I sent this yesterday but I put in the wrong address. Sorry for the delay. Hopefully I get it right this time. I apologize in advance for the length of this announcement. This will be the only time that I post the full text to this list because of length. Please see our home page for updates. Thank you.
Third annual book drive announcement Last updated: August 20, 2007 General questions: bookshare@xxxxxxxxxxxx Book requests and scanning forms: bookrequest@xxxxxxxxxxxx Home page: http://baechler.net/ I. IntroductionAs you may know, Baechler Productions has purchased books in the past which were scanned by Carrie Karnos and the in-house Bookshare volunteers and submitted to Bookshare.org. All books were purchased out of our own funds and no donations were requested or accepted. In 2005, a total of twenty-two books were purchased on old time radio. I know of at least one or two people who joined Bookshare directly as a result of us making those books available. I won't mention names, but you know who you are and I'm greatful for your kind words thanking us for the books and your story of how you joined. I'm sure there are others who we don't know about and to them I say a sincere thanks for joining as members and hopefully becoming volunteers one of these days. In 2006, there was a small amount of money to work with so only a few books were purchased and none on old time radio. Among them were a Star Trek book and a classic Ellery Queen mystery short story collection. No press release was issued because there was little point, however an announcement was made to the bookshare-discuss list.
Now, it is 2007. I am speaking only for myself here but I want the third annual book drive to be better than ever. The record was twenty-two books purchased in 2005. Let's try for twenty-five or thirty books this year! I feel that it can be done with your help.
After a great deal of thought and consideration, Baechler Productions wants to do things differently. In the past, we didn't accept donations. While we still do not require donations, we will accept them this year if there is a book that you want to buy or if you want to pitch in with others to buy a certain book. We will accept both monetary donations and donations of used books. In the past, we didn't allow anyone but the Bookshare staff to scan books. This year, anyone can scan and we are actively seeking volunteer scanners. If you are not a member of Bookshare, you can still help out either by signing up as a volunteer and scanning books, donating money to buy books or donating used books. Finally, perhaps the biggest change of all is that we are going to be totally open. By that, we mean that in previous years, we didn't allow anyone to post lists of books we purchased on their sites and were going to shut such sites down. While we still feel that we should get credit for what we have done, we are going to openly post lists of our books here and elsewhere. We are now encouraging anyone with a site or blog to post entries on what we're doing and what books we purchase. In fact, we are asking you, the members of Bookshare, to create your own list of what you want us to buy within funding limitations. We would like to openly apologize here to Jake Brownell. Again, while we feel that he could have done things differently, we realize that he meant well and he is more than welcome to put lists of our books up in his own structured formats. That brings us to why we are posting this announcement. We believe that being open is the best policy and we shouldn't try to keep things from the people who are in the best position to help us, you the readers, you the members and you the volunteers. Another thing we would like to do this year is make available issues of fiction magazines such as _Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine_ and _Asimov Science Fiction_. Please contact us if you're willing to scan them or know where old issues can be purchased. We are licensing all material on our site, http://baechler.net/ under an open license. See the bottom of our home page for a link to the license text.
II. Call for ScannersFrom now to September 15, 2007, we are seeking people to scan books. We will have a required form which must be filled out. We don't ask for any personal information and we will not share it with others but we obviously can't mail books without a physical address. There are some optional questions as well. While the optional questions are not required, we would appreciate it if you would answer them. The form is now up. You can access it from our home page or directly at <http://baechler.net/bookscan.txt>. You will need to fill out that form and email it to us. We will contact you and go from there. Books will be mailed to you directly from the sellers. We will email you the title of the books and the name of the seller who is mailing them at the time they are ordered. We are hoping to create a core group of people to do scanning. Eventually we would like to have about five or six regulars who will scan year-round. Whether this happens or not depends on how many books each person is willing to scan and how many people are interested in scanning. It's impossible to predict in advance how many books will be purchased. The person scanning the book will be allowed to keep the printed book when they are done with it. You may give the book away or exchange it via a swap site like paperback book swap. We will not ask for the book to be returned in most cases. Also, the person scanning the book is responsible for submitting it to Bookshare so they would get the $2.50 submission credit. We might ask for the .rtf copy for our records but we will not submit it. We ask that all books are scanned in the .rtf format. There is not a hard time limit on scanning but we would like the books scanned fairly soon. We would like to see books start showing up in mid to late October if possible. If you cannot get a book scanned by then, please let us know and we will have you mail it to someone else. Finally, we will ask what state you live in on the form. This makes it easier for us to match people geographically with the book sellers. It makes no sense for us to have a book mailed from New York to a scanning person in Texas when we could get that book from a Texas seller.
