April 12, 2010
The geniuses behind DIY bookscanning
by Dan O'Connor
The DIY bookscanner and the enabler who invented it
As if publishers — especially small-time, independent publishers — didn’t have enough to worry about, what with the New York Times’ “Ethicist” Randy Cohen telling everybody that it’s OK to steal books (thieves DO have ethics, too, you know — they’re just in conflict with the ethics ordinarily recommended by booksellers), via a Wired online report comes the latest Do-It-Yourself book-scanner from the DIY website, Instructables, complete with a step-by-step construction guide.
Essentially, it’s a digital camera fixed above a frame that holds down the pages so that you can photograph them. The idea is that you then assemble all the photos of your book’s pages into one digital file and, voila, homemade ebook.
One commenter does note that “using this on copyrighted books would be copyright infringement.”
Apart from the camera (Wired suggests using a “spare old digicam” — must be nice), Instructables says materials should cost $20 or less.
Instructables also repeats what is becoming Moby’s favorite canard: “And think of the trees you will save by going paperless!”
At Money Central at msn.com, Liz Pulliam Weston takes “paperless” another self-defeating step further in her essay, “10 things you shouldn’t buy new.”
First up? Books, of course. ”The reality is that most books don’t get read more than once, if that,” Liz writes, “and they’re astonishingly easy to find used at steep discounts — if not absolutely free.” Especially once you’ve built your own scanner!
Now, it gets tricky because, wouldn’t you know it, Liz is a writer herself, and dang if she hasn’t gone and written a book. Turns out, she’s written several, but she plugs her most recent, called, Your Credit Score: How to Fix, Improve and Protect the 3-Digit Number that Shapes Your Financial Future, saying, “of course, I’d love for you to go out and purchase a new copy.”
Liz does allow other exceptions, however: “Reference books you’ll use again and again. For example, I bought a deeply-discounted copy of Cheryl Mendelson‘s excellent ‘Home Comforts.’ That was after checking out the book at the library and running up a small fortune in fines.” (Better make that scanner, Liz.)
Home Comforts is described as:
A comprehensive housekeeping reference covers everything from cleaners and laundry to cooking and furniture repair, in an illustrated edition complemented by seasonal tips, philosophical essays about the value of domestic arts, and anecdotal writings about the author’s experiences as a lawyer and a dedicated housekeeper.
Liz says, “I couldn’t bear to part with it.” She’s a real book lover.
Dan O'Connor is the Managing Editor of Melville House.
Wes Anderson is making book trailers now? 
“A complex page-turning plot … a commentary on power, sex, corruption and poverty.” — Verve 
“I WOULD PREFER NOT TO” T-SHIRTS 
Check out some new titles from our 2012 summer catalog … 
14 Comments
What’s different between scanning and selling a book, and making a tape and then selling your record? Media companies have been dealing with this particular issue for years, particularly the Music Industry. Book publishers need to realize that this is an issue that they will have to face increasingly and deal with it. You can either follow the exact same path that the record companies did, fighting it all the way, or you can start ahead of the curve and embrace change. The fact is that many people like owning a copy of their media. Encouraging this love, and marketing to it should be the response to digital ripping, not rallying the Luddites.
The particular acidity in your responses to articles like this mitigates the persuasiveness of your point. In both Moby Lives’ response to the Ethicist column and to these new developments, you’ve chosen to mock and display outrage rather then to develop a cogent counter point. Again, fostering a market based on love of a product is going to be better in the long run for the industry, than giving a middle finger to the forces of change as they steam roll over you. It would be great to see a post that responds to book piracy by explaining the effects of book piracy on the market place, and going to great length to sell the value of a book.
As for ways to overcome the loss of market share, developing special editions of books, and extra content would go a long way. Added value has bolstered the music industry’s declining sales, as has the embrace of new distribution methods. I think a good book to look at to see how this might be done, is Jeff Vandermeer’s Finch, which has information on how to order special editions of the book at the end. Also, Dave Eggers recent adaptation of The Wild Things had a fur cover edition, an experience that an eBook just can’t recreate. With a good book, even if you were to read the book as a pirated file, the quality of the book would draw you to want some form of ownership of the book itself (just like when people read library books), and the more expensive special editions create a bigger margin for the author and publisher. In many ways it’s a brave new world. Fortunately, smaller publishers like Melville House will be more able to adopt these new ideas and foster ownership culture better than large publishers. You just have to look at your problem as an opportunity, and embrace the books of the future. Right now you essentially sound like a more literate version of Lars Ulrich.
What’s different between scanning and selling a book, and making a tape and then selling your record? Media companies have been dealing with this particular issue for years, particularly the Music Industry. Book publishers need to realize that this is an issue that they will have to face increasingly and deal with it. You can either follow the exact same path that the record companies did, fighting it all the way, or you can start ahead of the curve and embrace change. The fact is that many people like owning a copy of their media. Encouraging this love, and marketing to it should be the response to digital ripping, not rallying the Luddites.
The particular acidity in your responses to articles like this mitigates the persuasiveness of your point. In both Moby Lives’ response to the Ethicist column and to these new developments, you’ve chosen to mock and display outrage rather then to develop a cogent counter point. Again, fostering a market based on love of a product is going to be better in the long run for the industry, than giving a middle finger to the forces of change as they steam roll over you. It would be great to see a post that responds to book piracy by explaining the effects of book piracy on the market place, and going to great length to sell the value of a book.
As for ways to overcome the loss of market share, developing special editions of books, and extra content would go a long way. Added value has bolstered the music industry’s declining sales, as has the embrace of new distribution methods. I think a good book to look at to see how this might be done, is Jeff Vandermeer’s Finch, which has information on how to order special editions of the book at the end. Also, Dave Eggers recent adaptation of The Wild Things had a fur cover edition, an experience that an eBook just can’t recreate. With a good book, even if you were to read the book as a pirated file, the quality of the book would draw you to want some form of ownership of the book itself (just like when people read library books), and the more expensive special editions create a bigger margin for the author and publisher. In many ways it’s a brave new world. Fortunately, smaller publishers like Melville House will be more able to adopt these new ideas and foster ownership culture better than large publishers. You just have to look at your problem as an opportunity, and embrace the books of the future. Right now you essentially sound like a more literate version of Lars Ulrich.
Sheryl Mendelson’s Home Comforts is indeed excellent, I would highly recommend that book to most librarians.
Sheryl Mendelson’s Home Comforts is indeed excellent, I would highly recommend that book to most librarians.
There has to be some ground that book lovers can exist in between outright theft as endorsed by Cohen, and the boo-digital condescension of this post. I love the Moby LIves blog. I buy books at a rate that has already surpassed the (hopefully) 40+ more years left of my reading life. I don’t have an eBook reader and am not especially interested in one.
But I do have an 8-year-old digital camera and don’t appreciate the snide “must be nice” comment and the implication that I’m therefore wasteful or wealthy. (Anyone who can afford to purchase new books more than once or twice a year can afford a low-end or used, old digital camera.) I do use libraries and don’t understand why they’re being swept up and placed on the side of pirating enemies to the publishing industry. And I think that paper-versus-digital is a far too reductive and black-and-white way of framing the debate.
I don’t have answers to the complications raised by book scanning and eBook sales, but I’m disappointed at how alienating this post is. I feel confident in calling myself a book lover even if my interest in digital technology means I fail the Moby Lives litmus test.
There has to be some ground that book lovers can exist in between outright theft as endorsed by Cohen, and the boo-digital condescension of this post. I love the Moby LIves blog. I buy books at a rate that has already surpassed the (hopefully) 40+ more years left of my reading life. I don’t have an eBook reader and am not especially interested in one.
But I do have an 8-year-old digital camera and don’t appreciate the snide “must be nice” comment and the implication that I’m therefore wasteful or wealthy. (Anyone who can afford to purchase new books more than once or twice a year can afford a low-end or used, old digital camera.) I do use libraries and don’t understand why they’re being swept up and placed on the side of pirating enemies to the publishing industry. And I think that paper-versus-digital is a far too reductive and black-and-white way of framing the debate.
I don’t have answers to the complications raised by book scanning and eBook sales, but I’m disappointed at how alienating this post is. I feel confident in calling myself a book lover even if my interest in digital technology means I fail the Moby Lives litmus test.
