- Specimen book for Buddy August 24, 2010
- New release! Buddy: the sans companion to Contenu August 24, 2010
- Classes mess up Opentype Glyph generation August 9, 2010
- A history of the alphabet August 9, 2010
- Going after the look of old fonts? Not likely August 7, 2010
No, this is not a step by step. It’s a discussion of the realities of dealing with publishing in the second decade of the 21st century. Specifically, I want to talk about dealing with graphically intensive books in multiple channels.
One of the Linked-In groups I’m in has been debating the role of XML in “future-proofing” documents. They are mainly coming from employment at large publishing houses with hundreds or thousands of legacy books—many from before the e-reader age, many from before the digital age entirely. That’s not what I am talking about either.
This is redesign not conversion
That’s the first thing you need to accept—like it or not. There is no way to convert a typographically excellent, graphically intensive book from PDF to ePub. There are too many limitations with ePub. Here’s a list of the things you’ll need to get rid of as you make the conversion:
- Fonts: All you have to work with are a limited portion of the originally limited Web palette of fonts
- Vector graphics: at this point you need to convert everything to JPEG.
- Anchored graphics: Everything must be inline.
- Columns: This is all single column stuff.
- Nested styles: You’ll need to hand format run-in heads with character styles
- Styles in general: Depending on who you use to distribute your masterpiece, you’ll probably need to convert to the H1-6, p, ol, ul choices of HTML [I'm thinking Kindle here].
It’ s a very different way of thinking
I keep on hearing that some types of books will not convert. That’s not true. What is true is that some designers are not willing to work within the given limitations as we wait for our options to improve. For one of my new bloggin acquaintances, I made a couple of comparison pieces [PDF vs. ePub] this morning. I thought you might want to take a look and see what I had to change. Yes, the ePub version is hideous. But, it is selling as well as the PDF version—though the printed version is still outselling both.
The PDF sample • The ePub sample
Does this miss the mark for you?
What experiences are you having that suggest my choices are bad or wrong?
it’s been a surprising year. I never would have expected to be forced into going into what the government calls retirement. That has been a huge adjustment.
For a man, retirement is close to what housewives experience if circumstances keep them from being able to clean their home. it attacks the core of our being. I have been amazed at how much of my self identity is tied up in what I do.
On the other hand, it has been a joy to get back into personal creative endeavors. I’ve designed dozens of items for the Radiqx Zazzle site (buper stickers are doing well so far). I’m getting ready to release my first novel. I find it is a much better escape to write the novels I read. It’s not as much fun as the new Baldacci, Clancy (if we ever see one of those again), Cussler, de Brul, Dale Brown, Brad Thor, Daniel silva, W.E.B. Griffin, or any of the other authors I love to read. But the involvement is incredible and the ability to create new realities is really fun. I think you’ll find it a good read.
On-demand Publishing
I’m still focused on this for several reasons.
- My lack of capital makes it the only real choice
- it keeps works available to limited audiences like those of you who follow what I am doing
- It allows me to easily generate multiple versions of a work with no additional expense
- It allows me to generate eBooks which seem to growing incredibly fast in use
However, it’s hard to be competitive on-demand. The book prices are higher (at least for mass-driven competition). The printing options are much more limited.
It is greatly ramping up my skills at book design, though. That I really like. There is still nothing ( to me) like the feel of a new book and a potentially good read. i realize that this is becoming a lost art to many of the young. But I’m not sure how well Kindle, Nook, and the others will hold out in the long run. How comfortable are they to use? If you have one, I’d love to hear your opinions. Amazon just announced agin that Kindle is their best-selling product of any type in their entire company. Nook is already sold out and demand is outstripping production. Clearly, people want something like this.
I guess when my ship comes in, I’ll get one.