ePDF. The free eBook.

 

You will note that in the title the term ePDF has been used and this has become a way some people choose to define a PDF when it is being used like an eBook. Technically the term does not exist since the documents produced all end up with the file extension “.pdf”. But some publishers choose to register a unique ISBN number for their copyrighted material when it is in an ePDF format. The addition of the “e” aligns it more visually with the ePUB format for when the book is formatted using the Open Systems EPUB standard. At the same time a book when published in the Amazon proprietary standard it is sometimes called eKindle. But this is not the subject for today’s blog and I will leave further technical discussion on this to be covered in my Digital Documents blog.

So to simplify matters here I will just call them PDF’s. What I want to establish is that in the case of DMB Publishing a very important aspect of the publishing that is undertaken is to offer much of the created content for free. If charging for content acts as an obstacle to readers wanting to read my content then the objective of DMB Publishing is to remove this obstacle by offering much of the content for free. With readers engaged reading the free content it is then hoped they will consider the purchase of some of the content that has a selling price. Importantly it allows for DMB Publishing to both create its own content and select content on the internet that is available free of charge and pass this content through to my readers. But at the same time it is important to appreciate that “free of charge” and “copyright” are two very different attributes of a piece of content. Books given away free still retain their legal copyright. It is an important part of DMB Publishing’s purpose to digitally capture the less popular often local books that are headed for oblivion. Oblivion these days being the skip and landfill as we see paper books disappear from society.

So the point I want to establish here is that within the context of publishing then PDF’s have become the de facto free book resource. Many organisations be they business, not for profit or government provide free PDF’s. But having said that there remain organisations that will charge for PDF’s. Those providing scientific papers or industry specific papers can look to charge very high prices for their content provided as a PDF. One common trend is for businesses to provide their content in an established book brand format as a PDF. The classic case being the use of the “For Dummies” black and yellow brand format and content style with Wiley Publishing licencing its use.

With PDF being, thanks to Adobe, being both open and ubiquitous it has become a truly international means of distributing and communicating content. It has created an expectation that readers like me look to search the internet for these PDF’s and download them for free. With a free Adobe Reader on my iPad the choice is endless and this blog site will introduce to some of these resources.