eBooks and (Deep)links

Extra convenience to the reader or bad idea?

[Orange_XL]

I was wondering about the following; I'm writing an eBook and thought it would be a good idea to add some (actually a whole lot) links for readers if they are particulairly interested in a topic. Personally, I would appreciate this as I'm rather curious. The links are not neccessary to understand the subject nor are they a reference (well, they may be, I don't remember where I learned everything).

But, I'm wondering, is this smart? I don't see no harm, but when someone proofread the book, one of the first things they said was "Did you rip this of that site?" which is not the case (of course). But, come to think of it, since the links tend to tell about the same but sometimes more detailed or technical (not needed in the context of the book), how smart is it to link?

[shri]

Well, it has been tradition to point readers to other resources -- both online and in print.

Assuming your stuff is original and not copy/pasted I would not be worried. I would however be worried if I had done a copy paste job, one of your readers found the original source because you linked to it.. and then reported you.

[Orange_XL]

No copy-pasting is done, in fact, the majority was written before any links were added.

The only thing I'm worried about are links to sites like Wikipedia. What if a user decides to click on a link to it and add content from the book to wikipedia itself? Personally, I don't mind it, but it is likely to lead to questions and comments from readers.

[shri]

Well, the cynical side of me says, once you've released anything -- it will be copied and reused.

Not much you can do, to prevent this from happening.

The best you can do is keep the ebook a live document that people can download updates about etc.

You might want to put a disclaimer or notice on the first page of your book saying.. "if you must quote parts of this book, please keep in mind that this book is my source of income and we would appreciate it if you only post (say for example) 1 paragraph and link back to the original source".