Consider the unauthorized use of a Scarlett Johansson-like voice, for example, or all the flashy, endlessly touted bots that fall short of their hype.

But what if a humble little $14.99 AI service could help you market your next book—cranking out everything from drafts of plot summaries to keyword recommendations for online stores? It could even identify popular tropes and compare your book with existing titles.

The Manuscript Report site does it all and more. Despite the name, the site is more of a marketing tool than a service for editors who are wending their way through massive piles of slush.

Can beat most human-only brainstorming

Granted, the site is no substitute for a smart, experienced human—beware of AI-ish prose and a formulaic approach for items like press releases. But it provides a handy starting point, particularly in regard to comparative titles and keywords you can use on Amazon and elsewhere.

The keyword function isn’t as sophisticated as a specialty app like Publisher Rocket. (Check out Rocket developer Dave Chesson’s latest Amazon tips to appreciate the complexities here.)

Still, the bot’s keyboard suggestions can help you beat most human-only brainstorming.

Autopilot marketing, kind of—but don’t rely on the bot alone

Manuscript Report is easy for those who want a quick, highly structured approach. You fill out forms covering such basics as your book’s title, feed in a PDF of your book, pay your $14.99, and in less than an hour, you see thousands of words:

“Back of the book summary

“Synopsis

“Sales Pitch

“SEO-Optimized Keywords

“Target Audience

“Genres

“Themes

“Tropes

“Comparisons with recent bestsellers

“Narrative crossroads with books and movies

“Press Release Template

“Ad Copy Template.”

Manuscript Report in action

I tried out ManuscriptReport.com on two novels of mine, The Solomon Scandals and Drone Child. Your results may vary. But a summary from the service did an overwhelmingly good job of capturing the essence of Scandals and Child—despite AI-ish prose in places. Perhaps I’m overlooking something, but I didn’t encounter the hallucinations that many AIs come up with.

Here are the first three paragraphs of the D.C. novel’s synopsis:

“‘The Solomon Scandals’ by David H. Rothman is a richly textured narrative that delves into the murky waters of political and journalistic corruption in Washington, D.C. Set against the backdrop of the 20th-century newsroom, the story follows Jon Stone, a reporter for the Washington Telegram, as he navigates a labyrinth of deceit involving media, government, and business.

“The plot ignites with the mysterious suicide of Wendy Blevin, a prominent gossip columnist, and the subsequent cover-up by the Telegram. Stone’s investigation into real estate mogul Seymour Solomon uncovers a web of corruption involving shoddy construction practices, political paybacks, and potential building collapses. Key figures include George McWilliams, the hard-nosed editor torn between loyalty and ethics, and E.J. Rawson, the national editor and Stone’s immediate superior.

“The narrative is rich with detailed character backgrounds and the socio-political landscape of Washington, D.C. Stone’s complex relationship with Donna Stackelbaum, a lawyer with ties to the nuclear power industry, adds personal stakes to his professional quest. The story is interspersed with Stone’s musings on his career ambitions and personal life, reflecting his disillusionment with the system he navigates.”

People familiar with AI will notice such bot-favored phrases as “murky waters,” “web of corruption,” “richly textured” and “labyrinth of deceit.” Still, the results are probably better than most humans could achieve.

ChatCPT 4o grades Manuscript.com

Just for fun, I plugged ManuscriptReport.com’s full synopsis of Scandals into ChatGPT 4o and asked it to evaluate the document for use by editors. The score was 8 out of 10; ChatGPT especially liked the synopsis’s details on “the book’s literary merit and market potential.”

For movie and TV people on the prowl for books to adapt, the synopsis itself rated 7. ChatGPT wanted the synopsis to focus more on such cinematic requirements as strong “virtual and dramatic elements.”

The synopsis was deemed too long for book sales people and received a score of 7. For booksellers, the document rated 8: “The detailed description of the setting, plot, and characters helps booksellers position the book to the right customers, especially those in political thrillers and journalistic narratives.”

Overall effectiveness came in at 8, according to ChatGPT.

Was the synopsis absolutely on the mark about my book? Remember, a mere bot was speaking. Highly subjective! But the AI deftly zeroed in on the criteria that I, as author of Scandals, considered important.

The bot and I disagreed a bit on genre. The service played down Scandals as a historical novel (10 percent). I’d give it 10 or 15 percent more in that category. Scandals is a roman à clef set in the 1970s and inspired by my experiences as a reporter, even though it’s far from an actual memoir.

I was pleased to see Scandals assessed as 30 percent satire. The service rated my book as 20 percent mystery and 40 percent political thriller.

Yes, many publishing houses favor titles focused on fans of specific genres. But I wrote the book I wanted to read, and who knows—Scandals may yet find its audience of like-minded people.

The service’s target markets: Please focus again on manuscript evaluation

In fairness to ManuscriptReport.com, developer Florin Bulgarov is now talking up the product more for publicists, marketers and others than for editors. Publishers and writers have balked at the idea of quantifying assessments; what if writer X gets a score a point below writer Y? Oh, the horror!

Here’s my rebuttal. Smart publishers and writers should understand that bots are just a rough and highly fallible gauge of commercial and literary merit. Fret not over decimal points.

Yes, I would hate for bots to preside over slush piles. Instead I think of ManuscriptReport.com as just another voice, not the be-all and end-all.

But let’s face it. So often publishers and literary agents fail to identify the most promising manuscripts, as these pros would be the first to admit. Many large houses automatically reject unsolicited works, but what about those evaluated by agents and smaller publishers? The classic method is to read the first pages and perhaps the first chapters of a manuscript. But what if the material isn’t representative of the rest? And how about issues such as the structure of a book as a whole?

