User:Headbomb/Signpost

Worldwide launch of the book feature
6 May 2010 marked the launch of the book tool on the English Wikipedia. Previously, the creation of Wikipedia books was limited to logged-in users because of scalability issues, but now anyone in the world can take collections of Wikipedia articles, arrange them into chapters, and get them delivered to their door by PediaPress, the official print-on-demand partner of the Wikimedia Foundation. The books come as A5 format paperbacks, and users are able to select an image and a color for the cover of their book. The books ship within two business days, and start at $8.95 US for a 100 page book. The books can also be freely downloaded as A4 format PDFs, as well as in ODT format, which can be printed at home and further edited.

This technology is of key strategic importance to the cause of free education world-wide. It will make it possible to use and remix wiki content for a variety of purposes, both in the developing and the developed world, in areas with connectivity and without.

The launch of books also caught the eye of several media outlets, such as TechCrunch, Gizmodo, and Mashable.

Screecast explaining how the book tool works
PediaPress released a new screencast for the book launch, explaining how to create books with the book tool.



Users interested in creating and maintaining "community books", that is books which can be edited by everyone (such as Book:Canada and Book:Messier objects), can join WikiProject Wikipedia-Books, which is a collaboration of editors who are interested in creating and maintaining Wikipedia books.

100 free books
To celebrate the launch of Wikipedia books to the world at large, PediaPress is giving away 100 coupons for free printed books. Each coupon has a value of $20 (USD) and will be awarded on a first-come first-served basis to editors who create a community book (books uploaded in the Book namespace). If the price of the book comes to more than $20, then a $20 discount will be offered instead. For the full details, see User:Headbomb/Coupons.