I know we have preview signs where players can SEE the contents of the chests, but why can't we have the same thing for books? I used to have a public chest that contained stories that I wrote. I wanted players to read them, but some players kept taking them. I had to re-copy the books with other book-n-quills. Finally I decided that I wasted money by just buying more book-neuills. We should add a sign that can allow players to read a book without taking themn.
+1 But... I think it's a lot of work to be program this... So it needs to have more utillity as this (you can use it for rules and long Messages)
It would be kind of spam-ish if you're thinking about it appearing in chat. They might be able to make the book open up as if you're reading the book itself, not sure =P In the meantime, people get by with [message] signs for previews and summaries, and if people want the books, they buy it. It works fine xD
sadly its near impossible to pull off. The closest we could get is a book "loan" where it self destructs a copy of the book given to the player :/
You could buy and sell the books for a small amount like 1R in order to document whether someone checked one out and never returned it. You could also go further and charge a large deposit. Charge them more than the value you place on it initially then they can sell it back for the difference. A high deposit would make it more likely that the Book is returned. You would need to be more careful with the latter. For example, you would want to make it so that someone wouldn't be able to copy your book then sell a bunch of them back to you (I haven't sold Books out of a chest so maybe that isn't possible anyway).
I'm a little bit in between.. That is, I like the suggestion and the idea behind it but I'm not too sure if this would really add to gameplay. I mean; when you want to share stories then I can't help think that the forums might be more suited for that. Which is of course not saying that in-game books have no place, quite the contrary, but when you're working with those then my suggestion would be to sell them at a higher price. I'd like to mention Kephras who has a bookshop on smp8 and who does just that. He wrote several stories (in multiple parts even) and sells them there. And they're quite entertaining too. And I discovered that because a friend of mine showed me one of these books, I briefly looked through it and had quickly made up my mind about wanting to have the rest too Maybe you could do the same? I'm pretty sure that if people are really interested they'd either buy the book, or ask you if they could get a peek preview before buying. That might work too.
To be clear, what I've done for my bookstore is to use [message] signs and write a separate "preview copy" in an unsigned book & quill. Consider it a bit like reading the back cover of a paperback book - it gives you some idea of what the story is about, and if it sounds like a tale you'd enjoy, you can buy the book. If it's not? Well you haven't lost anything, and there's no stock to replace. I get the sense you want to preview the whole book, which there really isn't an efficient or effective method for. The one thing I don't do at TTB is offer buy-back, because I encourage people to buy and keep copies, loan them to friends, etc, but there's no real reason you couldn't have a buy/sell sign set up for your writing to re-purchase copies from people who are done with theirs. Something else to keep in mind - villager trade sometimes requires written books, in particular if you're trying to set up an infinite paper librarian. I advise pricing your books a bit higher than the (ink+paper+leather+quill) to ensure people aren't just buying you out as fodder for emerald trade. EDIT: Not possible. Even if someone's willing to copy the text (and they'd have to retype it all manually), it'd be signed by a different author and not "the same" book. And only the one who signed the book can clone it, thanks to an Aikar fix, so there's no fear of someone cloning the books you've written.
