h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How come I can read such a hilarious book and no one wants to read it? My guess they are not sophiticated enough for the humor in it or they are not as insane as I am

I absolutely LOVE these books, and would pay almost anything to get more of them.

When I read these books for the first time, especialy the first one, I nearly died laughing so many times I think I have brain damage now. Or maybe I was brain damaged before I read them, which would explain why I love them so much.

The last book I remember reading was "So Long and Thanks for all the fish", and I wish I could read more of them.

Perhaps this guide being built right now could some day serve as an even more hilarious basis for a new set of novels. If so, YAY!!!!

Perhaps Douglas Adams would even agree to write a book online, giving away each chapter only after earning enough money from tips and donations to make it worthwhile. Steven King just did that and made a pretty good amount of money off of it.

I say, if waiters and waitresses can do well on Tips, then why can't anyone else? Writers and other artists and providers of content on the internet can all get pretty good money from tips, if only they would try it out.

One good system of music artist tipping is called [URL removed by moderator], which is used by Espra.net to tip artists of songs in thier lists. Espra.net also uses freenet to transport the songs, so advertising and distribution is totaly free for the artists.

So, basicaly, a totaly broke user like me would be able to try out a tune, see if he/she likes it, and if it is liked, he/she might decide to tip the artist whenever some money becomes available. Also, that very same user might tell some friends about the song, or give a link to espra, and to that song, to friends so that they can also try it out.

I think it is a great idea. The shareware concept is similar, try-before-you-buy, but it is music instead of programs.

The only bad part about all this is that Freenet is still an infant, in age, size, speed, and capabilities. Unlike most online resources, such as regular Websites, the more users of freenet there are, users with full-time Permanent Freenet Nodes, the better Freenet becomes. So I am trying to improve freenet by getting people to use it, but also I am trying to improve freenet by trying to create content that people will like to use.

Unlike Napster and GNUtella, Freenet cannot be censored or shut down. It is an anonymous, secure, distributed network which is free to have and use.

Long live Freedom. [URLs removed by moderator]

haa, i've alredy read it and the entire seiries 59,000 times i can just pick up the omnibus and read from it randomly without any trouble

"Perhaps Douglas Adams would even agree to write a book online, giving away each chapter only after earning enough money from tips and donations to make it worthwhile."

This is clearly not possible now, but even so, I have to say that I would never buy a book chapter-by-chapter. Robert Jordan did something similar, whereby he released the Prologue before the main book, charging $5.00 for the ebook. This is quite a good method, but DNA never wrote any prologues to books, so this wouldn't work.

"Unlike Napster and GNUtella, Freenet cannot be censored or shut down"

Note that Gnutella cannot, IIRC, be shut down, since it is not based on a central server.

Have you heard about the guy who started the "ideavirus". He published his entire book on the web. It became something of a cult status, with marketers and business "persons" talking about it all over the usa - especially around the dot.com areas. When we pubished his hardcover book (identical to the web, other than a special forword) people rushed to buy it at a hugely overpriced £30 (or what ever that is in US dollars).
That just goes to show that if the ideas good enough, authors can make money because people want to show that they are "in the gang" by having a physical item to strategically place on their coffee table.

1.Doug iz Dead

2. There is a fifth book out now, written just before he died, called mostly harmless in which arthur gets a mysterious career as a sandwich maker.

My guess they are not sophiticated enough for the humor in it or they are not as insane as I am,thats your version of humor and that great,you are a very healty open minded person so they can, if they just open teir mind to take some of the planets bests vitamins for their brains believe me it helped me alot,i get mine online at. http://www.teamstarlight.com/uzistar