Even with the flaws and the current focus on marketing more than editorial evaluation and development, ManuscriptReport.com could be a godsend for writers, not just editors. In many ways it’s the book equivalent of the Greenlight Coverage, a service for scriptwriters and those who buy scripts.

Greenlight costs $55 for a writer with one or two projects a month, and rates go up from there. ManuscriptReport.com’s current prices are more reasonable and I hope that the site either will keep them the same or limit the size of increases.

Of course, rather than using either ManuscriptReport.com or Greenlight, you could run your material through ChatGPT or another service yourself. However, ManuscriptReport.com will be so much simpler for many.

A great value despite the AI-ish flaws

Top professional publicists and marketers could be wonderful for writers and others who can afford deluxe services. But if you’re cash-strapped and want good a value, ManuscriptReport.com is a useful starting point to help understand your manuscript and market, just so you keep in mind the limits of today’s AI.

I expect it to get much better in this application and countless others. Already Florin Bulgarov is talking about the use of prompt engineering so his bot’s prose is more humanlike.

That said, bots can go only so far as marketing and publicity tools.

Will the day ever come when ChatGPT can single-handedly get you on the Today Show?

Related:

—Build your own chatbot to promote your book: Lessons from my ScandalsBot

—Solomon Scandals Chatbot: Ask it anything. You can reach it directly at ScandalsBot.com.

Image credit: Manuscript Report.

Strasbourg has been a cultural as well as a commercial entrepôt back as far as its Roman origins. Situated at one of the main crossing points on the Rhine, able to capture traffic both across and along the river, it has historically been the contested frontier between France and Germany, with its own native variety of German but comfortably ruled for centuries by Louis XIV and his successors. It boasts France’s second largest university, the University of Strasbourg, which, however, began life in the 16th century as a Lutheran humanist German Gymnasium. Strasbourg’s honours list of famous native citizens and residents draws deeply from both French and German culture: Angelus Silesius, Hans Arp, Georg Büchner, Jean Calvin, Gustave Doré, Meister Eckhart, Erasmus, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Louis Pasteur, Camille Pleyel, Paul Ricoeur, Albert Schweitzer – the list goes on, and on, and on. 

As I said at the start, I can’t imagine a more appropriate city than Strasbourg for the WBCC designation. Its library system in particular is superb. The Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire (BNU) is a public library with over 3 million volumes, and France’s second largest library after the Bibliothèque nationale de France in paris. Its imposing main building, on the central Place de la République, administers ten other libraries scattered across the city, including the huge and far more modernist Médiathèque André Malraux, six storeys high. The BNU is open to any student or valid applicant for a reader’s card, which in practice means just about any resident or qualified visitor. As a result, it swarms with students, and has a seat-booking system for the weekend to ensure that everyone gets a fair try at its desks. 

Strasbourg also has a slew of excellent and characterful bookshops, from the compendious and dignified Librairie Kléber near the center, to funky independents like the Librairie Le Tigre on the quayside.

And Strasbourg definitely hasn’t been behind in visual displays for the WBCC and books. The exterior of the main railway station is now a mosaic of photos of readers with their favourite titles, of all ages and genres and types (the readers and the books). Now read on…

Featured Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Honestly, the pain isn’t just from the tedious task of creating citations; I’m always writing something, after all. Rather, citations come with their own big irritant. Writers, academics and other citation-sufferers are huffing and puffing to keep up with ever-changing technology and media.

Take books, for instance. Yes, they’re a common reference, and many are now in ebook format. Some ebooks have page numbers, but not all. Sometimes, these numbers shift with different formatting settings. So what’s the point of a page number when you can just search the entire text?

And then you have documents. So many original documents are just a click away online, complete with photos. These should definitely hold more weight than any secondary quotes or reproductions, unless it’s a direct print of the photo. These documents are searchable, too. If I reveal the original URL and when I checked it, isn’t that enough? But websites can go offline. The link might disappear, but the document’s authenticity doesn’t. Maybe it’s better to just mention the document’s title and date, and skip the URL. Let curious readers do their own search.

Videos are a similar story. A link might die, or copies might vanish for various reasons, but the content—like an eyewitness account—remains credible. Should its credibility diminish if the link does? And that’s just for the older types of media. How about new platforms like TikTok, where so much current reporting happens on so many topics? How do you cite something that might not even be around in a few years?

I’m all for citing sources; that’s not the issue. It’s the outdated methods I’m questioning. The most practical approach now seems to be simply listing the creator, title, date, and medium. Everything else can be found online. This method better survives the dizzying changes in media.

And as for plagiarism or verifying facts, traditional citations don’t really prevent those issues. Sure, you can check a citation to see if it’s accurate. But a plagiarist or someone misrepresenting facts won’t bother citing their dubious sources. And some might just misquote or hope no one double-checks their references.

Peer reviews should catch these issues, but not all works undergo such scrutiny. Many times, the point of citations seems to be more about sounding credible—appealing to authority rather than fact. It gives an impression of trustworthiness, as if a bunch of footnotes guarantees accuracy. There are even practices like coercive citation or chasing after high-impact factors, which The Chronicle of Higher Education calls “the number that’s devouring science.”

Maybe a blockchain-based system for citations could keep up with media’s rapid evolution. Blockchain involves a chain of references that can’t be altered without changing the whole chain. Could this work for media and citations too? Imagine if every media piece had a unique identifier like an NFT, and creating a citation was as easy as clicking a mouse. For those who still print, I bet there could be a simple software tool to handle that. Simply put, such an approach would be an improvement over the current system of Digital Object Identifiers. Expand it. Use blockchains to make it simpler both to create material and learn its exact origins.

While this idea might work, I think it’s best to keep things simple for now. After all, look at the snake pit I’m skirting.

