Tolkien on the Kindle

[LadyBrooke]

Originally Posted by Ibrîniðilpathânezel

For myself, I have no disrespect for books, but a lot for the publishing industry. It isn't what it used to be, nor are most books. I myself own books that are quite old — the oldest is about 150 years old, and it's in better shape than a lot that are much newer. The materials and processes used to make books aren't what they once were; glues, paper, inks, everything has changed, and changed again. The high acid papers that were popular for many years have been replaced, by some publishers, but the inks that are more environmentally friendly also fade and rub away very quickly. The binding are cheap, as are the glues that hold them, and spines crack and pages fall out, sometimes before I've finished the first read of the book (and I'm not that hard on them).

Exactly...I have some old books too, and even paperbacks from long ago hold up much better. I have a set of Little House paperbacks from the 40s, and they are in far better conditions then some books I bought last year, and only read once...

I know, because I've now made a few ebooks of my own, and am familiar with the programs and processes and what happens when one format is converted to another. Yes, it's easy to take a PDF file, send it through a conversion program, and voila! have an ebook, but the conversion process makes a horrible mess of things far too often. A person with a proper editing program needs to go through it and correct these things (many of which could be cleaned up simply by starting with an RTF file rather than a PDF). It's sad when I, who am asking nothing for my little twiddles of ebooks, take greater care with them than the publishers who are asking real money for them. It's not that hard to make a good clean ebook, but they obviously don't want to cut into profits by hiring someone to do a one-time proof and clean-up. Grr.

If you don't mind me asking, which type of ebooks have you made? I'm curious about the process, and have considered trying to make one of some of my out of copyright books...

And I find it funny that here I am, one of the oldest people hereabouts, and yet one who has happily embraced technology, as it helps make up for many of my physical shortcomings, which grow greater with each passing year (and don't get me started on my recent six month bout with statin drug damage to my body, from which I am still slowly recovering. We're talking serious non-stop pain and near-crippling weakness for six freaking months!)

Oh my! I hope you get much better. While I'm not bad off as you, I completely understand the technology to make up for physical shortcomings - I myself, due to my insurance companies refusal to allow me to have the epipen style Lantus shots, have bruises every so often, on my stomach or upper thigh that go into my muscle tissue or fat, that going out and actually doing things difficult. My sincerest hopes that you're feeling better now.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I'm sorry about that. As much as I respect books, I respect people more. Especially peole like you!

Thank you! I am one of those people that look much younger then their real age - I'm 18, and often hear "but you look 13", so I get little respect from the actual 13 year olds...especially when I was tossing them out of the library for acting like idiots, and breaking the rules....