LOVE IN DARK SETTINGS PRESS FAQ

Love in Dark Settings Press publishes e-books by Dusk Peterson in the following genres: suspenseful fantasy, historical fantasy, science fiction, contemporary fiction, friendship fiction, gay fiction, heterosexual fiction, and various forms of nonfiction.

To receive notices of new DRM-free e-books and free fiction, subscribe to Dusk Peterson's e-mail list or to Dusk Peterson's blog.

Updated November 2011.

Sections below:

¶ Which e-bookstores and countries are your e-books available in?

¶ Do your e-books have Digital Rights Management (DRM)?

¶ How do I read ePub e-books?

¶ How do I unzip an e-book?

¶ Which accessible formats are available for the disabled?

¶ Do I have to read the rest of the series to understand a story that occurs in the middle of it?

¶ May I pass on these books and videos to other people?

¶ May I make fan works? May I make derivative works?

Which e-bookstores and countries are your e-books available in?

The links below lead directly to Dusk Peterson's e-books at those stores.

PREFERRED E-BOOKSTORE

This e-bookstore offers Dusk Peterson the best cut of the profits.

Smashwords. International. DRM-free multiformat e-books: Mobipocket/Kindle, ePub, PDF, RTF, LRF, Palm Doc, and plain text. (The plain text edition has some formatting quirks.) Smashwords e-books can also be downloaded via these iPhone/iPad apps: Tomes and Stanza.

OTHER E-BOOKSTORES

Amazon Kindle (Deutschland). DRM-free Kindle e-books.

Amazon Kindle (France). DRM-free Kindle e-books

Amazon Kindle (UK). DRM-free Kindle e-books.

Amazon Kindle (US). DRM-free Kindle e-books.

Angus & Roberson (Australia). ePub e-books.

Apple iBooks (various countries). ePub e-books.

Barnes & Noble (US). ePub e-books.

Borders (Australia). ePub e-books.

Diesel (US). ePub e-books.

Indigo/Chapters (Canada). ePub e-books.

Kobo (international). e-Pub e-books.

Sony (US). e-Pub e-books.

Whitcoulls (New Zealand). ePub e-books.

Do your e-books have Digital Rights Management (DRM)?

All Love in Dark Settings Press e-books sold at Smashwords and Amazon are DRM-free. You can read them, without restriction, on any device that reads the particular format you've bought. Some other retailers may apply DRM to the e-books; Love in Dark Settings Press has no control over this.

How do I read ePub e-books?

There are many ways by which to read ePub e-books. Some methods are easy as reading Web pages.

METHOD #1: Read on the Web

Read the ePub e-book online through the free Bookworm online e-reader.

METHOD #2: Read through Firefox

Read the ePub e-book in your Firefox Web browser, either online or offline, through the free Firefox add-on EPUBReader.

METHOD #3: Unzip the HTML files

An ePub e-book is simply a zipped set of HTML files, with a few extra files added. If you have an upzipping program, you can unzip the ePub e-book in order to read the HTML files directly.

In Windows, the easy way to do this is to change the end of the file name from .epub to .zip. After that, click on the file name, and any unzipping software you have on your computer will begin the process of unzipping. Then extract all the files into a new folder. (See also How do I unzip an e-book?)

Alternatively, right-click on the ePub file, choose "Open with," and choose your unzipping program. Then extract all the files into a new folder.

METHOD #4: Convert to other formats

The free e-reader Calibre will convert the ePub e-book into many formats. Some of these conversions may work better than the others.

The free e-reader Stanza (which is in a desktop version for PC or Mac) will convert the ePub e-book into these formats. Some of these conversions may work better than the others.

METHOD #5: Read on your mobile device or e-reader device

Many mobile devices and e-reader devices will read ePub e-books – for example, you can read ePub e-books on an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad through the free iBooks app or through the free Stanza app.

METHOD #6: Read on your computer

Some free e-reader software for Windows, Mac, and Linux will read ePub e-books.

How do I unzip an e-book?

Most of Love in Dark Settings Press e-books do not need to be unzipped. However, the HTML e-books need to be unzipped, because they're collections of a number of HTML files and image files.