Editor’s note: Readers of historical fiction might check out Paul’s novel Begin the Beguine, which the Historical Novel Society has just given a strong recommendation.

Image by Cottonbro via Pexels.

No more Micro-USB charging—instead, the Tribit has a USB-C socket, exactly the same as my phone and tablets. That’s one fewer cable. It has Bluetooth 5.0. It has two 8-watt drivers for a total of 16 watts. Under the waterproof cover at the back, there is the USB-C socket and a standard 3.5mm audio jack for a cable if you want a wired connection.

The slightly rubbery surface of the casing certainly backs up the claims for solid waterproofing, and the cap over the sockets at the back feels secure.

“Waterproof means you can listen effortlessly in any environment, perfect for shower, by the pool or beach…,” the company says. To quote online advertising, the Tribit XSound “sings in the rain.”

The speaker is somewhat heavy to my mind, but that just supports the strength of the sound. To say that the sound has presence is a considerable understatement—it has real power and substance, almost enough to knock me back in my seat when I turned it on for the first time. And I haven’t noted any lack of clarity in the higher registers either. The Bluetooth connection is prompt and robust, even though my favourite option for this kind of device is to use the audio jack and keep the power cable plugged in. Battery life is rated at 24 hours. I can’t guarantee that, but it certainly has endurance.

Sadly, I lack a pool to test the waterproofing with, but I can testify at least that the sound is loud and full enough to potentially irritate neighbours and fellow picnickers—so consider those around you. But the SoundX certainly could support an outdoor dance party. For me, it’s handled everything from heavy metal to smooth piano jazz, let alone providing crisp and clear articulation on audiobooks and podcasts.

All in all, this is an excellent portable speaker, just as suited as a permanent installation.

My only little annoyance with it is that I can’t use the USB-C socket both to charge and to play the PC’s audio at the same time—although that could be just my ignorance of the relevant settings. In any case, with a stable Bluetooth connection, there’s no need for most people to even consider that option, and the XSound Go does have a traditional audio jack too. Recommended.

Editor’s note: Paul received a free XSound in return for an honest review.

The bot can also compare my corruption novel with All the President’s Men and other Washington books, or it can explain why I mixed genres rather than just writing suspense. What’s more, it can lay out the main themes and sum up the plot and the characters—or answer scads of other questions. Ask. The ScandalsBot likely can oblige. See a screenshot at the bottom of this post, complete with starter questions to engage visitors.

My AI creature works with a WordPress plug-in, and visitors can use it without signing up for ChatGPT Plus or an equivalent large language model. If you can get on the Web, the ScandalsBot almost surely can help you check out my book. Scandals is a character-driven roman a clef, and the plot is extra-complex, so it helps to let readers learn about the novel on their terms. I make ScandalsBot visitors aware of my bot’s shortcomings in area such as accuracy. Mercifully for humans worried about job security, bots can’t verify facts as well as people can, but don’t get smug. Future versions could be much better. For now, I’m running GPT-4 Turbo, but may need to economize and revert to 3.5 Turbo, an older and less powerful LLM.

A blogger tool also

The chatbot isn’t the only glory of  the AI Power plug-in. For routine blog postings—we’re not talking about high literature—AI Power can expand what I’ve written. Then I can shine up the prose. I Davidize it, so to speak; yes, this is a human typing. Ninety-five percent of the present post is mine. The bot just reminded me of possible points to make; I’d hate a purely AI-written version.

In a related vein, may I repeat a caveat from others? Don’t just latch on to the first wording the bot suggests. Luckily, I’m comfortable enough ignoring suggestions from humans, so that isn’t a problem for me.

To help stock the actual chatbot, which is separate from the Solomon Scandals blog, I  can enter a variety of possible questions and answers on the basics, such as plot, and add some extras—even a Great Gatsby comparison. Equal stature not claimed!

My chatbot’s language is still not Davidized, and you’ll find redundancies and horrid AI cliches. But at least the facts are there. Right now there is no text to speech; it will likely come in time when I have a better handle on the costs of OpenAI’s services. Similarly I’ll increase how many words a visitor’s Q&Aing can include in a day.

AI Power’s documentation (and if need be a support staffer) can fill in the how-to details. But here’s an overview of how I created my bot:

Step One: A shopping tour of the WordPress plug-ins

I found the well-reviewed AI Power through WordPress’s “add plug-in” page, which includes a search engine through which you can look for a plug-in based on features or a product’s name.

AI Power was my choice partly because of its 10,000 users, compatibility with ChatGPT and major rivals, and text-to-speech capabilities for future use. Like many competitors, it can gobble up a PDF of a book or other document. That’s the main way the bot smartens itself up to help visitors. They can even find out about the origins of the book—and my fiction vs. past and present scandals—via an essay in the back.

The ”Pro” version of AI Power is $9.99 monthly, $95.88 annually, and $289.99 for life. A free version is available with some key features missing and without priority email tech support.

My bot-shopping tour was hardly thorough, and for all I know, better solutions may be out there. A WordPress plug-in might be too complicated for you, in which case you can Google around for alternatives, including bots from Chatbot.com. I haven’t tried it, but some reviews look good. AI Power just happened to meet my needs and would cost less than Chatbot.com’s fee of $42 a month or higher. Another possibility, for people with the budget, might be Massively, which created the Epic Reads book-discover service for HarperCollins. Finally, Writesonic offers various flavors of botsvarious flavors of bots.

Step Two: Installing AI Power

As soon as I clicked on “install,” AI Power popped up on WordPress’s dashboard, and within the plug-in’s menu, I saw a request for an API key, an identity for usage-based billing. Conveniently a link took me to just the right place on the OpenAI site to get it.

Step Two: PDF uploading and Pinecone

After I uploaded the PDF of The Solomon Scandals to the plug-in, I linked up the results with the Pinecone database service, which created an index for the chatbot and other purposes.

