Writebook: Instantly publish your own books on the web for free
Writebook is a free software for publishing books online independently. Users can create various book types, collaborate with co-authors, and publish publicly or privately. Requires own domain, web server, and technical skills. No direct book selling.
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Writebook is a free software that enables users to publish their own books on the web without the need for a publisher. Users can create books with text, images, and sections, and invite co-authors to collaborate. Once completed, books can be instantly published online for public access. Various types of books can be published using Writebook, such as instruction manuals, graphic novels, employee handbooks, short story collections, blog post compilations, and more. Users need their own domain name and a web server to host Writebook, along with basic technical knowledge for installation. The software allows for both public and private book publishing, but does not support selling books directly through Writebook. Users can create multiple books with a single copy of Writebook, and updates are automatically installed. Writebook is web-based and does not offer native iOS or Android apps. While users can modify the Rails code for personal use, reselling or white-labeling Writebook is not permitted.
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2 comments“Can I export Kindle, PDF, ePUB, or other formats from Writebook? Not currently, no. Writebook purely publishes web-based books. We may add other export formats down the road.”
This would, indeed, be a very useful feature, along with having a webview optimized for printing on paper.
>We don’t offer a way to sell your books through Writebook, but if you want to put a paywall in front of your copy of Writebook, that’s up to you. However, the software license[0] “does not include the rights to publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, source code or products derived from it.” Further, you can not, for example, sell a separate hosted service on top of Writebook using Writebook code.
The text here would probably constitute implied license, but the fine print doesn't exactly back up what they're claiming. The license says:
>Permission is hereby granted to any person purchasing or receiving a copy of a ONCE product (Campfire or Writebook), its source code and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to install and use a single instance and modify a single version of the Software as provided. This does not include the rights to publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, source code or products derived from it.
Strictly speaking, the JavaScript code that is part of Writebook will be distributed to every user, and running the server component is a public performance. So that's already two exclusive rights of copyright being violated by just using Writebook normally. To be clear, the license doesn't mention public performance, but running a server like this almost certainly is public performance even if it didn't have JavaScript code. Furthermore, the license does not say you cannot sell hosting services relating to Writebook, it just says you can't "sell copies", which is a different thing from using (and publicly performing) the software.
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