No, not spyware. All it does is track where the flash document goes. So say you have a flash file on your server and someone puts it on their server. It sends a link to yours so you get referred and you know where your flash document is being served from without your say so. That’s all. Not everyone is out to get you. If that’s compromising your privacy don’t ever visit or link to another persons site, they may be able to find out you’ve been there.

“Shane, I wouldn’t be interested in seeing a Flash comic copy — I have a hard enough time finding the place I want in a PDF, let alone something where I can’t control the flow.”

You can, it has pages just like a pdf. It’s not animated or anything.

Just an idea.

[...] Elsewhere, Johanna Draper Carlson discusses the plusses and minuses of publishers and creators sending PDF preview copies of their work to retailers and reviewers. [...]

$36 a year for the box, and you get your mail done first.

Johanna, with the limited space I have (and knowing the huge amount of stuff y’all have:)) PDFs do seem the smart way to go.

I keep meaning to retry my Spider-Man CD collection, which is all done on PDFs. Maybe the more I read them, the more open I’d become to them. (or at least I’d get used to it)

- Chris

It might be that I’m a lot more tired of moving stacks of comics to look at around than I thought.

It’ll also be interesting to see how this plays out for publishers. Will it give them the results they want, or is it another marketing trick (like sub-dollar-priced comics) that only works until everyone starts doing it?

Yet trying to read comics on my computer screen, I can just never really get into it.

Oh and yup, please publishers be aware that not everyone has high speed internet. I had a publisher sending me Zip files of 20 MBs or more, that my dial up just couldn’t handle.

Matt, there are any number of titles and publishers who provide previews of their works, either at their sites or places like Newsarama.

What, you mean Spyware? I would hope that people wouldn’t willingly compromise their privacy in that way. Distribution issues be damned.

//\Oo/\\

Guy, my main concerns with paper quality and similar relate to providing an accurate description of what I’m reviewing. There’s a small chance that the printer screwed up or the resolution is off or something else happened between digital and print stages, and I don’t want my review to inaccurately represent the product to readers for reasons beyond my control. It’s a small concern, yes.

Chris, good point about CBRs being easier to crack and alter. And yes, print publications (especially those with roots in the book world) do want advance galleys. I might should have made a greater distinction between short comic issues and longer works when it comes to choosing a format.

I don’t know of any specific cases mentioned by publishers, but I have had editors/ marketing people specific mention not to redstribute the PDF due to piracy issues.

Regarding going with .cdr or .cbz format, I could see where publishers would be reluctant. PDFs are widely available to readers, but the software to adjust it isn’t so readily available. .Cbz and .cbr are just .zipped files of .jpgs of the scans, so giving those out through an offiical capacity would be more easily helping piracy efforts.

Something like paper quality plays a pretty small part in my overall impression of a book, especially if it’s a publisher who typically uses good paper. Even when it’s not, though, it may not make a difference for me, ie: the excellent Nat Turner on the not-so-excellent newsprintish paper stock.

I realize I may be in a minority of one, here, but I’d rather previews are either formatted for CDisplay, or sent as hard copies (xerox or printed books, either is fine).