Step Three: Customizing the bot

I won’t list all the menu options, but significantly, I could tweak the look and feel of the Bot and tell it how to behave. My goal was a friendly, writerlike bot avoiding the PRish ballyhoo that many bots spew. I’m still working on the ballyhoo issue.

“Lisa” was the bot name suggested in a template I used. Bad idea for me. My selfish goal was to promote not her but myself and the book and maintain a human touch.

My picture, not an image of Lisa or the cover of The Solomon Scandals, appears with the answers the bot gives.

Step Four: Creating a WordPress page for the ScandalsBot

I just pasted in a little snippet of code for a separate ScandalsBot page in my blog (with the accuracy warning at the top). But instead, I could have displayed the bot in a sidebar on every page. I included my email so people could offer feedback, ask questions and get accurate answers from a real human. The ScandalsBot page also includes a comment area.

My bot had better behave itself. I’ve even pampered it with a separate domain name, ScandalsBot.com, although you can also call it up through a home page link on SolomonScandals.com.

Step Five: Testing the bot

The ScandalsBot was like many of its bot brethren and loved to hallucinate. Guided by an AI Power’s support staffer, I asked the bot to zap the errors. When I typed in a request for a character list, the bot picked up the names of real people from the nonfiction essay in the back of my book. I may or may not have banished the character glitch. But so far, so good. My instructions are messy but seem to be working for the most part.

In writing this post about my shiny new bot, I saw the following suggested text: “Overall, the creation of the ScandalsBot was a relatively straightforward process, thanks to the user-friendly nature of the AI Power plug-in and the pre-existing content I had prepared.” No! I was hardly a veteran bot creator and had to fiddle. Of course, I loathed the marketese, too.

Luckily, AI Power’s support staffer was knowledgeable, friendly and patient, and the guidance was in perfect English. Jennifer’s emailed answers came within a day or so. In the past, reviews on the WordPress site complained of the support—I found the opposite to be true. Maybe just like a bot, AI Power learned. Props to Jennifer and the Turkish developer, Senol Sahin. The quality of support should be a major criterion in deciding which plug-in or other bot you use. Granted, we’re talking about bots, but the humans can count in the end.

Will the ScandalsBot quadruple the number of visitors to my niche site? I doubt it. Still, it should be a welcome addition for people wanting to know more about my roman a clef and the history that inspired it. And if visitors instead want an answer from the author, they can just click on the email link.

Suggested reading for varied perspectives: Prof. Ethan Mollick’s Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI, bot-related writing guidelines from the Authors Guild and the Alliance of Independent Authors, and commentary from Thad McIlroy, a prominent publishing consultant. 

Buying information for The Solomon Scandals: Available via independent bookstores, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the Apple Store, Kobo, and others. Plot summary. Foreword and first chapter. Strong language and racist dialogue placed in context by a multiracial feminist character. Kirkus-recommended.

SCREENSHOT OF SCANDALSBOT. GO HERE TO USE THE ACTUAL BOT.

Like the amazing Dion Graham, who narrated my Drone Child novel, the best vocal whizzes don’t just read. They act. If only I could afford to use Dion on all my titles!

But for nonfiction and the right novels, auto-narration is now good enough as a cost-reducer. The most polished AI voices are more pleasant than many Homo sapiens even if they’re not at the Dion level.

Global audiobook sales may reach tens of billions by the end of the decade, and the bots could be one way to dip your toes into the water without raiding your IRA.

The conventional wisdom is that AI voices won’t work for fiction. Depends, actually. If your story and dialogue are strong enough, you might try to buck CW.

After I released a new version of The Solomon Scandals, my Washington newspaper novel, I decided to go beyond the ebook and print editions. I gave Google’s Marcus G voice a try.

Perhaps someday I’ll cruelly replace Marcus with Dion or another human. But right now he’s good enough for most readers who want to hear Scandals while driving, walking, or doing housework.

My suggested retail price for the audiobook is $2.99, the same as the ebook, so I’m at least hoping that people can buy both (stores set the pricing). You can check out a free sample of Marcus on Google Play’s Scandals page and even hear a woman read the fictional foreword. Her name is Mia, and you can preview her and other voices here. If anything she’s better-spoken than Marcus.

Auto-narration is also available from sources besides Google—consider the free Apple service, for example, or the forthcoming one from Amazon. But Google was easily the way for me to go. Not only is the Google auto-narration service free right now, I can also use the audiobook file from it for Spotify’s Findaway Voices division. Findaway distributes to Spotify, Apple, B&N, Rakuten, Kobo, and other important nonGoogle sites, including OverDrive and other major library-related services.

Here’s Google’s explanatory page for auto-narration, along with a more detailed guide. And now some more basics–including the path from Google to other sites like Apple:

1. Google’s service is available in English, Spanish, German, French and Brazilian Portuguese.

2. Fill out the required forms and feed an ePub file into Google. The ePub file will be the same one as for a regular ebook.

3. Google is smart enough to recognize chapters, and you can rename and reorder them for the audiobook. You can even try different narrators and vary the speed. I sped up Marcus to 1.3X.

4. Stick to an audio structure recommended by the Findway Voices, which also gives tech requirements, including those for your cover.

5. You can preview the narration while still in the creation and editing mode.

6. Helpfully, you can edit in text rather than the usual audio.

7. Click a button on the lower right—at least that’s where it is on my Mac system—when you’re ready to publish.

8. A few hours later, Google will alert you that audio files of your book are ready. You can either revise or (after making sure you’ve done all the paperwork!) post to Google Play with the cover you’ve uploaded.

