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Overview

What?

Unglue.it works to make free ebooks sustainable.

We provide distribution infrastructure for free ebooks - we're a bookstore for books that want to be free. We're building a database of free-licensed ebooks.

We help archive books that are already free, and we help readers find and download them. We help creators ask those readers for support.

We run crowdfunding campaigns to raise money to make ebooks free. In Buy-to-Unglue campaigns, the creators set a revenue target that triggers the free release of the rbook. In Pledge-to-Unglue campaigns, rights holders set the amount needed for ungluing, and if enough reders pledge there support, the book becomes free.

Why?

Most books have a greater purpose than just making money for the creators. In many cases, that purpose is best served by making the book free to read. And it's that greater purpose that drives us.

When books have a clear, established legal license which promotes use, they can be read more widely, leading to enjoyment, scholarship, and innovation. By raising money to support authors and publishers, Unglue.it encourages the benefits of openness while ensuring sustainability for creators.

Who?

Unglue.it is a service of The Free Ebook Foundation. We come from the worlds of entrepreneurship, linked data, physics, publishing, education, and library science, to name a few. You can learn more about us at our about page.

When?

Unglue.it launched its first crowdfunding campaign on May 17, 2012. Buy-to-Unglue launched in January of 2014, and Thanks-for-Ungluing launched in April of 2014.

Where?

The Free Ebook Foundation is a New Jersey non-for-profit corporation, but its employees and contractors live and work across North America. The best way to contact us is by email, info@ebookfoundation.org.

What's your technology?

Unglue.it is built using Python and the Django framework. We use data from the Google Books, Open Library, LibraryThing APIs; we appreciate that they've made these APIs available, and we're returning the favor with our own API. You're welcome to use it. We use Less to organize our CSS. We process pledges with Stripe. We collaborate on our code at GitHub and deploy to the cloud with Amazon EC2.

What licenses are supported?

We support the Creative Commons licenses in all of our programs. Ebooks with these licenses are free and legal for everyone to read, copy, and share worldwide and requires that the author attribution.

We support a additional Free Licenses in our Thanks-for-Ungluing program.

I have more questions...

Please consult our FAQ (sidebar at left); join the site and explore its features for yourself; or email us, info@ebookfoundation.org.

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