geoNovel was an early attempt to place the power to create and publish an "ebook" directly into the hands of authors, beginning as a tutorial application for Commodore GEOS* in the early 1990s, published and distributed by fLAtDiSk SoftWorks to GEOS user groups. The idea, which was rather new at the time, was that anyone with a personal computer could make a "computer book". Like GEOS itself, geoNovel receded into history with worldwide acceptance of Windows 3.1 and its successors.

In the early 21st Century, fLAtDiSk revived geoNovel with the web-based publication of Useful Humans by Rich La Bonté. The new geoNovel format did not require GEOS - and, in fact, was created with Microsoft Front Page and applications by Adobe and Corel - but retained the "geo" in its name as a dedication to the original creators of GEOS.

Ebooks were later standardized by the powers that be. Adobe PDF files currently reign as the most popular ebook format.

La Bonté

Rich La Bonté created fLAtDiSk SoftWorks and fLAtDiSk.NeT in the late 20th Century as an outlet for his musical and written projects. fLAtDiSk SoftWorks has published thousands of Absolutely Free digital music releases to the web since 1994 via the Rich La Bonté MODSpeak website and other online services.

Rich has five published novels. Susan and The Wolf (1989), Useful Humans (1990), Simple Deities (2002), The Greater Future (2003) and Many Teeth (2005). All five novels and the short story collection Yellowflower (2005) are available in paperback from Lulu, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online booksellers.

Rich wrote criticism on the state of modern genre entertainment from 2002-2005 for eXoNews, a website dedicated to The News Outside The News. eXoNews recently collected and published his four volumes as an Absolutely Free ebook entitled Peeping Tubes in the 21st Century.

Rich also authors Dark Boswell, a continuing series of satirical fanfiction teleplays. The up to date Dark Boswell collection is available as an Absolutely Free ebook at the Dark Boswell website.

For more information on Rich La Bonté and fLAtDiSk SoftWorks, visit http://richlabonte.net

Retailers seeking more information on geoNovel publications should write .