9. Within Google, create a file in the .lpf or .zip format. I chose .lpf for Findaway to pick the saved version.

10. After you’ve enrolled in Findway, go to its master page outlining the main steps–metadata, distribution, audio, overview and redemption credits. Follow instructions.

11. Feed the .lpf file from Google into Findaway.

12. Findaway will subject your work to quality checks, make certain it’s ready for its partners, then distribute it. The process will happen within a few days.

Presto! At no cost, and without being golden-voiced or having to hire a narrator, you’ve created an audiobook for some major platforms.

Again, I’d urge you to use a human if the economics make sense, but if not, it’s good to know that Marcus and friends can help.

Note: I’ll welcome feedback on the above. Anything wrong or confusing? 

Art credit: Google.

Engadget reports that the Smart Paper can also let you “delete and reorganize notes, and place them into folders. You’ll be able to access millions of ebooks and search saved books and articles that are on your Smart Paper. If you leave the notepad at home, you’ll still be able to access all your stuff, thanks to the Smart Paper mobile and Windows PC app, which supports cloud sync. The app can translate text and audio recordings onto other languages as well.” Storage is a roomy 64GB, and Smart Paper works with Google Drive. It’s so much more a part of the world than the Amazon-limited Scribe.

I don’t know if Smart Paper can read Kindle books, but possibly you can, with Android 11 as the operating system. That assumes that sideloaded apps are permitted; we don’t know—a domestic version reportedly prohibits sideloading. If so, no Kindle app. No matter what, you’ll be able to download from Ebooks.com‘s good-sized inventory, as well as use public domain sources. With Android as the OS, I wonder if I could enjoy voice recognition out of the box for note-taking or add it via the dictation-capable Gboard.

More on note-taking. Remember my complaint that the Scribe’s screen was too slick for me to write naturally? Well, here’s what DigitalTrends says about Smart Paper: “The display has a distinct matte coating to it, which means you can take notes on a surface that feels very much like paper, with something that feels very much like a pen. Writing on the display feels much more natural than a stylus on most tablets, because there’s a bit of physical resistance on the pen tip. And in our time jotting down some words and scribbling, the pen tip tracking and palm rejection were both great.”

Loser! I was up against such nuisances as a 50MB cap on PDF files transferred online, and I didn’t want to mess with workarounds. Not to mention the Scribe screen being too slick for me to write on, despite most reviewers’ opinions to the contrary.

Given Amazon’s closed ecosystem, I wasn’t getting enough in return. Back went the Kindle for a full refund.

Ah, but there’s a nice little twist. The 10.2″ Scribe today went on sale for $295 in the 16GB version—hardly a bargain, but still sufficiently reasonable for me and my tired eyes. I usually mark up far more with highlighting than with notes, and I’ll tough it out with the virtual keyboard for the typed-out variety. I’ll use my iPad or iPhone when I want to dictate notes.

Of course, that raises a question. What if the Scribe itself could recognize speech accurately for note-taking, ideally more so than the iPad? Now, that would really add to the value. A possibility in the future with improved hardware? Convenient text to speech for sighted people would also help. Come on, Amazon; the Fire tablets have TTS, even for DRMed books. I’m certain some publishers don’t like the idea, and Amazon itself owns Audible, but this objection is really short-sighted if you think of all the books without audiobook editions.

I have no idea how long the “limited time” discounts will last, but undoubtedly they’ll be back. Meanwhile, if the sale is still on, you can buy the 32GB version for $335 and the 64GB one for $360. Having lessened my interest in using the Kindle to read PDFs, I’ll make do with 16GB; ebooks in other formats are far more compact than PDFs. Even with audiobooks in some cases, the 16GB should suffice for me.

One buying consideration: 300 DPI color Kindles will almost surely be with us in the near future. So you still might want to keep some dry powder.

Possibilities for people who do want to take notes: One of the Boox E Ink tablets or, yes, an iPad. You can buy screen protectors on Amazon to make the iPad screen less slick, even though this is far from an ideal solution since screen clarity may decrease. Another possibility would be a Samsung table with note-taking capabilities. I’d welcome your thoughts on any of the above, or other options.

Typography tip for Scribe: Yes, as I confirmed for myself, the Scribe works just fine with added fonts, just as other Kindles do. I myself enjoy RoboSlab, a free Google font.

If you really want to get around the 50MB limit: Just copy the file directly via a USB connection. There are also other workarounds. But I myself would rather not deal with the hassles.

Related: Maneetpaul Singh’s thoughtful YouTube review—rightly criticizing the Scribe for notetaking limitations and missing features in general. Among other things, he notes that the screen is not quite as sharp as, say, the one on the $100 basic Kindle, thanks to the additional layers between you and the E Ink display. Well, maybe. But I’ll take the larger size.

Ideally, a group like the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies could work with other library organizations to create a national public system, perhaps in cooperation with the Library of Congress. The Digital Public Library of America could evolve separately into the Academic Library of America. A national library endowment, funded by a mix of public and private money, could help support both systems. So could dues from members of the two systems. Board members of the two systems could overlap. Perhaps some would also sit on the endowment board. The two systems could share some people, infrastructure, and other resources to avoid redundancies.

But why two systems? Let’s not allow wing-nut censors to sabotage the knowledge infrastructure of higher education. High-powered lawyers from top law schools could defend freedom of expression in both systems, but the public one would be the more vulnerable to demagogues. Better to have two national digital library systems and reduce the chance of complete censorship at the national library level in one fell swoop. Public library users could still benefit from the academic system. But for full access, users of the academic system might have to sign terms-of-service forms agreeing to avoid lawsuits over controversial content that the librarians wanted to include. They might also pay a small fee, with special exemptions for low-income people. I myself would prefer that every item in every library be free without any membership required, but under this scenario, academia would be far better fortified against the know-nothings, whether the topic was gender-related or anything else that offended political or religious extremists.

