Comments on Bookride: The Non Non-Book / Half Book, Half Biscuit

Don't forget Hephaestus Books another big publ...

2011-10-23T18:39:46.804Z

Don't forget Hephaestus Books another big publisher in this field. Here is their ghastly mission statement:

Hephaestus Books represents a new publishing paradigm, allowing disparate content sources to be curated into cohesive, relevant, and informative books. To date, this content has been curated from Wikipedia articles and images under Creative Commons licensing, although as Hephaestus Books continues to increase in scope and dimension, more licensed and public domain content is being added. We believe books such as this represent a new and exciting lexicon in the sharing of human knowledge.

Note that word 'curated' -- it's like 'archival', a guarantee that you are a good caring type. Hephaestus books are not quite such nonsense as Betascript (possible human intervention) but of course should never be bought by anyone, ever.

I agree there: I came across them in fact- without...

2011-10-10T19:55:54.335Z

I agree there: I came across them in fact- without realising how big a scam it was- when I googled a very obscure writer and found an apparent book on him. I thought it so unlikely such a book might exist that I looked further and learned they were a con.

Roger - If as I suspect the publishing of these bo...

2011-10-09T17:36:45.014Z

Roger - If as I suspect the publishing of these books is almost purely robotic this might be a good wheeze. Trouble is it could be years before it did the entry --there are said to be over 10 million Wikipedia entries and these guys have only about done 5 per cent in about 4 years. The real defence is for all web users to know that these books are worthless in every way...

Could someone put a libellous entry for themselves...

2011-10-07T20:13:37.727Z

Could someone put a libellous entry for themselves on Wikipedia, buy the book and sue the "publisher"?

Many thanks for pointing out this lousy practice, ...

2011-10-07T15:27:44.694Z

Many thanks for pointing out this lousy practice, looking online I see some of these books are $60 and more. PODs are also always nasty looking and as you say worth nothing when you try to sell them.

The worst scams are the legal ones -- give me a good honest criminal any day!

Jimmy might just be right. Imagine owning a copy o...

2011-10-07T14:24:44.323Z

Jimmy might just be right. Imagine owning a copy of Vreni Schneider signed by Woohookitty, Chochopk, Ilikeeatingwaffles or any of the hundreds of other Wikipedians who contributed.

Is it too much to expect Betascript to organise author events?

Genius! Are these computer-generated Exquisite Cor...

2011-10-07T09:52:56.893Z

Genius! Are these computer-generated Exquisite Corpse-type texts of the sort that Breton and co. could only dream about? Is this true automatic writing, accessing the collective unconscious that is the WWW? And if the valuable books of the future are invariably NOT what you are collecting now, perhaps these will turn out to be great investments rather than the rubbish they superficially appear to be? Or perhaps not?