Home › Forums › Decaffeinated Coffee › Where can I upload my own Torah publications?
Tagged: file-sharing, publishing, torah
- This topic has 17 replies, 11 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 7 months ago by whenevertobe.
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April 23, 2020 3:55 pm at 3:55 pm #1852492whenevertobeParticipant
I and a friend write seforim, long ones and short ones, with original Torah ideas, translations, hashkafa, etc.
We’re looking for a website to host our PDFs so people can download them easily. All the websites that have seforim for download either don’t let you upload or they have a very slow, tedious, and exlusive process that effectively means we can’t get anything up, either because we’re not famous or rich.
We want to use a Torah website because many people’s internet filter won’t let them on a “stam” file-sharing site.
We also don’t want to use Google Drive or the like because every file will have a very long URL that no one can remember.
We want a site that people can browse, and actually find our material among the ocean that’s out there based on target interests or topics.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Do we need to make our own website?
April 23, 2020 7:58 pm at 7:58 pm #1852656GadolhadorahParticipantYes, if you are serious about each of the multiple criteria you established for such a website. There are some that will satisfy a subset of your criteria, but offhand, I’m not aware of any that will satisfy ALL. of them. It really depends on how flexible you are.
April 23, 2020 7:59 pm at 7:59 pm #1852654RealisticguyParticipantYes if you can make a comment about not being famous or rich enough to get your seforim up then you probably shouldnt be writing seforim and go back to learning mussar.
April 23, 2020 7:59 pm at 7:59 pm #1852642Reb EliezerParticipantWhat about hebrewbooks.org?
April 23, 2020 8:05 pm at 8:05 pm #1852595JosephParticipantWhich sites are slow, tedious or exclusive in what they permit to be published?
April 23, 2020 8:06 pm at 8:06 pm #1852623Uri22ParticipantHey, you can make your own blog, website in less than hour using sites like weebly, or wix. You can sign up for a free account and host your thoughts there.
I’m happy to help you out if you need, I’m a published author as well if you’re looking for advice on getting published.
April 23, 2020 8:06 pm at 8:06 pm #1852629DovidBTParticipantSetting up your own web site isn’t difficult.
April 23, 2020 8:09 pm at 8:09 pm #1852645Reb EliezerParticipantOn the website http://www.hebrewbooks.org on the bottom of the page you find ‘send seforim’ which provides an upload form.
April 24, 2020 11:36 am at 11:36 am #1852893WolfishMusingsParticipantSetting up a blog is very easy. If an idiot like me can do it, almost anyone can.
The Wolf
April 24, 2020 12:29 pm at 12:29 pm #1852915JosephParticipantWM: How many unique people visit an idiot’s blog?
April 24, 2020 12:44 pm at 12:44 pm #1852931GadolhadorahParticipantReb Yosef: 78.3 million unique people according to Twitter’s most recent tally of Trump’s followers
April 24, 2020 12:54 pm at 12:54 pm #1852934🍫Syag LchochmaParticipantGH – 🤣🤣🤣
April 26, 2020 1:50 pm at 1:50 pm #1853278lets be realParticipantYWN how can we be in touch with uri22? (I have a very organized plan for a clear concise easy to use interface. I am just waiting for someone with the know how to implement it…)
April 26, 2020 2:57 pm at 2:57 pm #1853512whenevertobeParticipantWhat mussar will teach me that I need to be rich or famous to have my sefarim published?
April 26, 2020 3:11 pm at 3:11 pm #1853528whenevertobeParticipantI have my own website on wix.
I can’t even access it because of my filter.
I want a site that is open to most people’s filters, as that’s a large bulk of who would be reading my books. Most seforim sites (not all) open on most filters.
April 26, 2020 3:11 pm at 3:11 pm #1853527whenevertobeParticipantI don’t want to say which sites, but some of them have upload forms, some have told me to email seforim and they’ll put them up when they get around to it, and months later I see they put up many seforim from one or another particular group of seforim, and it seems that they are either very focused on certain rabbonim (famous) or some donor is telling them what to put up (rich),
There’s nothing controversial about what I write.
What frustrates me is that some sites say that they are only interested in promoting Torah and getting it out there but it seems that different criterea determine what gets out there.
April 26, 2020 11:15 pm at 11:15 pm #1853723whitecarParticipantNot attempting to go on attack here at all, I just would like to understand your perspective, so please dont take my question as disrespectful.
Almost every single famous sefer and commentaries… that are out there seem to speak for itself. If you truly have something worth sharing and you believe the Torah in there speaks for itself, why can’t you just let it take off on its own (obviously do some hishtadlus). Perhaps some of us are misunderstanding your intention here, and it sounds like you are trying to push your sefer in front of everyone since whats inside doesn’t do the job.
Lemashel, I want my composed song to be bought by a singer. I can email it to everyone I know, and harass every singer and producer out there. Or if its song like “Abba” from Avraham Fried, few emails will be enough to get a bidding war on.
Im certain you are not someone who is trying to force people to see you as a talmud chacham, but from this whole back and forth, that is how it seems to be (falsely hopefully) appearing.
I hope I didn’t offend you in any way, please forgive me if I did. I wish you much hatzlacha!
April 30, 2020 5:30 pm at 5:30 pm #1855535whenevertobeParticipantThere’s a famous Midrash that says that the reason Hashem didn’t reveal the value of each mitzvah is because if he did then everyone would just do that mitzvah and neglect the rest. The Midrash gives a moshul about a king who hired workers to work his orchard. He didn’t reveal the value of each work so that the workers wouldn’t neglect the entire orchard and just work on the most valuable part.
Hashem wants the Torah of the entire Jewish people. Every one of us has a special tafkid that we came down here to do. Part of that is our unique cheilek of the Torah. There’s a bracha we say when we see 600,000 Jews together. The Gemara explains that it is because each one’s mind is different than the other one’s. You can’t replace me and I can’t replace you.
The entire Torah should be accessible to everyone. The entire Torah includes every chiddush, kasha, teretz, ha’ara, moshul, pshat, etc. thought of by anyone, regardless of their level, as long as it is within the guidelines of our Mesora.
In the Yeshiva World, Torah grows. That means if someone came up with a chiddush it will spread among his chaveirim, and they will pass it on to others, eventually. There are countless ideas I heard from different Rabbeiyim and chaveirim that keep coming up, somewhere in my learning, or in a hashkafic discussion.
When we talk about publishing something, we are entering into a different world. We are entering into a world that is guided by different principles.
I think the example you brought about music is a great one. There’s an interview with Benny Friedman on Hidabroot with Meir K. where Benny bemoans the state of the current Jewish Music Industry. He recalls the “good old days” of Jewish Music where someone would write a nice song, they would record it, and people would take time to learn it, to let it grow on them. Now, he says, it’s an extremely aggressive business where the people in charge are only interested in boom boom bang bang, that’ll earn a lot of money fast.
I hope that the Jewish publishing industry hasn’t become like that.
What we need is a system that stores, organizes, and dispenses all of the Torah that’s out there. There are many websites that have made a huge start by publishing a vast amount of classic works and contemporary giants. Even sifting through that is a formidable task, if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for.
Imagine something like Amazon. You type in what you’re looking for and 10,000 results pop up. On the left side there are little buttons that you press that narrow down your choices until you’re down to a handful of items that you can look into.
It’s like once in a while, one of my friends will come over to me and say, “I’ve got a vort that you specifically would like”. And they’re right usually.
Imagine if we were all like that, all the time. Instead of getting emails about giraffes in Africa, you would get a notification every time someone somewhere came up with a new teretz on your kasha that you’ve had for 15 years. And imagine if it was all free.
I appreciate the time everyone took to address my question.
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