Of even greater importance, two systems would also be better because of the desirability of a public system focusing on general needs while an academic system prioritized those of colleges and universities and their students and researchers. Let’s not directly pit valuable tomes and essential research journals against bestsellers, rural outreach, family literacy programs, or library-related broadband initiatives that public libraries and their patrons need.

Business models are another issue. Commercial publishers, including the giants with the cash to mass-promote content to the hilt, would hate the idea of public libraries forcing them to use the open-access model for, say, bestsellers. Most likely Congress wouldn’t pass a law anyway to make this a reality. But here’s an idea to help reconcile the different business models. The public system could use open access for items such as books that most likely would never interest the big publishers anyway. Writers and publishers could be paid in advance for professional-quality open-access works. Royalties, too, based on download counts? That’s an issue to be decided on, case by case. If open-access is indeed international, which many and perhaps most say it would be by definition, additional royalty-related questions would need to be addressed. Maybe the term just wouldn’t apply. All this discussion of open access does not preempt my personal approval of laws to protect libraries’ access to commercial materials at reasonable costs under traditional business models. But let’s also consider other scenarios.

As for the academic system, it could not only collect, curate, organize, and distribute content but also publish or help publish it for the world at large, including the public system. This could include popular-level writings, for which it could pay flat fees in advance to assure full ownership forever in many cases. In others, there could be possible opportunities for royalties and other deviations from the advance-only model. But open access would be the norm. Needless to say, the academic system could also help pay for open-access journals and otherwise promote the concept. Any open-access item on the academic side would, of course, be available to the public one and vice versa. Imagine the chance to enrich budget-strapped collections on both sides of the aisle.

Here I’ve focused on one national digital library system vs. two. But I’ll take yet another shot at talking up the endowment concept despite the popularity of “spend everything down” among certain people in philanthropic circles. Libraries’ financial needs are ongoing. Even if courts finally decide for all eternity that libraries can truly own ebooks under a “one user at a time” print model, there will be other costs such as payment for use of databases from newspapers, magazines, and other content or services. Not to mention noncontent-related fees, from salaries to maintenance expenses. Books and other content are only about 11 percent of a typical public library budget.

But content, given the ease of sharing it nationally in a digital era, is a good place for a national endowment and related activities to start. And for that, let’s go with a two-system approach.

The above are the personal opinions of David H. Rothman, a LibraryEndowment.org co-founder.

You can go to the Vellum site for a summary of the latest features, including the ability of the just-related Version 3.4 to export a file from Vellum and go back to Word with formatting and all your changes in place. What a godsend if you or your publisher might use another ePub or PDF creation tool later on!

Via iCloud and probably other cloud services, I can compose on my Mac in one location and then pick up on another Apple machine in another.

No, Vellum isn’t the only possibility–Atticus, for example, is a promising newcomer for print and ebooks that could be especially good for multiuser purposes and perhaps others. It sells for less than Vellum, just $147, and isn’t tied to only one operating system since the program itself lives in the cloud. But for now, Vellum is best for my own needs. Maybe yours, too?

Vellum review–not up to date but still useful: Here, from 9to5Mac. Remember, this ancient review doesn’t cover the newer features. But it’s still a nice overview.

Facebook group for Vellum users: Here. It’s private but you can join.

Atticus Facebook group: Here.

Draft2Digital Facebook group: Here.

Among other distributors worth checking out: PublishDrive and StreetLib. I use them both to reach places D2D doesn’t serve.

Such a goal remains in 2022, as part of the possible road map on this Web site for others to act on. But plenty has changed. Here are my personal views, not necessarily reflecting those of other participants in this small, informal effort. I’ll delve into several issues: (1) The need for librarians to be more proactive, (2) how libraries could accept money from the super-rich while retaining their independence, and (3) the increasing desirability of national digital library systems funded by the endowment, among other sources.

Don’t expect a Daddy Warbucks to rescue you and create an endowment for you

In an era of distrust of the super-rich, librarians and friends should be far more proactive than before. Don’t risk credibility and expect billionaires to oblige with their own organizational framework in the Gates Foundation tradition. Ideally, librarians and friends can team up with like-minded universities, think tanks, and others with the needed expertise.

An autonomous multi-donor endowment would be more durable than one centered around one man or family. The Gates Foundation goes on, but Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates are no longer a couple, and it has been years anyway since Gates envisioned himself Carnegie II. Besides, Gates has wanted to spend down his fortune rather than leave behind a perpetual endowment. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos and his now-ex-wife have gone their separate ways; and as with Gates, other causes matter far, far more than do libraries. The good news is that Bezos at last has promised to give away most of his fortune during his lifetime, and the literacy-minded Dolly Parton is the first recipient of the $100-million Bezos Award for Courage and Civility. That’s not the size of the award fund; it’s what each winner gets to spend on good works as he or she pleases.

Paging Ms. Parton. Maybe part of the money could go to help organize the endowment. Both Ms. Parton and Jeff Bezos, I’d hope, would appreciate the sustainability built into the endowment idea—especially if they read Philip Rojc’s thoughtful commentary in Inside Philanthropy, mentioning the perils of spending down a fortune without a good strategy in place. Rojc loves how MacKenzie Scott, Jeff’s former wife, has strengthened organizations she targeted for her charity with her no-strings approach. But along with his editor, David Callahan, he wonders what will happen if she ends up with much less to give. Not every beneficiary will have an endowment to stretch out the already-received funds. Ideally Ms. Scott herself will understand the complexities here and eventually see merit in helping to pay for structured endowments like the one LibraryEndowment.org has been working toward. She could still continue grants to individual organizations and institutions and even increase those to outstandingly impactful groups like voter registration organizations. No need for a single approach. But a national digital library endowment certainly would be one way for her donations and others to make a perpetual difference.

