Hi everyone,
Profound thanks for a most illuminating thread.
I will share, in case it helps others, what I finally did.
Since I use a shell service based on Debian, no Linux box as of yet, I
sought another way to get the files into other formats, rtf for example
allowing me to run unrtf, or even let gmail convert the file into html
for me.
There is an educational service called robobraille.
www.robobraille.org
which by way of its email convert feature will convert epub and mobi files
into rtf text and html.
so i used their process to get this done.
Still I appreciate the education regarding what is so richly possible.
Thanks again,
Kare