Wanting to connect about publishing Standard Ebooks EPUBs on BookFusion

[Dean Toland]

Hey everyone, I'm new to the group but not new to downloading and reading the ebooks that everyone here works so hard to create. I used to mainly use Project Gutenberg but when I started seeing more and more issues I eventually found Standard Ebooks instead and I've never looked back. :)

I work at BookFusion, a leading digital library and eBook organizing/reading platform, and I am hoping to connect with someone in here about the potential for us to create an official Standard Ebooks library on our platform where all our users will have a centralized place to browse your carefully edited eBooks and save any they want, with the added benefit that doing so on BookFusion means they can easily read them either on the web or on our mobile apps, removing the hurdle of having to have a separate app or program while also saving and managing the files locally somewhere.

I looked through the group a bit and saw a somewhat similar request recently from someone wanting to know about getting them onto the Apple Books platform, but there was hesitation due to the process of updating a book once it was out there - we have no such hurdle. :) Any books added can be instantly and easily updated without erasing any metadata or harming those who already have copies; anyone who has added the book to their library will also see it pushed to reflect the newest version.

Anyways, this went longer than intended, just excited about the potential. I guess in summary and to be clear, this isn't us asking you to pay to use our site, we are extending an offer to give you a place to highlight your eBooks at no cost, we just want to be able to give all our users an easy way to find and read them.

Please feel free to ask me anything, I'm happy to clear up any confusion or discuss the idea further with anyone. Either way - thank you all for the hard work you put in to make these books so wonderful and easy to read.

-Dean

[Vince]

Alex will have the official response, this is just some user feedback from just having tried your iOS app.

I like the various customizations that can be made to the reading screen; a couple more standard subtle “solar”-type background colors would be good, but the fact the colors can be customized separately is excellent. The fonts that are available are decent.

I hate having to have an account. If I just want to read books I already have, there’s no need for an account, and the “Data Linked to You” is why I don’t like it.

The reader doesn’t support pop-up endnotes, which, for me personally, is a deal-killer, nice though the rest of the interface seems to be.

(Again, not an official response.) Rather than forcing another copy of SE's books, it would be a lot nicer, and more flexible, if the app simply let you specify a URL to go get books. IOW, let us add “Book Sources”. You could even offer a list of suggested ones (which could include SE) that could be tapped and added, etc. That way users could add Gutenberg, SE, wherever else they wanted. No need for separate copies, no need for downloading separately and then adding them to the app manually, etc.

What does “Supports all other formats when uploaded via the Web first.” mean? Uploaded where? And why? Does that mean if I have a CBR file I can’t just one it from, e.g., Files?

What are you using to sync “bookmarks, comments, and highlights” across devices?

[maticstric]

Don't have anything to add but I thought this previous conversion might be useful to you: https://groups.google.com/g/standardebooks/c/jAooYENFA-Q/m/UB5Z6VEUAgAJ

As well as its multiple followups: https://groups.google.com/g/standardebooks/search?q=qurika

Good luck!

[Dean Toland]

Thanks for the feedback, happy to try and address each of your comments.  :)

We're always looking at ways to make the reader as user accessible and customizable as possible, so the full customization has really helped people set things exactly the way they want.  Additional font options are certainly an option in the future.

The need for an account is driven by the primary purpose of the platform which is to make your digital library accessible on all your devices, and sync any progress or highlights across them so you are always in the same place wherever you read. However, we have definitely heard that some users just want to read locally on a single device with no concern for syncing, so in the future we'll be making an enhancement to allow the mobile apps to simply open books without an account.

We're actually looking at a multitude of ways to best handle endnotes/footnotes, so I'm glad to hear it's a big issue for you since that likely means it'll be a big help for not just you but any others who feel similarly.  :)  We have an open beta for both Android and iOS, so you're welcome to get in on early access features like that when we start testing that kind of new functionality.

We haven't explored an option like a URL to go get books, but we're also not averse to future improvements like what you're describing. The main reason we didn't do anything like that from the start is the desire to create the easiest interface and experience possible for readers who use the platform, meaning we allow uploading books for those who have their own libraries of eBooks, but we also provide a store for purchasing directly from publishers and a Library section where free books are available without ever having to leave and go browse an entirely different site and interface.