A big question: Should librarians take money from the rich?

Now—back to a cosmic issue. Regardless of the Carnegie tradition, should libraries even accept major donations from the wealthy? Certain librarians hate mere talk of an endowment relying on the super rich, and some might call attention to charity-related tax deductions for the wealthy costing the rest of us billions. Like it or not, however, it will probably be years before these longtime deductions go away or, as they should be, are meaningfully reformed or replaced by tax credits less tied to income. Meanwhile, let the library world take at least indirect advantage of them, if the incentives result in greater resources for libraries, especially those in low-income communities. 

I can also imagine fears that the rich would influence library content. One precaution could be to prohibit endowment donors from meddling in content matters. Besides, accepting the donations of the rich doesn’t necessarily mean agreeing with them—an advantage of a multi-donor approach without one billionaire kingpin in control.

Also keep in mind what savvier billionaires understand: boosting the average American’s literacy, learning abilities, and knowledge would be good for corporate bottom lines in the Information Age. Furthermore, with easier access to authoritative, scientifically based information, voters would be more up to speed on complex issues like climate change, affecting everyone, including billionaires with holdings endangered by rising oceans. The smarter members of the super-rich will look beyond simply the public relations benefits and the chance to leave a lasting legacy. They’ll understand the practical benefits of an endowment for everyone, such as a smarter workforce and better-informed voters. Granted, certain billionaires may actually see an intelligent electorate as a strong disadvantage. So be it. Those are the control-freak prospects whom the library endowment should avoid anyway as donors. 

What’s more, I like the idea of the endowment receiving money from the federal government, too, not just from appropriate members of the super rich, to build up its assets. That could be something for the Biden Administration to consider, at least if the political winds shift in the House of Representatives and elsewhere.

For an up-to-date collection of statistics on library revenue sources and needs, see a wonderful compilation from WordsRated, a noncommercial research organization. One eye-catcher is the statement that “government funding hasn’t covered the annual expenses of public libraries for 27 years. 85.69% of which comes from local governments.” The more money from local governments, the more chances for “savage inequalities.” The extent of library usage tends to reflect the money spent on services and on other purposes, including collections. So while libraries in wealthy areas and elsewhere must respond to local needs, they should understand the necessity of expanding resources for less fortunate communities.

Why I am even keener on the idea of endowment-funded national digital libraries

The way I personally see it, content is where a library endowment could especially help—given the expanded ability to share electronic resources over wide areas, while still fairly paying publishers, writers, and others.

Although new readers can often fare better with paper books (three cheers to Ms. Parton’s Imagination Library, distributing them to own!), digital should be the main show in the long run, especially as the technology improves. It’s the best way for the most people to be able to read the books they most like—in line with Ranganathan’s Laws of Library Science.

Here, in real life, are Laws #2 and #3 in action: “Every person his or her book” and “Every book its reader.” Recently I benefited from a focus group’s evaluation of an action-suspense thriller I’d written about a genius child soldier in the Congo, forced by terrorists to fly drones. Most of the 66 readers of the first ten pages didn’t want to read on. But guess what? Forty-four percent did, and I was delighted. The survey-takers told me in a form email: “Any score over 10% is considered very good.” See my point? The nasty truth is that few people are omnivorous readers of all books; just a tiny fraction of titles appeal to their values and interests and maybe even spark new ambitions. Sometimes that can mean general titles, other times genre fiction. But general or genre, what really counts in the end is simply this: Is it a good book? If it’s a novel, does it encourage empathy and expand the reader’s horizons one way or another, including ideally a desire for self-improvement although this should not be a requisite? Library and literacy advocates can’t simply go by whether a paper or electronic book is the very optimal format for a reader, but also by whether the content is right.

Others of Ranganathan’s Laws apply especially to ebooks and audiobooks. #1: “Books are for use.” Yes! You can take them everywhere there’s a phone or other device to read them on. #4: “Save the time of the reader.” You can download ebooks from home in the Covid era, assuming they’re not on your device already. #5: “A library is a growing organism.” Libraries can add many more ebooks to their collections than paper books, at least if the economics are right–one of the questions that a national endowment could address.

Already I see much progress on which national digital libraries could build. “Digital collection use accounts for more of total collection use than ever (37.39%), having more than tripled since 2013 (11.74%),” WordsRated says. “Meanwhile, physical collection use has dropped to accounting for only 62.61% of all collection use, down from 88.26% in 2012.” Only around 11 percent of a typical public library’s budget goes for actual content. A national endowment spending heavily on the acquisition and popularization of content would make it possible for libraries to offer more books even if this percentage didn’t increase. It would also help enrich all kinds of library activities such as local programming based on books. Along the way, the publishing industry would benefit through this increased promotion.

For more on the possibility of national digital library systems funded at least partly by the endowment, see Tired of waiting for e-books? Two national digital library systems might help, in the Philadelphia Inquirer. One could be public; the other, academic. The two kinds of libraries have different missions. A local library system near me, for example, won’t honor requests for new books unless there is “demonstrated local demand.” That’s a world apart from an academic system—insulated from the needs and tastes of local taxpayers hooked on bestsellers. Mixing public and academic digital systems would also make the latter more vulnerable to censorship. Let the two share resources, including appropriate content, but not be one big tent.

The above vision for the endowment and separate national digital library systems focuses on the United States, but libraries elsewhere could localize it and also engage in content exchanges with the U.S. and each other. Perhaps the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions could play an important role and even help advise the U.S. domestic effort from the start.

Got any thoughts of your own on the above? The comment area is open!

Image credit: Image created by Felipe Ligeiro, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.

Revised November 22, 2022.

