Sign In Sign-Up

Welcome!

Close

Would you like to make this site your homepage? It's fast and easy...

Yes, Please make this my home page!

No Thanks

  Don't show this to me again.

Close

Basics	Third party reviews & Awards	What is new?	Supported tags
Download	Registration	Frequently Asked Questions	Examples and links
	Bonus	ISBN

Bersoft HyperMaker

There are two programs (E-book platforms) with nearly identical features.  Both operate on the windows 95/98/2000/NT operating systems.  One is called Webpacker and the other is called HyperMaker.  Webpacker uses the capabilities of Microsoft Internet Explorer and requires that Internet Explorer be installed on the user’s computer.  HyperMaker, on the other hand is a completely self-contained, stand alone, self installing software package. 

When a customer downloads the file (something like mybook.exe) from your website and double clicks on the file, it unpacks itself, installs itself, installs its own proprietary reader, installs an icon on the computer screen and is ready to open and read.  Once the book is open, the reader can click on the "Registration" tab at the top of the page and copy and paste their user name and registration key into the proper fields.  All content is then unlocked and all features enabled.  The registration key is delivered by e-mail after the purchaser has entered his credit card and personal information into a secure order form.

HyperMaker and the E-books created by it act like shareware software, which they are.  The earliest E-book software was largely PC based shareware type programs.  With the evolution of e-publishing, many new technologies for E-book publishing and Digital Rights Management are being experimented with.  The stand-alone E-book programs are also continuing to evolve in power and features and are finding their own niches in the emerging E-book world. 

The new E-book technologies which are intended to be the vehicles for mass distribution use various versions of Digital Rights Management (DRM).  The Digital Rights Management Technologies restrict the user’s control over the documents that he has purchased.  Some do not allow printing of the document.  Some do not allow a reader to download the content to their hard drive or they require that the reader be connected to the Internet so that they can be authenticated by the book distributor’s server.  The intent of these restrictions is to limit or stop unauthorized redistribution of documents.  HyperMaker gives the author complete control over the security and user friendliness of his document.

The virtues of these two programs are summarized as follows:

1. HyperMaker is easy to integrate with the e-commerce systems that shareware vendors use.  Shareit, the firm that I use, takes the orders, processes the credit cards, and delivers the registration key to the customer by e-mail, and mails me a check each month.  For this service, they charge $3 per order plus 4% of the order total.  For a book selling for $12.95, the cost of transaction is $3.52.  In other words, you get $9.43 or a 73% royalty.  For this fee, you avoid the cost and complexity of setting up a merchant account and e-commerce software on your website.  Shareit does not charge a set up fee.  The current version, HyperMaker 2001 also allows the author to generate registration keys from his own website from a perl script.  The new version also has a provision to unregister a publication when a purchaser requests a refund.

2. HyperMaker gives you complete flexibility and control over your document security.  You can turn document security completely off if you like, or: 

• You can allow or disallow copy and paste. 
• You can allow or disallow printing. 
• You can enable printing only after the document is registered. 
• You can set an expiration date for your document. 
• You can set a limit on the number of times the document can be accessed.
• You can set the registration key to require the user’s name and document title, or the user’s name, document title and user’s hard drive serial number.
• Since the HTML is compiled and there are no decompilers on the aftermarket, it is unlikely that anyone will crack the encryption and steal the content.

3. This diverse collection of document control features are important because they allow the author flexible options in how his document is marketed.  In the trade off between user friendliness and piracy prevention, I lean toward user friendliness. 

4. HyperMaker is robust software.  As you are aware the Internet and many software packages have a tendency to be a bit flaky at times.  I have used this software for several years and it has been trouble free.  The software author is also continuing to develop and support this product.

5. There are no license fees or royalties on publications generated with HyperMaker.  Once you own the software, you can generate and compile as many E-books with it as you like.  HyperMaker can also be optimized for distributing books on floppy discs and CD-ROM’s.

To see an example of a HyperMaker E-book go to:

http://www.clspress.com/export2/epublishing.exe  and download and open the file.  It will open in demo mode.