ok, so i have some questions for you
"book a.p.i. people", if you're game...

***

if the book is not available online,
any a.p.i. is mainly a teaser, right?
i mean, ads are fine, if you like that
kinda thing, but not too interesting.

***

if the whole book is available online,
and thus presumably easily scraped,
why is there any need for an a.p.i.?

what info could the a.p.i. give me
i couldn't glean from the text itself?

i believe that sometime in the future,
all books will be free and open online.

so my point is:  the u.r.l. _is_ the a.p.i.

i have created many apps intended to
take advantage of text located online.

so i think i understand the idea _well_.

and, to my ears, at least, and perhaps
it is little but my _misunderstanding_,
yet all this sounds like hand-waving...

the example where a travel-agency
will book you on a tour of the spots
mentioned in a book is an eye-roller,
for instance, as far as i'm concerned.
(bloomsday, yes. anything else? no.)

and if there _is_ a kind of functionality,
service, or power residing in my book,
why would i offload it to another site?
why not offer it myself, and _benefit?_

***

as i said, i've programmed apps that
can take text from the internet, _or_
read it from the person's hard-disk...

i've even coded programs that will
download books from the web and
then save them on your hard-drive.

i just don't see anything that's being
_gained_ by terming this "an a.p.i".

it certainly doesn't meet the criteria
by which "a.p.i." usually gets defined.

and especially with twitter's backpedal,
a.p.i. is getting a black eye nowadays.
developers have learned the hard way
that depending on anyone else's a.p.i.
can truly jeopardize your own business.
the "masses" might still be impressed,
but you'd _depend_ on developers, yes?
i'm not sure that you will be getting
what you feel the label is buying you.

***

still, most of all, i'm confused about
what y'all mean when you say "a.p.i."

so i'll try to pin it down in my mind...

if the book is available in a browser,
served up in the form of .html file(s),
does that mean that it has an a.p.i.?

if the book is available as .html file(s),
and they are downloaded by an _app_
and displayed offline, is that an a.p.i.?

if the book is available as .html file(s),
and they are downloaded by an _app_
and then converted to a pretty .epub,
and displayed offline, is that an a.p.i.?

if the book is available as .txt file(s),
and they are downloaded by an _app_,
and then converted into pretty .html,
and displayed offline, is that an a.p.i.?

if the book is available as .txt file(s),
and they are downloaded by an _app_,
converted to .html, and then to .epub,
and displayed offline, is that an a.p.i.?

if the book is available as .txt file(s),
and they are downloaded by an _app_,
and then converted into a pretty .pdf,
and displayed offline, is that an a.p.i.?

if the book is available as .txt file(s),
and they are downloaded by an _app_,
and then are processed not-as-html,
and displayed nicely, is that an a.p.i.?

***

anyway, if you can enlighten me on this,
i would appreciate it.  thanks so much...

-bowerbird