Table of Contents

Enjoy... books

free books

Books are free. This allows for the quickest and widest distribution; something that is central to our OpenBook philosophy.

personal preference

OpenBook displays books like an eReader. The reader can adjust two crucial settings:

By matching page-width and letter-size to personal preference, OpenBook offers exceptional reading comfort; in fact better than dedicated eReaders.

Another crucial design choice was to display a chapter as one (long) text, and let the reader scroll through it. This works well on PCs, and even better on iPads and other tablets or smartphones.

TalkBack

The OpenBook webapp is designed to facilitate communication between the author and the readers.

Readers have valuable comments to offer. They may spot typo's. They may know something that the author doesn't. They may offer suggestions for style or content.

Neither email nor public comments offer comfortable, efficient communication between author and readers. The drawbacks of public comments are obvious to anyone who peruses them at a newspaper or a blog. Email is cumbersome because it make the addresses public.

For these reasons OpenBook offers TalkBack . The reader may simply click on the pertinent text. A new window is opened with the clicked text as a quote. The reader has 140 characters to condense the message. This makes it easy for the author get the gist.

The reader can generate a more precise quote by selecting text instead of clicking it.

For authors, this opens up a huge pool of proof-readers. For free.

manuscripts vs finished books

On OpenBook, rough manuscripts and finished books live happily together. The idea is to break down the author's ivory tower. Manuscripts benefit from early proofreading. Authors gain a better understanding of their audience and how their work is being received.

For readers, it is fun to see work-in-progress, and contribute to the making of a great book.

contact OpenBook

If you have questions or comments for the editors or programmers of OpenBook, you may use the same TalkBack feature. Please find the relevant section in this manual and click on the text. Then give us a piece of your mind.

your account

If you would like us to respond to your TalkBack, you should open an account. This allows us to respond by email.

Without an account you still have access to all OpenBook works, unless the author has chosen to restrict access. Several other reasons to open an account are: