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Spanish translation of Parma Endorion published

December 01, 2002 at 23:04:26

Houston, TX -- December 2, 2002 -- Parma Endorion: Essays on Middle-earth, 3rd edition, has been translated into Spanish and published as free eBook. With more than 130,000 downloads since its release on January 5, 2002, the English language edition of Parma Endorion is the year's most popular eBook across all categories. High demand for a Spanish translation is expected to help push downloads over the 200,000 mark in early 2003.

Original expections for Parma Endorion projected downloads in the 50,000 range for the entire first year. "We surpassed 50,000 downloads in four months," author Michael Martinez says. "I'm as pleased as I can be that these eBooks have done so well," says editor Matt Tinaglia. Tinaglia combined Martinez' widely recognized Parma Endorion essays, which were originally published as a Web book, with select artwork from fans Rich Sullivan and Anke Eissmann.

"We looked at hundreds of fan art submissions in several popular galleries," Martinez says. "Rich and Anke provided some of the best examples of the kind of artwork we felt would go well with the updated Parma Endorion essays. The eBook's success owes a great deal to their talent." Tinaglia points out, "I became involved with this project out of a desire to read the earlier web-based version of this book in a printable version. Inquiries...about how to do that led to the original English version of the Parma Endorion eBook, and now to the new Spanish edition."

The English language edition, and now the Spanish edition, of the Parma Endorion eBook has been distributed for free through Free-eBooks.Net (http://www.free-ebooks.net/). "I am amazed at how popular the ebook is," says Web site operator Eva Almeida, who also publishes the eBooks'n'Bytes newsletter in which Parma Endorion was proclaimed the top download for all of 2002 in January. "Parma Endorion consistently ranks as the top download at Free-ebooks.net each week," she adds.

Almeida has been a huge fan of Tolkien ever since the age of twelve, when she read the Lord of the Rings for the first time. "Being part of the Parma Endorion project has been a dream come true," she says. "It has been a way to share my passion for Middle-earth with other fans." And Tolkien fans have shared the passion in unexpected ways. Parma Endorion has been pirated on the Kazaa file-swapping network, and unauthorized sales through eBay have been shut down on two occasions.

Yet, now even more fans will get to share the team's passion. Lead translator Leandro Pascual brought the project to fruition after more than a year's labor. "Translating Parma Endorion was not only a pleasure," Pascual says, "but a complete delight for us. We knew that Michael's work is terribly interesting to all Tolkien fans, and now we know that Spanish and Latin American fans have access to new essays about Middle-earth. We are proud to be a part of this project!"

Michael Martinez is the author of Visualizing Middle-earth, published through Xlibris Corp., and a noted Internet researcher specializing in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. He has written more than 100 essays on Tolkien and Middle-earth for Suite101.com and his work has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Greek, and Polish. Several commercial enterprises have also contracted the author for consulting services relating to Middle-earth product lines.

Parma Endorion, in both English and Spanish, is available in Adobe Acrobat Reader (http://www.adobe.com/products/ebookreader/main.html) format at Free-eBooks.Net (http://www.free-ebooks.net/fan_fiction.html). Adobe Acrobat Reader is a trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. Free-eBooks.Net is a member of the eBooks'n'Bytes network (http://www.ebooksnbytes.com/).