[stein]

I have seriously augmented my collection of old books on seamanship lately and that for very little money. It would seem that Google is selling a book-making machine with a gigantic library of books without copyright on data, some Indians have bought some, and they are selling facsimile books at very low prices and with no addition for postage. Mostly below £10. You can find them at Abebooks by typing in the theme you seek there in the search slot, or if you know the title of the old book you are searching for, or its author, typing that.

 

[Michael Taylor]

I have bought a number of these books some from India and others from this side of the world. They are well presented and whilst a couple are difficult to read (faint printing) for the cheap price well worth the effort to read.

 

[stein]

I believe all the facsimile editions I have received from India have been printed well enough to be readable. Once I was asked if I might prefer grey print, due to some problem, and was given examples. I said no, but was satisfied with the printing when I received the book. Another problem is that the format of the original work might have been seriously different than the reprint, so that any illustrations will be distorted as regards height/length ratio. But as said, the price is as low as to afford one to accept a few duds.

 

[seaman38]

Alas these book pirates are robbing the authors of any royalties that may be due, as no doubt they will not be restricting their activities to very old textbooks.

 

[Farmer John]

Alas these book pirates are robbing the authors of any royalties that may be due, as no doubt they will not be restricting their activities to very old textbooks.

There are so many books out of copyright that really are worth reading, and a huge number of them can be downloaded and read on all sorts of devices. A very large number of these can be found in some form of text file. Going on the idea of plucking low hanging fruit, for many this will enough to make money without pirating books.