The big, solid, heavy-in-the-hand, proud-on-the-bookshelf hardback version of Indonesia Etc will be out in less than a month in the UK and Asia, six weeks in the US. But I’ve spent the last few months working on something that I think is at least as exciting: an electronic version of the text, which also has embedded videos, photos, recordings and other things that I think help convey the sights, sounds and oddities of Indonesia. I recorded most of the material myself during the course of my various lives in Indonesia, though there are contributions from other, better photographers and artists.
“I” is not really correct. Two people, the wonderful designer Gaetan Bernede and the magician-coder Darwin Lopena have really made it happen. Since my publishers have contributed zero to the cost, these delightful artists have worked with patience, good humour and the promise of a little beer money to make this happen.
Now we want to share a taste of the e-book with you.
The world of e-readers is messy, and we’ve been trying to do something that all the guys in the tech zone at the London Book Fair told me couldn’t be done. So for now, this only works well on an iPad (sorry!). If you own or have access to an iPad, we’d like to offer you one chapter of the book for free, right now.
How to access Indonesia Etc — Chapter 3: Sticky Culture
First, make sure you have Apple’s free iBook App installed on your iPad. If you don’t, go get it from the iTunes Store
The link for the US store is here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ibooks/id364709193
The link for the UK store is probably here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/ibooks/id364709193
The link for the Indonesia store is probably here: https://itunes.apple.com/id/app/ibooks/id364709193
Now, in a browser on your iPad, click on this link:
http://bit.ly/indonesia-etc-enhanced-ebook-sample-chapter-aws (Amazon AWS public file)
WARNING: IT IS A VERY LARGE FILE (55 MB) SO IT MAY TAKE A WHILE TO DOWNLOAD. Some users have reported having to wait a while for the iPad to figure it out. It also seems to help if you are on a good solid connection.
If you do this in Safari or most other browsers, the “Open in iBooks” icon automatically appears. Otherwise, just tap on the “open in” button and choose iBooks from the list. The chapter will appear in your iBooks library. The “How to Read” section at the begining of the chapter gives more info about the various content.
NOTE:
We are getting some reports of people having trouble downloading the file. We are chasing the issue now. Some users report that letting the machine have a think about the download has worked.
If you do have trouble, please let us know. Tell us the version of iOS that is giving you trouble and which generation iPad you have. Sending us a screenshot of the issue is also useful.
Other places to download the file:
http://bit.ly/indonesia-etc-chapter-3-free-sample-google-drive (Google Drive public file)
http://bit.ly/Indonesia-etc-enhanced-e-book-chapter-3-free-sample (Dropbox public file)
We’re now finalising the whole book: we’d be very grateful for any feedback you may have about reading a book (chapter) in this way.