Digital Books are less expensive, color, graphical books you can read with any browser (such as Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator) and be totally interactive with the World Wide Web as you read! There are NO shipping costs associated with Digital Books as they can be shipped as email attachments. Digital books are sometimes called e-books, however many e-books are not web-interactive.
Many people may not be aware of a unique capability of their browser - which is to read the files on their personal computer or read the files directly off a disk in one of their drives.
Try this experiment: Delete any URLs in your Browser's "Address," "Location" or "Netsite" field (the place where you usually type a URL (such as http://www.website.com). Then type c:/ (or just c:) and hit your ENTER key.
You should have immediate access to every file and directory (folder) on your computer, (i.e., the contents of your ENTIRE c: drive). If any of your files are .HTML or .HTM documents (such as those used to build Web pages), you will be able to CLICK on them and open them right in your browser exactly the same as ANY page you get off the Web via a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). Other files may also be opened by clicking on them thus activating "plug-ins" associated with your browser.
You can also access files and directories (folders) on your a-drive (or your b and CD-ROM drive) by simply typing a:/ (or just a:) in the browser location field as you did above. If you have a disk in your a-drive and it has HTML files on it, they will automatically open in your browser.
Thus, a Digital Book is simply an entire book that has been converted to HTML and written to a hard drive, 3.5-inch disk, CD or a zip file (for Internet distribution). The "index file" for the Digital Book is simply re-named "Install.htm" (or "Install"). The Table of Contents, chapters, pages and Appendix are all linked to the Install.htm file.
To install a Digital Book as an email attachment, all you do is:
- Create a new folder on your computer and save the Digital Book zip file to this folder.
- Unzip (uncompress) the zip file with PK Zip for Windows or WinZip into the folder.
- Click on the file called Install.htm, or
- Start your browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator) and type the path to the folder in
in the URL location (i.e., Address or Netsite) field and click on the file called Install.htm.
To install a Digital Book from a disk or CD, all you do is:
- Put the Digital Book disk or CD into the appropriate drive.
- Start your browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator).
- Type a:/install (or a:/install.htm) in the URL location (i.e., Address or Netsite) field and hit ENTER.
Digital Books are very cool and are replacing the other stodgy digital formats that merely try to imitate the printed page of yesteryear. A nice thing about Digital Books is any writer can create them without having to get involved with heavy text manipulation applications such as Acrobat or difficult formatting procedures. This opens the world of electronic publishing to any writer or HTML editor - thus creating a greater diversity of opportunity and material for everyone. In other words, publishing no longer needs to be monopolized by a bunch of vested interest-groups with committees of editors, endless deliberation and homogenized "mainstream" or hackneyed views - as is the state of the paper publishing world right now.
Another nice thing about Digital Books is you can have all kinds of interactive programs embedded in them such as the Basic Program for a 1-Day Shoot found in The Mini Mogul Manual, and these documents can reside on the World Wide Web anywhere in the world. Thus your Digital Book can be enriched and updated by a plethora of information that keeps you current.
All one wants in a Digital Book is good print, portability, easy access, color graphics, clickable links, automatic interactive access to the Web, new and exciting writers providing diversity -- and you get all this in a Digital Book.
Perfect type-setting, such as that which has evolved in the PAPER print/publishing universe, is NOT NECESSARY in Digital Books - especially if it adds extra hassle in either creating them, distributing them or reading them. After all, books are not supposed to be color, glossy brochures, they are supposed to be BOOKS - instruments that impart knowledge through the written word - not the whirling, glossy-colored barrage of pictures and diagrams, that no one but multi-million dollar corporations can produce after 15 committee meetings, endless legal reviews and the final homogenizing "censorship" of some well-meaning, but narrow-minded, editor or publisher-in-chief.
Thus HTML Digital Books are the correct amount of "attack on the problem" of getting readability without expense or corporate hassle.
Needless to say, our publishing division at Matrixx Entertainment, MOVIE PUBS, has pioneered and is moving exclusively into HTML Digital Book publishing. We may even be the first truly Digital Publisher that has no allegiance to Old World Publishing. The reasons: More, higher-quality, easily-accessible and up-dateable information can be imparted to the reader for less money and in less space and time.
There is a last thing that is great about Digital Books (and I might add, Digital Screenplays) that Readers & Writers should enjoy: they are MUCH cheaper to manufacture and distribute, so there is NO reason why the writer (the creative genius WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BOOK/SCREENPLAY TO ) should only get only a lousy 10% royalty!
This is what the current business World feels artists are worth - 10% to the Artist/Writer and 90% to all the rest of the Pigs/Middlemen/Exective Brass! Musicians are treated even more unfairly by the major labels and screenwriters are often not far behind. In general Filmmakers and Musicians are aware of this, that they get practically nothing while all the rest of the Pigs/Middlemen/Executive Brass-- THOSE WHO NEITHER CONCEIVED OF THE MOVIE OR MUSIC NOR FINANCED ITS EARLY DEVELOPMENT -- get the lion's share. Filmmakers, Musicians, Writers, Composers, Computer Programmers and Creative Techies need to REVOLT! A new and fair paradigm is long OVER-DUE.
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