No point in writing anything any more then, as I wont get paid for it. (writer)
No point in writing anything any more then, as I wont get paid for it. (writer)
Dear Bubbles (how brave of you, to assume such a jaunty pseudonym in your, er, condemnation — and what an awesome pseudonym it is!) and, to a lesser degree, dear Kris –
We’ve discussed piracy and its impact often and at length, so let’s get to the real MobyLives litmus test: Do you tell someone you don’t have all the answers, then attack that someone for not having all the answers? Or, do you accuse someone of being a Luddite “giving a middle finger to the forces of change as they steam roll over you” while you’re reading that Luddite’s blog … on the website of a publishing company that grew out of that blog … and that publishes ebooks …? Do you always fall back on comparisons with a completely different industry to cover a lack of comprehension or ethical outrage? Perhaps most importantly: Do you comprehend the difference between “loss of market share” and condonation of criminality? Finally, have you ever suggested fur covers as the answer to anything?
Dear Bubbles (how brave of you, to assume such a jaunty pseudonym in your, er, condemnation — and what an awesome pseudonym it is!) and, to a lesser degree, dear Kris —
We’ve discussed piracy and its impact often and at length, so let’s get to the real MobyLives litmus test: Do you tell someone you don’t have all the answers, then attack that someone for not having all the answers? Or, do you accuse someone of being a Luddite “giving a middle finger to the forces of change as they steam roll over you” while you’re reading that Luddite’s blog … on the website of a publishing company that grew out of that blog … and that publishes ebooks …? Do you always fall back on comparisons with a completely different industry to cover a lack of comprehension or ethical outrage? Perhaps most importantly: Do you comprehend the difference between “loss of market share” and condonation of criminality? Finally, have you ever suggested fur covers as the answer to anything?
Big surprise that more people see this as acceptable. Bottom line? It’s theft. Plain and simple. Now this isn’t going to be popular, but the truth is, once you go away from a Biblical standard of what is right and wrong, everyone begins to make up their own standards of right and wrong, and very few of them coincide. The authors and publishers who actually want to get paid for their hard work and investment will be screaming that it’s wrong. But people who don’t really care to have those same standards will just decide that it’s what they think is right that makes something right, and they’ll pirate music, books, and more.
My advice? America is probably moving in the direction of China, where plagiarism and cheating are rampant. Don’t leave your wallet lying around.
Big surprise that more people see this as acceptable. Bottom line? It’s theft. Plain and simple. Now this isn’t going to be popular, but the truth is, once you go away from a Biblical standard of what is right and wrong, everyone begins to make up their own standards of right and wrong, and very few of them coincide. The authors and publishers who actually want to get paid for their hard work and investment will be screaming that it’s wrong. But people who don’t really care to have those same standards will just decide that it’s what they think is right that makes something right, and they’ll pirate music, books, and more.
My advice? America is probably moving in the direction of China, where plagiarism and cheating are rampant. Don’t leave your wallet lying around.
Bubbles, Kris: I have to say that Mr. Johnson is absolutely correct here. I have read, more than once, the effects of piracy on the publishing market. Among these effects are driving writers out of the industry because they can’t get enough sales. Another impact is preventing new writers from entering the market.
In my case, I don’t know if my failure to make a sale is because I am not writing what publishers are looking for, or if it’s because they don’t feel they can take a chance on publishing my work in the current climate of piracy. Whatever the case, the more I read about piracy, the angrier I become because these people may be keeping me from earning money doing what I love to do. Most pirates don’t care about that though, and they won’t go out and purchase something if they can steal it.
I don’t have any answers to this problem, unfortunately, but the more this is discussed, the more likely it is that someone will finally see something that allows them to come up with the answers that are needed.
Bubbles, Kris: I have to say that Mr. Johnson is absolutely correct here. I have read, more than once, the effects of piracy on the publishing market. Among these effects are driving writers out of the industry because they can’t get enough sales. Another impact is preventing new writers from entering the market.
In my case, I don’t know if my failure to make a sale is because I am not writing what publishers are looking for, or if it’s because they don’t feel they can take a chance on publishing my work in the current climate of piracy. Whatever the case, the more I read about piracy, the angrier I become because these people may be keeping me from earning money doing what I love to do. Most pirates don’t care about that though, and they won’t go out and purchase something if they can steal it.
I don’t have any answers to this problem, unfortunately, but the more this is discussed, the more likely it is that someone will finally see something that allows them to come up with the answers that are needed.