When you’ve got an old paperback book that’s coming apart at the spine, with pages falling out all over the place it’s time to consider making it immortal. In order to do that, in a reasonable period of time, you must kill the book. That’s the hardest part of the process. The actual transformation is pretty easy.
To do it I use a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 which came with Adobe Acrobat Standard 9. Here are three videos I put together that show the process of turning a paperback into an ebook:
I read your recent post about digitizing print books with interest. I wondered if you might be able to expand on your process a bit, as it seemed to me like a few steps were missing from your video.
Indeed, here are my answers to some specific questions:
How do you actually sever all the pages from the book?
Most of the time this can be done just with your hands, at least with paperbacks and old magazines. The only tools I’ve ever needed to use are flathead screwdriver, to pry up staples found in some mags from the 1960s and 1970s, and scissors which I’ve used to trim out glued edges. If you’re doing a hardcover with sewn binding you’d probably be able to do it with just an X-Acto knife.
When you run the pages through the scanner, does it scan both sides of the page simultaneously? Or do you have to scan them all twice?
The Fujitsu ScanSnap is not only superfast, it’s also supersmart, it scans both sides at the same time (technically the term is “duplex”).
If so, how do you collate them so the pages are all in the right order?
The bundled software, called ScanSnap Manager, allows you to customize the named output files. I usually have them just come out as 001, 002, 003, etc..
How long does it take you to digitize a single book?
Lets see I’ve just scanned the February 1976 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction which has 128 pages (64 leaves). In the scanning itself I set a stopwatch. It took 1 minute 30 seconds to scan the entire mag. The software took another 45 seconds of processing. And I spent about 30 seconds correcting orientation on a few pages. So under three minutes for 128 pages
Have you tried this on hardcovers as well, or just paperbacks?
I don’t think I’ve done more than a couple of hardcovers, they were really easy though as they were essentially unbound already.
The SFFaudio Podcast #139 – The Pyramid Of Amirah by James Patrick Kelly, read by James Patrick Kelly. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the short story (16 Minutes) followed by a discussion of it (by Jesse, Tamahome, and James Patrick Kelly himself). Here’s the ETEXT.
Talked about on today’s show:
Call him Jim!, James Patrick Kelly’s FREE READS podcast, “a gift story”, PBS, Mayan temples, ancient Mayan empire, Copán (Honduras), “time passes”, “2,000 words of nothing happening and 200 words of everything changes”, is it Science Fiction or Fantasy?, David G. Hartwell, Katherine CramerYear’s Best Fantasy 3, 3D TV, the Earstone is the iPod Nano’s successor, Catholicism, religion, it’s a Horror story, sacrificial victims who volunteer, is Amirah hallucinating?, David Hume on miracles, take a miracle and make it a recipe, Memphis (Egypt), is religion a fantasy?, what is slipstream?, proto-slipstream, “Kelly Link is a goddess”, Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel, cognitive dissonance, slipstream encourages cognitive dissonance, “for every religion there is an equal and opposite religion”, “making the familiar strange and the strange familiar”, horror, comedy, Fantasy, The Lord Of The Rings, Science Fiction, Nine Billion Names Of God by Arthur C. Clarke, The Crawling Chaos, James Patrick Kelly doesn’t fully understand The Pyramid Of Amirah, is the Dalai Lama happy?, stay in your god tombs, The Girl Detective, Karen Joy Fowler, Carol Emshwiller, Franz Kafka, readers are happier when they’re really really surprised, most readers don’t re-reread stories, slipstream is a balcony on the house of fiction, behind the push of science is the turbulence of religion and the fantastic, Bruce Sterling, Ted Chiang is slipstream?, J.R.R. Tolkien, some short stories are Rorschach tests, Bruce Coville’s Full Cast Audio, Robert A. Heinlein’s juvenile novels, the love hate relationship with Heinlein, Heinlein’s villains are all straw men, Starship Troopers, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Heinlein’s sexy mother, Heinlein’s late career needed editing, Stranger In A Strange Land, stories in dialogue with other stories, Think Like A Dinosaur is in dialogue with The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin (and the controversy about it), The New York Review Of Science Fiction, not all problems are institutional problems (you are going to die), institutional facts vs. brute facts, John W. Campbell, was Campbell a terrible editor?, “all stories must have telepathy”, the story that must not be named (in Galaxy SF April 1975), Jim Baen, religious Science Fiction, Death Therapy by James Patrick Kelly, Terry Carr, The Best Science Fiction of the Year #8, collaborations, John Kessel, Jonathan Lethem, Robert Frazier, ISFDB, The Omega Egg, Mike Resnick, Kafkaesque: Stories Inspired by Franz Kafka, Tachyon Publications, The Secret History Of Science Fiction, The Drowned Giant by J.G. Ballard, The Lottery Of Babylon by Jorge Luis Borges, Max Brod, Joe Hill, Heart Shaped Box, You Will Hear The Locust Sing by Joe Hill, T.C. Boyle, Michael Chabon, Carter Scholz, Don DeLillo, Lucius Shepard, The Nine Billion Names Of God by Carter Scholz, A Recursion In Metastories by Arthur C. Clarke, post-cyberpunk stories, what is post-cyberpunk?, Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology, Cheap Truth, the way technology changes the way we are, Cory Doctorow, Charles Stross, a new cyberpunk anthology is in the works, is there pre-cyberpunk?, Blade Runner, Philip K. Dick isn’t really cyberpunky, steampunk has a vision, what is the ethos of a steampunk story?, alternate history, goggles and zeppelins vs. computer hacking and mirror-shades, Pavane by Keith Roberts, William Gibson, Boneshaker by Cherie Priest, Bernardo’s House is an iconically Jim Kelly short story, Isaac Asimov, robots, a post-cyberpunk character, a prim and proper sex doll, There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury, Mary Robinette Kowal, puppets, a stage adaptation of There Will Come Soft Rains.
Talked about on today’s show: A Princess Of Mars, the martian novels, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ first novel was originally titled Under The Moons Of Mars, “I can write rot as bad as this”, WWI, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Normal Bean vs. Norman Bean vs. normal brain, All-Story, Gods Of Mars, Tarzan, Pellucidar, H.G. Wells, Earnest Hemingway, the science with fantastic elements, Mastermind Of Mars, organ (and brain) transplants, radium rifles with radium bullets, zeppelins, the Martian navy, David has been acting since he was 13 years old, the 1960s resurgence of Burroughs books, Ballantine Books vs. Ace Books (in a war for the drug store paperback racks), the authorized vs. unauthorized editions of Burroughs and J.R.R. Tolkien books, The Lost Continent, Tarzan At The Earth’s Core, Del-Rey Books, Tarzan Of The Apes, getting into narration, Irwin Porges, a rich rhythm of language, “Sator Throg is a personal friend of mine”, Tars Tarkas is David’s impression of James Earl Jones doing Darth Vader, Sola, “rescue the girl, escape from capture, become a gladiator and save the planet”, A Princess Of Mars begins as a western, Zane Grey, Arizona, Idaho, it is a kind of a western on Mars, “all of his slaves worshiped the ground he walked on”, good to his slaves and good to his animals, Burroughs loved animals (especially horses), themes of A Princess Of Mars include a love of animals and nature (and nudism), ERBZine website, the James Killian Spratt edition of A Princess Of Mars (puts the nudity up front and center), modesty vs. showmanship, everybody is nude on Barsoom, Teddy Roosevelt, the 19th century physical culture movement, Conan and Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, the oddness of an author who disdains writing, “back to nature and forward”, Flavor Flav or Max von Sydow, repulsor rays, Son Of Frankenstein, a telescope on Mars is looking at Earth, Percival Lowell, Lieutenant Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, the dying civilization that we see, The War Of The Worlds by H.G. Wells, The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, “esoteric metaphysical spiritualism”, telepathy, John W. Campbell, lying for honorable reasons, the inconsistencies of lies and deceit in a world with telepathy, How John Carter Got To Mars (is kind of like the Mormon idea of the afterlife), astral projection, Houdini, Thuvia, Maid Of Mars, “the thought was made flesh”, Burroughs was a religious man, the unexplained preservation of Carter’s dead body, Bram Stoker, H.P. Lovecraft, “this is a fun book”, “like a Buck Rogers serial”, the serialization, cliffhangers, Swords Or Mars, Synthetic Men Of Mars, “Deja Thoris has laid an egg”, the curiously oviparous martians, the disney John Carter movie, Princess Of Mars, “Tarzan in a vest, does that work for you”, an evil Russian in cahoots with a French countess, “he was a splendid specimen of the white race”, Gone With The Wind, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, The Lord Of The Rings (movies), the Dynamite Entertainment Warlord Of Mars cover (#5 is done in the style of Norman Rockwell), Marvels Comics, Frazetta, HBO, a stage adaptation of A Princess Of Mars, a ballet of Spartacus (!), Gustav Holst’s Mars, Bringer Of War, Flash Gordon, Franz Liszt, Bronson Pinchot was interviewed by Grover Gardner (Blackstone Audio), the process of narrating an audiobook, The Godfather, Deja Thoris doesn’t get much screen time, Sola is a good character, Thuvia gets more of a leading role in Thuvia, Maid Of Mars, arbitrary customs that extend the narrative, S.M. Stirling’s In The Courts Of The Crimson Kings, Burroughs’ Venus books, all planets are occupied by people (except Mercury).
