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Making Unglue.it Better

Posted by gluejar on April 2, 2013 in Uncategorized

The last month or so has seen a lot of development work on Unglue.it. You may have noticed some of these things, but I thought it would be good to make a list.

  • With the just-announced participation of De Gruyter, we needed to work on our publisher pages. Take a look: https://unglue.it/pid/popular/4311
  • Login and account creation needed a lot of improvement. As a small example, if you’re not logged in when you click on a pledge button or a “login to add” button the website remembers what you were doing while you log in.
  • The search now preferentially returns unglue.it campaign books. (No brainer!)
  • You can now select your avatar from among twitter, facebook and gravatar pictures. If you’re not familiar with Gravatar, it’s a convenient way to maintain your identity across the web. 
  • We’ve added ways to contact the authors and publishers associated with unglue.it campaigns. They also wanted better ways to send you thank you notes and private messages, so we added some notifications for that. As always, you can use the website to customize your notification preferences.
  • If you’re a structured data enthusiast, take note that our web pages now include schema.org metadata!
  • Campaign pages now have a neat little thermometer that shows you the campaign’s progress.
  • Last but not least, we have a new homepage design. We always thought of the graphic that lived there as a placeholder, but never had time to make it easier to explore the site.

We have a lot more work to do, and we’re very grateful to ungluers who have taken the time to report bugs and make suggestions. Thank you!

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Unglue.it ♥ libraries

Posted by Andromeda on February 7, 2013 in Uncategorized

We feel great about all the support we’ve gotten from the library community.  It was fun meeting, and catching up with, so many librarians at our table in the exhibit hall at the American Library Association Midwinter conference in Seattle.  (And, let’s be honest, it was also great that some of you brought me snacks.  Thanks!)

Some librarians have asked us what they can do (beyond supporting our active campaigns, of course) to advance the mission.  Now we have a list!  There are a lot of things libraries are uniquely positioned to do: for instance, adding unglued ebooks to their collections, educating the public on the challenges of ebook licensing and the benefits of Creative Commons licensing, and making sure unglued ebooks get properly cataloged.  For the whole list of ways you can help, check out the Unglue.it ♥ libraries page.

(Now if only I could get another one of those maple syrup crepes…)

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What Books Should We Unglue?

Posted by gluejar on February 6, 2013 in Uncategorized

The most common questions I get when I talk about Unglue.it are about the books. What sort of books will work in the Unglue.it model? Why have you picked the books you have? In response, I emphasize the Unglue.it is not a publisher, nor is it a gatekeeper. Publishers and authors are the ones who decide which books to offer, and it’s the supporter community that decides which books get unglued.


We’ve started concentrating on some specific directions based on the response we’re getting from authors and publishers.

One group that has been interested in the model is authors who’ve turned to self-publishing. And to make it easier for self-publishers to participate with Unglue.it, I’ve been talking with Mark Coker, President of Smashwords and a true advocate for authors. He’s letting Smashwords authors use the ebook-making machinery at Smashwords to produce books for ungluing. If you been paying close attention, you may have noticed that unglued book #2 was a Smashwords-produced title.

If you’re a Smashwords author and your book meets their standards for “premium catalog” inclusion, just sign a Platform Services Agreement with us and you’re good to go.   For the fine print, check out our FAQ for Smashwords authors.  http://unglue.it/about/smashwords/

(I loved hearing Mark on NPR the other day, check it out!)

Another group that I expect to begin testing the waters with significant numbers of books is academic publishers. They are struggling to find the sustainable models for open-access books that researchers are increasingly demanding. Last week I traveled to Berlin to speak at the Academic Publishing in Europe conference, and had some great meetings with some brand-name publishers. I’m hopeful that one or two of them will join Open Book Publishers  (unglued book #1) as participants in Unglue.it.

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Why the Radio Franglais campaign is fate

Posted by unglueit on January 24, 2013 in Meet the rights holders

Not long ago I (Andromeda Yelton) and our rights director (Amanda Mecke) were talking to our newest author, Nancy Boulicault, about her campaign to unglue Radio Franglais. She was talking about schools and cultural groups she’s worked with, as an author and teacher (she runs workshops to promote bilingualism through creative writing). Several are in the Boston area, where I live, so I mentioned that I could always talk to them in person (not so convenient for Nancy, since she lives in the UK).

Oh, said Nancy, you live in Boston? I grew up there!

Oh, said I. Well then, I live in Somerville.

Nancy: I grew up in Somerville!

Me: …in that case, I live in [neighborhood].

Nancy: Wow, I grew up on [street in that neighborhood].

Me: What…number?

Me and Nancy, about simultaneously: 100.

Me: …

Me: … I bought your parents’ house.

There you have it. I met Nancy’s sister when we signed the sale paperwork. My home office, where I was having this conference call, was her bedroom. Those seven kids who somehow once fit in my 3-bedroom condo on a tiny two-block street? She was one of them.

So it’s fate. This book was meant to be unglued.

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The Unglue.it/LibraryThing glee club smackdown

Posted by Andromeda on January 21, 2013 in Uncategorized

It’s not all book rights, author profiles, payment processors, web development, and campaign stats around here. Even in a decentralized company with no face-to-face office, one has to have some hijinks and shenanigans. Here’s ours.

The Library 2.0 Ideas twitter feed (@library2) randomly generates modern (trendy? insane?) ideas for library services every half hour. A few days ago, it suggested this:

So. As one must:

We sent that along to LibraryThing‘s Tim Spalding, who clearly has more sound-mixing skills and possibly a lot more he’s procrastinating on, because that resulted in this:

This…demands a response. Suggestions welcome.

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