The APA Blog plans to showcase new books on a regular basis using the Exact Editions method of Reading Rooms. Its first blog provides direct links to five books from Open Book Publishers that will be fully accessible via their Exact Editions Reading Rooms for the rest of September. Here is a link to one of the books
http://bit.ly/MetaEthicsfromaFirstPerson
Catherine Wilson’s Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint, a book which shows how to understand morality and how to construct a morality for oneself without having to buy into an existing textbook theory such as utilitarianism or Kantianism.
As this service grows to its planned scope, one new book a week will be selected and profiled, for a week or for 30 days, (the choice of term being left to the publisher). The APA Blog editors will be choosing titles from those made available by publishers who may seek this form of promotion. For the launch phase, Exact Editions has offered to run this service without charge. In the current COVID-19 shocked environment, this kind of temporary free promotion may be particularly welcomed by publishers/authors who suspect that their have been relatively unseen (closed bookshops, limited access to libraries etc).
Book publishers who use the Reading Room platform from Exact Editions can make as many instances of Reading Rooms as they choose for each book in the service (expected charge $250 per title per six months from January 2021). The service is pitched for publishers — who use a straightforward dashboard to control the making of individual Reading Rooms. The service can also be used to provide Reading Room access to a collection of books. Here for example is a Reading Room providing 1 week of access to the five titles used in the APA blog:
http://bit.ly/OpenBookPhilTitles
Reading Rooms granting temporary access to collections of digital books would seem to have considerable potential. All the books are readable and individually searchable, or the full collection can be searched. For example as fully functional catalogues for book fairs or literary festivals. Or for private or educational demonstrations through interactive communication systems such as Zoom, Skype and Teams:
Exact Editions is keen to work with publishers (or learned societies) that see the potential for this kind of exact but temporary searchable access to digital content. Digital books and magazines that precisely map to the format of printed books and magazines.
Some more information on Reading Rooms and how to use them:
https://blog.exacteditions.com/publisher-guide-reading-rooms-on-social-media/
https://blog.exacteditions.com/podcasting-with-reading-rooms/
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