Talked about on today’s show:
“We believe that an armed society is a polite society”, under the pen name Anson MacDonald, his 2nd novel, For Us The Living was first, “no nudity or free love”, The Amazing, The Astounding, And The Unknown by Paul Malmont, “a string of ideas broken up by action”, like two novellas put together, a novel about genetics and dueling, list of characters and terms, reversed names like Korea, “he’s a special guy”, moderators, germplasm, “sperm wars”, engineering away violence, Gattaca, Brave New World, “great egg!”, naturals, experimentals, written in the time of Hitler, kids are like Dune, Felix wonders what’s the point, reincarnation?, “says crazy ideas like they’re common sense”, synthesist, Scott has some quotes ready, Felix doesn’t want kids, “Felix just needs a good woman”, rambunctious scene with Felix and Phyllis, “I’m gonna kiss ya!”, Galactic Suburbia would not like this book, Heinlein’s characters, frozen football player, “everyone’s going to be a telepath”, John W. Campbell, “they don’t talk about telepathy anymore”, Podkayne Of Mars, Heinlein and fertility, Heinlein FAQ, the economic system — Social Credit, Beyond This Horizon on Wikipedia, spread the wealth, “What is money?”, it all goes to 0’s and 1’s, waterbed conception, The John W. Campbell Letters, bringing up super-writers, we never change, Campbell hated Dune Messiah, Felix is a “starline”, no Heinlein sequels??, “needs more telepathy”, best Heinlein novel?, Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Double Star is like Moon Over Parador with Richard Dreyfuss, Starship Troopers has an action-packed start, Heinlein’s short stories like By His Bootstraps with Dreyfuss dramatized on 2000X, Red Planet with pet ball that’s an alien (now I get the Willis joke), Have Spacesuit Will Travel starts well, Heinlein as a dad, Fullcast Audio did a lot of these, Tunnel In The Sky just arrived and is like The Hunger Games, it’s a sci-fi Lord Of The Flies, Full Cast Audio is trying to be family friendly, nudity, worst Heinlein plot?, will the future remember football?, the sport “bligablong”, let’s read the opening, “the halt?”, serialized like The Space Merchants, “it’s all of those things and much more!”, it’s quotable, is the U.S. more polite?, England, duels are stressful, old reviews, 1900-1950 era, 1984, Brave New World, Heinlein starts the SF novel and hardback trend, Hugo Gernsback, Scott loved Foundation, Nazis on the moon, Rocket Ship Galileo, generation ship in Universe (nice old cover), “sucker for space.”
The SFFaudio Podcast #121 – Scott, Jesse, Tamahome and Gregg Margarite talk about Joe Haldeman’s novel Forever Peace.
Talked about on today’s show: The Forever War, Forever Peace, Forever Free, Haldeman’s experiences in South-East Asia (during the Vietnam War), William Mandella, Mandala, Julian Class, Philip Klass (William Tenn), racism, remotely controlled soldier robots, jacks, empathy, sharing menstruation, baldness as a fashion, the nanoforge (a molecular nanotechnology), caper, Stranger In A Stranger Land, heist, “two novellas smushed together”, John W. Campbell, Ben Bova, self help groups, one conceit that remains unexamined, magic machine (aka a sub-atomic replicator), Mack Reynolds, telepathy, asymmetric warfare, prescience, Libya, Pakistan, the two peaces of Forever Peace, what of the aftermath?, applying Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics to people, Gregg is a creature capable of killing, not everyone wants to be the black sheep, is 98% of humanity humanizable?, the earth where everyone is gay, the earth where everyone is a clone, “a giant of SF”, The Memory Of Earth by Orson Scott Card, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, do you grok the group?, “The Hammer of God”, Jonestown, David Koresh, a religion that requires you believe in evolution, punctuated equilibrium, treating the bible like a science book (is problematic), we’re gonna drill into you brain and then you won’t have those feelings anymore, a utopian dystopia, Malthusian theory, the singularity, A Clockwork Orange, moral conviction vs. physical restriction, Gregg needs his murderer (and we do too), Starship Troopers, false consciousness, Women’s Studies, The Tea Party,
“False consciousness is the Marxist thesis that material and institutional processes in capitalist society are misleading to the proletariat, and to other classes. These processes betray the true relations of forces between those classes, and the real state of affairs regarding the development of pre-socialist society”,
