Thanks, Jake, I'll remember this about OpenBook for future reference. I'll send up files in .rtf starting with my next submission. I just need to find out how to eliminate those pesky blank lines with Word or even Wordpad so I can edit the files on my Pac Mate. I don't want to be tied to my desktop editing .ark files for hours and I doubt that FS-Edit has a function for doing this. I'll be happy to be proved wrong, of course. I don't want to just scan a bunch of stuff and dump it up there, I feel I need to read it through and fix it up as best I can before sending it. In good old WordPerfect 5.1, it was a simple matter of doing a search and replace, searching for multiple hard returns and replacing them with one just by hitting the 'enter' key, but I doubt that it's quite that straightforward in Word or Wordpad. Thanks, again. ----- Original Message ----- From: Jake Brownell To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Saturday, January 21, 2006 7:54 AM Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: I Submitted My First Book Hi Evan, Congratulations on the first submission. Part of BookShare's appeal to many is the ability to get books processed extremely quickly when books enter the system. Sometimes of course this isn't the case, but in general the turn around time isn't bad. The information is a bit out dated on the website when it comes to submitting and validating. The general preference in the volunteer community is that files be submitted in RTF format. This will allow the most people to work on the books. Everyone else's OpenBook will put blank lines in as well, its just how the software works. Don't worry about it for submission purposes because the BookShare automated processes will handle it. It isn't a requirement that a volunteer read the entire book during the validation stage, some choose to and some do not. For some it depends on the quality of the book the submitter provides. The BookShare team has been working on updated instructions on how to handle many things in the submission/validation process, but the work has been slow, because of the effort to make sure all information is up-to-date and accurate. It can also be difficult for the staff to respond to every email sent to the volunteer address. Yes, the volunteer list can be a bit overbearing at times *grin* I've been on there since summer of 2004 or so. Feel free to contact me offlist if you have questions you don't feel comfortable asking on this discussion list. HTH, Jake jabrown@xxxxxxxxx ----- Original Message ----- From: Evan Reese To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Saturday, January 21, 2006 8:20 AM Subject: [bookshare-discuss] I Submitted My First Book For Science Fiction fans who liked the first two books in Alastair Reynolds' Inhibitors story, _Revelation Space_ and _Redemption Ark_, I sent up the third - and last, at least for now - installment _Absolution Gap_ on Tuesday. Thursday morning I got an email telling me that the book had been reviewed and accepted for publication on Bookshare. Sure enough, a search for the author brought up the book. I checked this morning and it's on the New Books list. Call me strange if you want to, but I got quite a thrill seeing the book I submitted come up in the author search and the New Books list. Is that a usual time for books to be validated? Doesn't someone have to read through it to make sure it's ok? It's a 565-page hardcover that just barely fit on the scanner. The .txt file was 1.5 megs - my OpenBook seems to put blank lines between paragraphs when I try to save in .rtf format. (Anybody know if this can be fixed?) I just finished reading this book literally the day I joined bookshare, so I wasn't aware of the scanning preferences and therefore I didn't have an .ark version saved. NLS really dropped the ball on this one. They have _Revelation Space_ and the related book _Chasm City_ on tape, but _Redemption Ark_ has been out for three years and _Absolution Gap_ for two and they aren't even in process yet. I have a bunch of other books, mainly Science and Science Fiction, that I have scanned for my own reading pleasure over the years from Openbook and previously from Oscar which I will be submitting in the near future. I have several other questions about the validation process that I can't seem to find answers for on the volunteer homepage faq, which seems a little thin, and thequestions I've sent to the email address provided don't seem to get a response. I've sent a few messages to it over the past week with no response to any of them. How long does it generally take to get one? I know about the volunteer mailing list, and I'm sure that all these questions are better asked there, but 50 messages a day - the figure given on the website - is more volume than I can handle on top of the other email I get. Thanks for any enlightenment. This is my first message, so apologies for any violations of conventions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.14.21/236 - Release Date: 1/20/2006