As for the "via the web first" part of the iOS app's store description, I'm actually going to have to take a look at that. You can absolutely upload multiple formats directly from iOS, including CBR, by browsing your iCloud Files, so it's most likely a bullet point we need to refresh after improvements were made to the app.

We use our own sync that we built which is why the BookFusion account is what drives that ability to have them connected; even if you sign in with Apple or Facebook or Twitter instead of a newly created BookFusion account, you'll still have a profile that allows your progress and books to be carried across any device you want to use. We are looking into 3rd party integrations that many readers have asked for like Readwise where they'd like to sync or export highlights to in the future, but that's coming next year.

Appreciate your response and happy to continue the conversation. :)

[Alex Cabal]

Hi Dean, thanks for getting in touch!

The discussion re. Apple was to see if it was easy to include our books
in their store. The main problem with the large ebook stores is that
it's often easy to get books in but not so easy to keep them updated.
Our ebooks are updated frequently and it's important to us that ebook
platforms are able to be updated without the latest versions of our
editions.

If your platform can read OPDS feeds, ours are here: standardebooks.org/opds

Platforms like Google Play Books read the OPDS feed once a day or week,
and download new ebooks and update ebooks of ours they already have to
new versions. Your platform can probably go that route.

The only caveat is that in rare cases an ebook identifier (which is a
URL) might change, for example if we have a short story compilation and
a new story by a new translator is later added. In that case, the old
URL will output a 301 pointing to the new URL, and you should update
your database to match.

Let me know if you have any questions!

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[Dean Toland]

Thanks for the response Alex, we'll certainly take a look at that and see if it's something we can do anything with soon. Our dev resources are pretty head-down focused at the moment, but knowing this is the option you'd prefer means that's what we'll take a look at.  Our platform makes it very easy to update existing books, so it shouldn't be an issue to carry that through to any automated process we are able to build around the OPDS feeds.  :)

I'll keep an eye on this group while we investigate and reach back out in the future with any questions or updates on our progress.  Have a great day everyone!

[Dean Toland]

Hey everyone, just wanted to provide a quick update on this. We were super excited about the potential for a project like this, so since my original post I have worked on gathering the Standard eBooks files and putting them together in a special library on BookFusion where readers can find them and read them, saving highlights and notes as they go along.

In the very near future we'll have social features that allow friends to read books at the same time, and I hope to build some momentum behind encouraging readers to pick a couple favorite Classics and read them together, discussing their favorite parts as they go along. We are so excited about being able to share the amazing work y'all do with our readers, giving full credit to everyone here who is involved in the process from start to finish.

If you'd like to check it out, we just made the library live this weekend and it's visible at https://www.bookfusion.com/libraries/standardebooks for everyone (at absolutely no charge of course), not just BookFusion users.  :)

[Robin Whittleton]

Hi Dean, that looks cool, and the note taking interface seems smart – definitely something we don’t have in our web versions.

One thing though that I’d like to query. The books have a note that says:

The publisher has enabled DRM protection, which means that you need to use the BookFusion iOS, Android or Web app to read this eBook. This eBook cannot be used outside of the BookFusion platform.

Obviously we haven’t enabled DRM. You’re allowed to do what you want with the books of course: they’re public domain. But could you remove the suggestion that SE chose that? Also that the ebook isn’t available outside BookFusion, as it’s purely your functionality that’s not available.

-Robin

On 18 Oct 2021, at 18:17, Dean Toland <dean....@bookfusion.com> wrote:



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[Dean Toland]

Robin,

Thanks for the feedback! Still a little new to Google Groups so my last reply only went to you I think, but I'm making this response more public.

That DRM warning is normal for our public libraries but I hadn't even considered it in the case of these public domain books from Standard eBooks so we quickly disabled that message in order to avoid any confusion.  :)  Thanks for the quick feedback so we could jump on that before anyone really saw it and wondered what it meant.