III. book requestsWe are now accepting requests for books to purchase. The book request address will be closed on September 15, 2007. This is the deadline for all book requests. You don't need to scan a book in order to request one, but people who are willing to scan books they request will get priority. In other words, just because you want a certain book doesn't mean that you will be obligated to scan that book but if you are willing to scan it, there is a better chance that your book will be purchased. We are interested in classic mystery, science fiction and fantasy genres at this time. If funding permits, we would like to buy old time radio books as well but they tend to be more expensive. The definitive book on "Gunsmoke" is about $75 used and a book on "CBS Radio Mystery Theater" is about $43 used. We do not have a hard limit on what we will spend per book but all books will be bought used. We are not interested in romance or horror and will not purchase those types of books. We would like to avoid religion at this time but would consider buying Christian fiction. Except for old time radio and some reference books, we would rather avoid nonfiction in most cases. We will not purchase books already on NLS Web-Braille or already available from Bookshare listed as at least good quality. Almost anyone who is a member of Bookshare.org should be able to join NLS and Web-Braille. It is very simple to back-translate .brf files to plain text for those without an embosser. We will, however, buy replacement copies of books on Bookshare which are listed as fair quality. Please let us know that you are replacing a fair copy at the time of your book request.
In order for your book request to be accepted, we need to have at least the full title and author. Other information such as the ISBN and a brief synopsis is helpful. If the title or author aren't listed, your request will not be accepted. This is not a general purpose wish list. Book requests emailed to us including the ISBN and a brief synopsis will be given priority. The best way to request books is to write directly to either the bookshare-discuss or bksvol-discuss lists with a CC to bookrequest@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Due to high list traffic, only requests sent directly to or with a CC to bookrequest@xxxxxxxxxxxx will be accepted. You should get an automated response from us. If you don't, send your message again in 24 hours. Sometimes email delivery can be slow. Make sure to look through your junk filters and all of your mail folders to ensure that our response didn't get misfiled. For maximum safety, add both bookshare@xxxxxxxxxxxx and bookrequest@xxxxxxxxxxxx to your address book and white lists. By also posting to the mailing lists, others can respond and can get books which might not be available to us. This also avoids duplicated effort. It is frustrating to someone who is scanning a book only to find that someone else just submitted it. Again, note that only requests sent directly to bookrequest@xxxxxxxxxxxx or with a CC to that address will be accepted. If you do not get the automated response, chances are that we did not get your request so please try again. If you don't wish to post to the lists, you may write to us directly at the above address. Note that just because a book is requested doesn't mean that we will or can buy it. Again, we will not buy romance, horror, or most nonfiction books and the address will close on September 15, 2007.
IV. ScheduleThis is the official schedule that we intend to follow. Obviously things can change at the last minute and funding issues do arise but this schedule should be considered official unless otherwise noted.
August 15: Public announcement is made.August 20 to September 15: Call for scanners and book requests. The book request address will be closed on September 15.
September 15 to October 1: Books will be purchased and mailed to people doing scanning. It might take up to a month for all books to be shipped.
October 1 to November 15: Scanners should be scanning and submitting books to Bookshare. The date of November 15 is not a hard deadline but we do not want months going by before books start showing up.
October 15-November 15: Baechler Productions will work on the press release and post progress reports and a list of purchased books.
V> DonationsI would like to stress here that all donations are optional. I am not going to pressure anyone into giving money. However, if you want to donate, you are welcome to do so. We can accept PayPal or personal checks. PayPal is preferred. If you wish to donate a large amount, we might be able to accept credit cards but that is not our preference. Donations cannot be refunded in most cases and are not tax deductible.All money will go towards purchasing books or helping to offset subscription renewal costs. If you want your donation to only go towards a certain book or genre, let us know.
If more than one person wants to pool their money to jointly purchase a book, we are happy to do that. We would like to get some books but they are very expensive. We will leave it up to individuals to make their own arrangements but once money is pooled, contact us and we will go about purchasing the book. Money left in the pool will either be returned or applied to other books. If you want to only donate a partial amount of a book price, you may. We will hold your donation until other money comes in. Please don't discuss donations on the list, write to us directly.
Another way you can help is to donate used books. We will not accept books with markings such as magic marker in the margins or the text. Pages should not be torn or ripped. Books should be clean and should not be dusty or dirty. The condition of the covers doesn't matter. We cannot return any used books. We will have you mail the books to the person who is doing the scanning or directly to the Bookshare.org office. If you elect to send books directly to Bookshare.org, please send us a list of titles that you are donating.
VI. AcknowledgementsFirst of all, I would like to give special thanks to two people who have helped me tremendously. This project would literally be impossible without the dedication of Carrie Karnos. She prepared, scanned and helped to validate all of the books in the 2005 book drive and scanned all of the books last year. She indirectly suggested the initial old time radio book project. She went out of her way to find the best quality copies available at reasonable prices. Another person who deserves thanks is Matthew Bullis. He has done many thing behind the scenes, too numerous to mention here.
I would like to thank all of you for putting up with me for the past few years. I would also especially like to thank the person who has submitted the many fantasy novels with the excellent synopses. I don't know who you are but it is a pleasure having so many fantasy novels available with such detailed descriptions. I would like to join forces with this person as our interests run in similar lines. I am amazed at how many books this person has submitted, especially considering the large size of most fantasy novels.
Watch the Bookshare.org mailing lists, bookshare-discuss and bksvol-discuss as well as our home page for updates. We would like to hear from you with any comments, questions or suggestions you may have. This project would be nothing without your feedback. See the top of this document for contact information. With your help, we would like to make this year's drive as successful as possible.
---------- Tony Baechler Baechler Productions To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.