following orders (as false consciousness), Stockholm syndrome, identifying with your oppressor, why do people do things that are against their own interests?, Costa Rica, withholding technology vs. holding resources hostage, Plato’s cave, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”, is Jesse making an argument for absolute truth?, what is truth?, “one person’s murder is another person’s dinner”, “God exists or he doesn’t exist”, “assuming we agree on the definition of God”, “we have a bedrock of truth”, Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction, “we’re here and we’re invading your software”, our perception of reality changes, “how can it not always be this way?”, “it’s The Matrix“, Gregg can find reasonable doubt in his own existence, Cogito Ergo Sum (I think therefore I am), René Descartes, “I doubt therefore I am”, Tama has no take, good and bad vs. right and wrong, a mass of conflicting impulses (ambivalence), Heinlein’s militaristic thinking vs. Haldeman’s militaristic thinking, Heinlein’s Future History series, religious conversion, telepathy vs. total immersion, Jonathan Swift, “you can’t reasons someone out of something they weren’t reasoned into”, there are two tenets in Greggism, what you believe doesn’t has to be true, Alan Moore’s personal made-up religion, Scott isn’t a Catholic because of feeling alone, Joseph Campbell “everything is true”, “he was born with a plowshare”, magical thinking, “that’s true for you and that’s fine”, a religious wacko who wants to end the world seems like a tired villain, Source Code, Moon is fantastic (but Source Code is not), the Norwegian whack job, can’t we find another kind of religion, Carl von Clausewitz, The Operative from Serenity (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), effective villains, Robert E. Lee, Adolph Hitler vs. Joseph Stalin vs. Mao Zedong, the Tehran Conference, “Uncle Joe”, Stalin’s ending was noir, Pandora’s Star by Peter F. Hamilton has a great (and dirty) villain, Orson Scott Card’s Buggers, Speaker For The Dead, Ender’s Game, zombies are like a force of nature, Heinleinian villains are not diabolical, the ultimate orbital platform, the English Empire, “besides we’re better than you”, why do English actors always play villains? American accents = movie stars, Vancouver is a science fiction ghetto, iambk audio, the proper pronunciation of “about” in Canada, shock vs. shark, accents are lazy ways of speaking, George Wilson (the narrator of Forever Peace), P.G. Wodehouse, Bertie and Jeeves, the secret language of (drunken) Cockneys, no stupid voices please (in audiobooks), if you hire Nicholson for you movie your movie is a Jack Nicholson movie, Gregg’s signature voice may lose him work, why does the narrative switch between first and third person throughout Forever Peace, Yes, Minister, Goodreads.com, senior civil servant (3rd person) vs. elected official (1st person), The Long Habit Of Living by Joe Haldeman, The Forever War is told in first person (right?)
The SFFaudio Podcast #119 – Scott, Jesse and Tamahome talk to author Paul Malmont about his novel The Astounding, The Amazing, And The Unknown.
Talked about on today’s show: The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril, Jack London In Paradise, Hawaii, The Iron Heel by Jack London, the rise of the oligarchy, The Washington Post review of The Astounding, The Amazing, And The Unknown, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, L. Ron Hubbard, the Philadelphia Experiment, the movie The Philadelphia Experiment, “a psuedo-historical event” vs. “a cultural phenomena”, legend, John W. Campbell, Astounding Science Fiction, Unknown (magazine), Kamikaze pilots vs. the Kamikaze group, L. Sprague de Camp, chemistry, Orange Nehi, the Tunguska event, Nikola Tesla, the Wardenclyffe Tower, historical fiction, meta-science fiction, Walter B. Gibson, Lester Dent, H.P. Lovecraft, the “hero pulps” vs. science fiction pulps, The Shadow, Doc Savage, L. Ron Hubbard as a tragic hero, Dianetics, an atomic age religion, Virginia Heinlein, Janet Asimov, Gertrude Asimov, “The robot felt…”, using social networks to promote a novel, Frank Herbert, Aleutian Islands, the Manhattan Project, Cleve Cartmill and the atomic bomb, The Green Hills Of Earth, Tim Powers, “twenty weird true things”, Murdoch Mysteries, the AC DC wars, remixing modern historical fiction, Iain M. Banks, mash-ups, The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril has zombies, the TVO interview with Walter B. Gibson, magic, In Search Of….
