza. They are touting this as the ‘premier electronic book reader for the iPhone and the iPod Touch’ which more importantly (at least for me) has the ability to read eBooks in the ePub format.
Stanza is still in beta at the moment so there will be a few bugs hanging around but hopefully lexcycle will go final soon. They have a demo video of Stanza running on the iPhone (Quicktime).
Okay, so now you have your Stanza/iPhone ePub reader, but where do you get your books from? This is the easy part…
Continue reading ‘Do you want to read ePub books on your iPhone?’
Feedbooks are at it again, now they’ve gone and updated their RSS tool to include conversions to the ePub format! I’ve been playing around with this and it’s a really cool app - you can even supply your own RSS feeds. The converter actually outputs to a number of different formats including;
- ePub
- Mobipocket/Kindle
- PDF
- Sony Reader (PDF)
- iLiad
Hadrien, Feedbooks co-founder, posted that along with adding support for ePub and Mobipocket, the files will generate much faster and there is also an “API endpoint for developers to create applications (such as iNewsStand on the iLiad).”
Continue reading ‘Feedbooks RSS tool now converts to ePub’
New eBook Standard Now Available For Mass Market Audience was the title from yesterdays WebWire press release on the ePub book catalogue at BooksOnBoard.com. With almost 200 eBooks in the ePub format this is the first real source for mass market books to be released in the new eBook standard.
It’s a little unclear if the ePub versions have DRM restrictions, but as the site states;
DRM Adobe ebooks can be read only on Adobe Reader 7, Adobe Acrobat 7, or Adobe Digital Editions [...] We recommend Adobe Digital Editions for Adobe format eBooks, both pdf and ePub versions…
We must presume that they have DRM in place.
The market is still waiting for better ePub readers and until we get those it won’t matter how many ePub books they release. Let’s hope that the Sony Reader (PRS-505) receives its Digital Editions firmware update soon and that other dedicated readers, such as the Amazon Kindle and Cybook follow suit.
Yes, we still have a long way to go but it does look like we’re on the right track.
Today over on the O’Reilly TOC, Andrew Savikas made an annoucment that from July 2008, O’Reilly will release a selection of their catalogue as a DRM-Free eBook bundle. This will include a PDF, Kindle-compatible Mobipocket and yes, an ePub format version! Not only are they giving you three for the price of one, but these will also be DRM-Free eBooks (they are considering a form of social DRM.)
Although they are still working on the ePub versions, any PDF eBook you buy now will make you eligible for free access to the ePub version once it is released. For the moment this is only an experiment, but if It works out, they plan to release their whole catalogue in these formats (barring a few with copyright restrictions and some old ones that present at format-conversion challenge.) Continue reading ‘O’Reilly to start selling ePub Books!’
A question posted over on the ePub Community Group was asking what image formats are suitable for use in ePub.
As Jon Noring replied, the OPS 2.0 Specifiaction says that a OPS (ePub) Reading System must support the GIF, PNG, JPEG and SVG image formats.
These are pretty standard formats to be supported so I don’t see any problems with rendering these. But I do have some concerns regarding SVG - these of course stem form having absolutely no clue at all about the format!
Still, I am wondering if there will be any issues when rendering SVG, akin perhaps, to what we had during the browser wars.
Is there anyone out there who understands SVG and can shed some light on this matter?
Earlier today Liza Daly, creator of the tei2epub converter, posted the following notice to the ePub Community over at Yahoo Groups;
I’m looking for interested parties to help test an experimental platform for reading ePub-formatted books via the web. There’s minimal effort involved: just upload one or more ePub documents and try it out. If you encounter bugs (which is likely at this stage) I may ask for you to forward the ePub file so I can test it internally.
This is great news and exactly the kind of activity we need to encourage the adoption of the ePub format. I wish Liza all the best and very much look forward to the seeing the reader go live.
To all you tech heads out there, please get in touch with Liza and start digging out those bugs!
You can contact Liza using liza@threepress.org.
(Thanks to Liza for giving permission to use her email address in this article)
The Digital Editions blog is reporting that the latest release of the DocBook XSL (1.74.0) now supports output to the ePub format. It was only recently that the tei2epub converter was announced so it is great to have a converter from DocBook to the ePub format.
DocBook is a very mature XML master format that although is used mainly for technical documents, can also be used for simpler documents and prose like books, which could make it a useful master format for any public domain eBook projects.
This release of the DocBook XSL is an experimental release and is being made available for testing purposes. Any developers out there should certainly check it out and if you find any issues, report them back to the DocBook project.
Last week, Feedbooks co-founder, Hadrien Gardeur announced on the mobileread.com forum that they will be releasing their own dedicated E-Ink eBook reader!
Feedbooks.com is a service that provides public domain eBooks for download in multiple formats, including of course ePub.
The device itself will be available later this year (September/October 2008) through a large French retailer (yet to be announced) and then via online ordering later in the year.
Hadrien mentioned that they are dedicating their resources to what they consider to be the ‘basic features’ that any dedicated reader should have.
- A 6″ E-Ink device (presumably the Vizplex display), based on Linux 2.6.
- Browsing for books via folders or metadata
- A real bookmarking system (similar to the Sony Reader)
- A simple, yet customizable UI
Hadrien didn’t give too many details away just yet, but he promised to provide screenshots and even videos closer to the time!
As the Feedbooks website provides books in the ePub format I very much hope that their reader will be able to reader ePub books natively.