Re: [Drm-elimination-crew] [GNU-linux-libre] no drm book

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

Hi,

Since the discussion now moved to the drm-elimination-crew mailing
list, I'll reply there.

On Thu, 29 Jun 2023 01:29:35 -0700
alimiracle <alimiracle@riseup.net> wrote:
> I hope this message finds you well. I am writing to seek your advice 
> regarding publishing my book without DRM (Digital Rights Management).
> I am considering releasing it under a CC BY-SA license and would like
> to inquire about the best platforms and appropriate licensing for
> this purpose. I believe in the importance of making my work
> accessible to as many readers as possible, allowing them to freely
> share and build upon it. By choosing a CC BY-SA license, I aim to
> promote an open and collaborative approach to knowledge sharing.

The first question (that has been asked by other too to some extent)
here would be to understand what needs do you have.

For instance do you need publicity for the book? Do you need an editor
that would review what you write and work with you to improve your
book? Do you want a hard copy to be made? to be sold? To be distributed
widely? etc.

There might be guides on the Internet about that or authors that talks
about the difficulties they went through when publishing books, to get
a bigger picture of what services are available.

If you need more than just publishing text under CC-BY-SA license, then
you will need to look into platforms specialized in publishing books.

Some like Framabooks probably have editors but I'm unsure if they deal
with book not written in French.

Looking at who produce hard copies of books also helps as they
typically go through some editing process. 

The GNU project published some hard copy, so the publisher who they
work with might have some editors available. The asterisk book was also
under a free license if I remember well. In both cases I'm unsure if
an editor was needed (because these are released manuals), though they
might need some people to rearrange a bit the text to fit in a hard
copy.

RMS biography is also under the GFDL and could have gone through some
editing process. Some authors publishing stories under free licenses
with big publishers likely used editors.

It might also be possible to pay editors directly, to avoid completely
the issue where the publisher pays for the editor and fears not to be
able to retrieve costs by selling hard copies of the book, and because
of that tries to push for nonfree licenses or for releasing the book
under free licenses only later on.

As for doing publicity as I understand it's typically the book author
that does it for free by organizing events in libraries, in book shops,
by having a table at events, etc. So I'm unsure if big publishers
usually have an impact on publicity. But they at least can deal
with printing books in big quantities and make sure that they are
available in book shops in specific countries (As I
understand, traditional publishers often have exclusivity on one
country, so it might be possible to use several publishers, and once
translated, books can also be published by other publishers, though
I'm not sure how relevant this is for books under free licenses
nowadays).

If instead you just want to publish a text, if the text is finished and
won't be significantly changed later on, a good way could be to clearly
state the license, and publish in as many free platforms as possible
like:
- Wikibooks
- Project Gutenberg
- Maybe Savannah if they allow books
- Archive.org
- etc.

Many of these are probably already listed on the drm-elimination-crew
website and/or have been mentioned in previous emails.

Denis.

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