Ebooks We Do and Don’t Accept

Types of ebooks we do accept

• Most long fiction, including plays.

• Most short fiction, when presented in individual collections or omnibus forms.

• Most philosophy and other “timeless” non-fiction.

Types of ebooks we don’t accept

• Ebooks that are not clearly in the U.S. public domain. If it’s not on Gutenberg, we’ll probably decline it.

• Extremely short works, like pamphlets or individual short stories. For example, we wouldn’t accept Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” or Philip K. Dick’s “Mr. Spaceship.” However we are interested in complete compilations of short stories, for example our ebook of all of Philip K. Dick’s public domain short stories.

• Non-fiction that is “dated” or not relevant to a modern reader. This includes obscure histories that are not otherwise notable and have been superceded by modern research; old-timey cookbooks, books of medicine, and textbooks; biographies of long-forgotten people that are not notable; non-fiction periodicals or journals; legal documents, including codes of law and constitutions; and so on. Note that “notable” means we may make exceptions, for example for The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire or The Gallic Wars or The Life of Samuel Johnson.

• Ebooks which are not “notable” literature. While this one is a little subjective, we don’t want to become a dumping ground for any kind of transcription of any kind of public domain work. If, in our opinion, the author is extremely obscure, or the subject matter is of little interest to a general modern reader, we may decline it. For example, we would decline to host the Haslemere Museum Gazette, or Ocean Gardens: The History of the Marine Aquarium.

• Books that are illustration-heavy, like picture or art books, or whose content greatly depends on the arrangement of illustrations or graphics.

• Modern books that have been self-published and released to the public domain.

• Major religious texts from modern world religions, like the Bible or the Koran, will not be accepted. Texts about religion will usually be accepted. Texts from historical religious movements that were culturally influential but are now defunct, or are otherwise not significant in modern times, might be accepted; ask first.

• “The complete works”-type ebooks, in which an author who wrote in various styles (like poetry, short stories, and novels) has their entire corpus compiled into one ebook. However we are interested in complete collections of single types of writing. For example, Anton Chekhov wrote many plays, short stories, novels, and novellas. We wouldn’t accept “The Complete Works of Anton Chekhov,” but we would accept Anton Chekhov’s Complete Short Fiction, or individual novels or plays he wrote.

• Ebooks in translation for which we already have a translation. We aim to host one “best” version of books; for example, we already have a modern translation of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, so we won’t be accepting a different translation.

• Non-English-language books. Translations to English are, of course, OK.

• Translations into English which are severely abridged, Bowdlerized, wildly archaic or near-unreadable to modern readers, or which scholars agree are poor translations.