[IAEP] [FM Discuss] E-Book Enlightenment: Reading And Leading With One Laptop Per Child [Paperback] is on Amazon.com

[Walter Bender]

On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 2:46 PM, Anne Gentle <annegentle at gmail.com> wrote:
> I went through the process a few years back for the OLPC (and maybe
> SugarLabs) books but just didn't have the patience for the last bit of
> details... I should pick it up again and see how far the last 10%
> really is. Thanks James for posting.

Yes. Congrats James. Meanwhile, I too have been frustrated in my
attempts to update the other Sugar manuals. For example, I made major
revisions to the Turtle Art manual but cannot manage to get my changes
to appear in the wiki, never mind go as far as the last 10%. Sigh.

-walter
>
> Anne
>
> On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 12:53 PM, James Simmons <nicestep at gmail.com> wrote:
>> John,
>>
>> I may do a blog post on that subject if I can remember my login.  It's
>> pretty simple though.  You use OBJAVI 2 to create your PDF in the size you
>> want, using your style sheet.  The size we call Crown Quarto is one of the
>> choices, but they call it something else.  The size they push is the 6" x 9"
>> format, which OBJAVI calls USTRADE.  So you submit this PDF.  On books with
>> 300 or more pages you might need to use a larger "gutter" than OBJAVI will
>> give you by default, so you can put 10 in the "gutter" option to make the
>> gutter 10mm wider.  I only needed to do this for a USTRADE book I did.  My
>> Crown Quarto titles were fine with the default.
>>
>> Now if this PDF has illustrations CS will complain that they are under 300
>> DPI.  If the pictures are diagrams, screen grabs, or photos of objects it
>> might be safe to ignore these warnings.  If there are photos of people you
>> might have a problem.  The only way to know is to get a proof copy and see.
>>  A proof copy might cost 4.50 US plus shipping, which might be another $5 or
>> more if you're in a hurry.
>>
>> If it turns out you need 300 DPI pictures you'll need to use Open Office and
>> one of CS's template files to make your book instead of Booki.  I discovered
>> when I used copy and paste to get my Booki pages into the template that all
>> my italics disappeared and had to be put back by hand.  This seems to be an
>> Open Office issue.
>>
>> For your cover design you can submit a PDF (Inkscape has a wizard for
>> creating a wraparound cover with the correct dimensions) but the way I did
>> it was to use the cover wizard CS provides.
>>
>> The cover wizard is an AJAX app that walks you through making a cover.
>>  There are many cover designs to choose from, all named after trees.  The
>> one I chose is called The Palms, and it prompts you for a front cover image
>> and a back cover image and lets you specify what you want printed on the
>> spine and what colors to use.  It will tell you the dimension of the image,
>> which MUST be 300 DPI or more.  So I used The GIMP to make my front and back
>> cover images.  I used a free font from FontSquirrel called ChunkFive for the
>> title.  There are some good articles on designing covers, etc. on the CS
>> website.  They suggested using a Display font for the title, because these
>> are designed to be rendered in large sizes and the fonts you already have
>> are not.
>>
>> Designing your own book cover with The GIMP can be fun, but if you like you
>> can pay to have it designed by a professional.  You can pay to have the
>> inside pages formatted too.
>>
>> By all means get some color on the cover, because it is much too expensive
>> to have color on the inside pages.  Books are priced by the page count.  It
>> is the same price no matter what page size you use.  They push 6x9 because
>> that is an easy size to distribute, but you can use larger pages and save
>> money.  Color pages cost four times as much as B/W pages because each page
>> has to be printed four times with different colored inks.  If you have one
>> interior page that needs color the whole book needs to be printed that way.
>>  So color pages only make sense for children's books where every page has a
>> color picture or some decoration.  There is no extra charge for a color
>> cover, though, so get a nice photo on there if you can.
>>
>> You can do B/W on cream colored pages instead of white pages.  I don't know
>> what that costs.
>>
>> When you set up the book you can get a free ISBN number, use one you already
>> have, or pay to get one using your own imprint.  What I think this means is
>> that if you think there is some kind of stigma to having your book published
>> by Create Space you can pay for an ISBN and list the publisher as a
>> different name.
>>
>> CS will calculate what your book costs to print and give you a minimum
>> price.  You can charge whatever you like above that. Your royalties will
>> depend on where you publish the book.  CS will give you a "Store" page on
>> their own site for selling the book, and you will get MUCH higher royalties
>> selling it there than you do on Amazon.  Of course actually getting people
>> to see that page is your problem.  CS will also submit your book to be
>> listed on Amazon.com in the U.S. only.  To get it listed elsewhere you can
>> pay a one time charge of $25 to get the book listed in catalogs used by
>> bookstores.  Without this listing you have no hope of selling your book on
>> other sites or bookstores.  With it you have no guarantee.  It takes awhile
>> to get listed from what I've heard.  I have not bothered to do this for my
>> books.  I might do it for *one* book as an experiment.
>>
>> James Simmons
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 11:22 AM, John Curwood
>> <marketing at lovinglearning.co.nz> wrote:
>>>
>>> After reading your post yesterday, I just had to go onto Amazon and check
>>> it out. It was very cool when my search listed it (and the ebook) in the
>>> search results. What was the process like to the the books into print form
>>> on Create Space?
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> John
>>>
>>>
>>> On 04/03/12 03:29, James Simmons wrote:
>>>
>>> E-Book Enlightenment: Reading And Leading With One Laptop Per Child
>>> [Paperback] is now on Amazon.com, again only the U.S. site. Outside the U.S.
>>> you should be able to order directly from Create Space.
>>>
>>> Eventually Amazon will have Search Inside The Book working for this title
>>> and you'll be able to appreciate all the great artwork done by Oceana Rain
>>> Fields. This art did not survive translation to Kindle format. It looked
>>> terrible there, so I had to remove it. Even in B/W it really adds something
>>> to this printed edition.
>>>
>>> If the idea of having a really attractive printed book that explains
>>> everything about e-books, including how to make them, seems odd to you then
>>> you really should read the book!
>>>
>>> The URL is:
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.amazon.com/E-Book-Enlightenment-Reading-Leading-Laptop/dp/1470123223/ref=sr_1_14?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330784346&sr=1-14
>>>
>>> James Simmons
>>>
>>>
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>>
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-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org