A zipped file is simply a way of compressing a group of files so that they can be downloaded more quickly. In order to open a zipped e-book, first download the zipped file to your hard drive. Go to the directory to which you downloaded the file. (In Windows, you can do this through My Computer or Windows Explorer.) Most recently manufactured computers will automatically unzip a zipped file if you double-click on the file name. If that doesn't work, you can try these unzipping programs.

Free: 7-Zip (Windows) or Unarchiver (Mac).

Popular: WinZip (Windows) or Stuffit (Mac).

How to open a zipped file in Windows without an unzipping program.

When you double-click on the zipped file, the unzipping program may automatically extract all of the files into a folder. If the unzipping program instead shows you a long list of files (00.htm, 01.htm, etc.), then select all of the files that the unzipping program shows. (You can select all the files by typing Control-A in Windows.) Extract the files into an empty folder.

Go into the folder you've created and double-click on the contents.htm file in order to see the table of contents for the e-book.

Which accessible formats are available for the disabled?

The accessible formats are as follows:

DAISY – The DAISY edition is available free from Bookshare.org. You do not need to be a member of Bookshare.org to download the edition, since it is covered under a Creative Commons license.

Electronic braille – Also called Web-braille. The electronic braille edition is available free from Bookshare.org. You do not need to be a member of Bookshare.org to download the edition, since it is covered under a Creative Commons license. The edition is in Grade 2 North American English braille (also called contracted braille).

Embossed braille – The embossed braille edition is available for a fee that covers the cost of embossing. You do not need to be a member of Bookshare.org to purchase this edition. The embossed braille edition is in Grade 2 North American English braille (also called contracted braille). More information from Bookshare.org about how to order embossed braille editions.

Currently, the following e-book is available in braille and DAISY:

For adults and teenagers: Bard of Pain (free braille and DAISY editions).

The text of the accessible edition is identical to the e-book edition released to the general public, aside from minor formatting changes and information on accessibility. Note that online editions are also accessible to the disabled, as are the ePub e-books. Booktrailer videos for the books are accessible to the deaf, but not to the blind, since they feature captions rather than spoken narratives.

Accessible editions, online editions, and e-book editions are entirely flush left; that is, the texts, including the titles, start on the left-hand side of the page. In addition, centered markers showing scene breaks are presented in a form that can be read aloud by screen readers. In the accessible editions, the scene-break markers take the following form:

o--o--o

In the online editions and e-book editions, the scene-break markers take the following form:

o—o—o

In the audio book editions, scene breaks and chapter breaks are marked by a three-second pause. New paragraphs are marked by a one-second pause.

If you have problems downloading or reading any of the formats, please e-mail Dusk Peterson.

Do I have to read the rest of the series to understand a story that occurs in the middle of it?

No.

Most of the stories in series are designed so that you don't need to have knowledge of what came before; any information you need is included within the story itself.

In a very few cases, a summary of previous events will be included at the beginning of the story. This is written in as entertaining a manner as possible, to prevent you from falling asleep during the summary.

A lot of these stories were written out of order, so there's no harm in you reading them out of order. However, you should be aware that later stories in a series often contain major spoilers for earlier stories.

May I pass on these books and videos to other people?

Most retailers do not permit their e-books to be passed on. However, you are welcome to pass on e-book editions distributed through Smashwords, online editions, and booktrailer videos. All of them have Creative Commons licenses. E-mail them, post them, P2P them, podcast them, and print them out to your heart's delight. Just make sure that you only make noncommercial use of them. The exact terms of the usage are described in the copyright section of the book or video.

Please note that a few of the online works at this domain, which are by other authors and artists, are not covered by a Creative Commons license and therefore may not be passed on to other people. Just check the copyright notice at the bottom of the relevant page to be certain. However, you're welcome to link to those writings and artwork.

May I make fan works? May I make derivative works?

By all means. For details, see the policies on derivative works and fan works.

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This text, or a variation on it, was originally published at duskpeterson.com. Copyright © 2007-2011 Dusk Peterson. Some rights reserved. The text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0). You may freely print, post, e-mail, share, or otherwise distribute the text for noncommercial purposes, provided that you include this paragraph. The author's policies on derivative works and fan works are available online (duskpeterson.com/copyright.htm).