But DRM in many cases will still get in the way—even with Amazon’s Send to Kindle feature being able as of late 2022 to convert ePub to a Kindle format.

So here’s a question. Could the anti-DRM movement take advantage of this customer confusion? Let’s remind ebookers that DRM, not format, may now be the sole obstacle to enjoyment of their previous purchases on many different devices.

The longer ebooks are around, the more people have invested in DRM-tainted ebooks (thousands of dollars in some cases). So that bodes well for the anti-DRM movement when users find they can’t suddenly transfer the books to Kindles or other devices without fuss.

Meanwhile people can check book listings in the Amazon and Kobo stores and elsewhere to see—before buying—if they have DRM. On Amazon, look for “Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited.”

Enlarged, here’s the file-related information in the Kobo listing for a recent thriller of mine:

As for existing books you own, you can try calling them up in Calibre or another multi-format app to see if DRM would get in the way. Or you can just try Send to Kindle once ePub conversion is in place.

Needless to say, it will be helpful to convey your own anti-DRM sentiments to authors, publishers, and literary agents. Either no DRM or watermarking would be better. Imagine being able to buy most any books in the Kindle store or others without worrying about DRM! To Amazon’s credit, it’s like Kobo and doesn’t make DRM compulsory. But most large publishers stubbornly use DRM even though it is a threat to our property rights or what should be our property rights (DRMed ebooks cannot be truly owned in the traditional sense).

Detail #1: Remember, Kindles still won’t be able to read ePub directly–at least not based on what we know so far. Please, Amazon, give us native ePub, at least on apps and newer devices, without need for conversion.

Details #2: DRM, alas, does make sense for libraries using the one-checkout-at-a-time model which treats ebooks like paper books.

Detail #3: Outrageously, it is technically illegal to circumvent DRM even for personal purposes—yes, nonpiracy use (where you’re not sharing a book). This needs to change!

Featured image credit: Karen Rustad, Claremont, California. CC licensed. This is a 2007 photo. The fight goes on!

Here are a few possibilities that come to my mind beyond preventing Google and Apple from banning the payment-enabled Kindle app and similar ones.

1. The feds should outlaw tech companies’ bans on apps for other commercial reasons. I could not find OverDrive’s popular Libby library app when I searched just now in the Amazon store. Workarounds do exist, such as getting the Google Play Store going on your Fire, but the average consumer will not want to mess with them. You can send books from Libby to your Fire. But that’s not the same as an all-in-one approach. In the past OverDrive told me Amazon was evaluating Libby. However, that was many many months ago. Still going on? Why? Now here’s another example. The Fire tablets won’t run Moon+ Reader Pro bought from the Amazon app store, or least mine wouldn’t when I tried in the past. Amazon perhaps fears it’s a better reader, for many consumers, than the Kindle app is. Moon+ Reader Pro offers far-superior control over the typography onscreen, and add-ons can provide text to speech with better voice options than the Fire offers. Alas, Moon won’t run DRMed files from Amazon or other vendors. But Point #4 addresses that issue.

2. Ebooks and related tech should be truly interoperable in bookstores above a certain size. That means the required use of ePub and open PDF as at least options for consumers. Stores could still use proprietary formats and keep them around for owners of older devices.

3. In a related vein: E Ink devices and other book-dedicated hardware should at least be able to read ePub, a well-established industry standard. Granted, Amazon says it will let consumers send in ePub for conversion to a Kindle format. Not good enough!

4. DRM if used should be nonproprietary, and ideally stores instead can be encouraged to use something more consumer-friendly like watermarking. Maybe regulators could restrict DRM in larger stores to a certain percentage of titles. I want to be able to use Moon+ Reader Pro on the usual bestsellers, which watermarking would allow.

5. Publishers and authors should have access to click-through information on first-chapter links on Amazon and other stores above a certain size. Perhaps the feds should require release of other marketing information as well. Consumers would benefit from books more responsive to their wants and needs.

6. Search engines in online bookstores should be required to pull up a book, audiobook or other item if the reader types out the main title. Yes, readers can theoretically enter other information like an author’s name. But in real life they don’t. This additional barrier can harm small publishers and self-publishers. I know about the problem first hand. Apple’s only excuse to me—for keeping my recent ebook from appearing in main title-based searches even when the audiobook did—was that this was “standard practice.” I’m 1,000 percent of favor of more transparency of algorithms that the big stores use.

No, my list is not complete, but it’s a start. Just remember one of the traditional criteria for anti-trust cases—harm to consumers. The ebook business abounds with it. Same for harm to authors, small business people.

Let me say I believe in flexibility. I’m all in favor of giving tech companies and others a break if they can prove that certain practices actually benefit consumers through scale of services or otherwise. I’d agree with Roosevelt that a role exists for big business. The problem is that the regulators in practice have often been far too accommodating.

I can pass on some good news. The FTC and U.S. Justice Department have been taking a new interest in the woes of people “who have experienced firsthand the effects of mergers and acquisitions.” The investigators want to go “beyond antitrust experts, including consumers, workers, entrepreneurs, start-ups, farmers, investors, and independent businesses.” See Cory Doctor’s commentary in Medium.

Furthermore, the EU has been toughening its stand against tech monopolies’ abuses (here and here).

Now—your own thoughts? What anti-trust targets should be in the crosshairs?

Yes, I know it’s an election year in the United States. But methinks that most voters would welcome well-crafted anti-trust legislation and enforcement. Again, the idea isn’t to harass big business for the sheer joy of it, but instead come up with thoughtful full-strength consumer protection in situations begging for this. Time for Washington to take on Big Tech in a fair-minded, nonpartisan way.

Note: Yes, libraries are suffering in another way, through all the mergers that have taken place. Big publishers are charging libraries too much for ebooks or, in some cases, not making them available to libraries at all.