UPDATED Dumped by Amazon, Unglue.it chooses Stripe as new payment processor

UPDATE, Oct. 4: Book Business just received news that Unglue.it will relaunch at noon on Oct. 15 with Stripe as its new payment processor.

According to a company press release: "Many of you recommended them and we see why: a thoughtfully designed API, fantastic documentation, and responsive service. They’ve taken the time to talk with us personally and understand our business. For us, this means peace of mind, plus much cleaner code. For you, it will mean a simple payment interface right inside of Unglue.it, with no need for any other accounts -- just a credit card."

The company also announced it has been developing relationships with Readmill, a social reading network, and LOCKSS (Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe), an award-winning, open-source digital preservation system.

Oct. 3: A few weeks ago, crowdfunding platform Unglue.it announced the release of its first ebook: “Oral Literature in Africa” via Cambridge's Open Book Publishers. While the scholarly tome by Ruth H. Finnegan likely didn’t set the publishing world ablaze upon its initial publication in 1970, and its ebook release in 2012 didn’t unseat any bestsellers, its return to “print” after more than a decade is cause for celebration. More good books in the public domain is always a good thing. This is the raison d’etre of Unglue.it, a company that seeks to reward rights holders who make their works available as ebooks under creative commons licenses and without DRM.

The brainchild of entrepreneur and library technology vet Eric Hellman (he of Go To Hellman blog renown), Unglue.it’s aim is to increase the number of good, free ebooks available to the public. After leaving library technology nonprofit OCLC in 2009, Hellman put his thinking cap on about the big issues facing the library world.

“It seemed like the transition form print to digital was finally coming through in the book world,” says Hellman on the phone from his home in Montclair, N.J. “There was a lot of concern about how libraries would work when patrons wanted books on their ebook readers.”