Frow's Edison Cylinder Phonograph Companion is Back!

[BwanaJoe]

Has anyone contacted Frow or know where to contact him? It is possible he has a copy to buy in ePub format.

[epigramophone]

Has anyone contacted Frow or know where to contact him? It is possible he has a copy to buy in ePub format.

George Frow died in October 2002.

[Phototone]

Like it or not, specialty books being available on digital platforms may be the only way to get them as the economics of a print run just do not compute (ha ha) for limited market books. Another alternative would be "print on demand", and I'm sure some authors may consider this. There is no reason why any digital book could not be formatted to run on various machines, it is just up to the author or publisher as to what they want to do. AFAIK, offering a book thru iTunes does not restrict you from offering it on other platforms.

[phonogfp]

It is possible he has a copy to buy in ePub format.

If I understand your question, you'll find purchase information in the first post of this thread. Just click on the provided link and look in the left column.

George P.

[BwanaJoe]

It is possible he has a copy to buy in ePub format.

If I understand your question, you'll find purchase information in the first post of this thread. Just click on the provided link and look in the left column.

George P.

That is specifically formatted for iBooks. Sometimes smaller authors will have other version available for sale. IE: Kindle, Nook, ePub, PDF, etc.

Someone is updating the book but I didn't see a way to email them from the Apple bookstore. Normally all the apps have contact info.

[alang]

Like I already said on page 2 of this thread, I spoke with the author and he said he used Apple software to create the books and a conversion to Kindle format did not look good, so he only released it in Apple format. The books are using Apple DRM (digital rights management), that means they cannot be used on other devices without illegal hacking.

Andreas

[phonojim]

Well, I guess I've bought my last book from Baumbach unless he decides to offer them in multiple platforms. There are some of us out here who don't own an iBook.

Jim

[alang]

I already asked him to offer it in Kindle format, which is available on all platforms and also offers DRM. He said he would look into it, but I guess more people contacting him would add motivation.

Andreas

[alang]

So, after some serious soul-searching Santa brought me an iPad mini, so I can actually read these books now. I do thing that there are improvements over the previous printed versions, mostly in the quality of the pictures. Unfortunately there are still too many pictures in the Columbia book that are just rough sketches, no comparison to the quality of the pictures in LftD or the Fabrizio-Paul books. Nevertheless, in both books the pictures are a vast improvement and show details that were simply invisible before. There are also quite a few additional machines listed in the Columbia book than before.

There are a couple strange differences between the two books:
-The Columbia book, which was released earlier has many (but not nearly enough) links to actual photos and advertisements, while the Edison book does not use this feature.
- The Columbia book works ONLY in landscape, while the Edison book works ONLY in portrait format.

Overall I see large potential in the electronic book format, even though I still prefer the print version. I applaud Baumbach for providing these electronic versions when the alternative would have probably been to have no new versions at all. I think the whole medium is still in development and that greater features are still to come. I think some opportunities have been missed, like clear color photographs for ALL machines and in general more picture material. There could be much more use of links to online content and possibly multimedia features like rotating 360 degree views etc.

I did not get too much into the content otherwise yet, since I only had the books for a few hours. One thing I noticed was a strange choice of photo to illustrate a Triumph B with cygnet horn; it mentions the special nickel decoration, but does not mention that the horizontal carriage and repeater mechanism would not be "factory" with this model. It is a very nice machine with a wood grained horn, but not the best choice to show the features of a Triumph B.

Over all, $14.99 is a very good price for these books, especially if you consider the going price for the out-of-print versions. Even though I own the print versions I don't regret getting the "updated" ebooks. I definitely think they should be offered in other formats as well, just Apple format is too restrictive.

Andreas