Tag Archives: on-demand

Self-publishers trade publishing dreams need excellence

Skilled Workman Posted on by

Self-publishers trade publishing dreams need excellence to provide better hopes. There are realistic, if remote, possibilities of being picked up by a “real” publisher. But only if you can demonstrate excellent sales, a sizable following, or ongoing usage (like coursework, regularly scheduled seminars, and the like). I thought the image of Victorian woodtype might help drive home the concept of tradepub being a step back to a time which really doesn’t exist any more. Traditional publishing as we … Continue reading →

Tate closes, authors beware, and other normal advice

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I wanted to write a short reminder post about the trials and tribulations of authorship: the news that Tate closes, authors beware of BEA, and other normal advice. This is one of the things we need to do to help each other remember about the dangers [fical] of wandering about in the publishing industry. News like Tate closes, authors beware of BEA, and so on is just normal advice For those not aware, Tate (who is a commonly used … Continue reading →

Digital books still increasing

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There’s a lot of confusion among authors today. Primarily, it shows as: are digital books still increasing? The answer shouts back: Of Course! Here’s a quote from Jane Friedman’s post this morning Looking Back at 2016: “The market for adult fiction is primarily a digital one “It’s commonly said that in the United States, overall trade book sales are divided about 70-30 print-digital, and that ebook sales at traditional publishing houses are flat to declining. (You’ve probably … Continue reading →

Printing consolidation necessary to survive

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Printing consolidation necessary: Xerox buying R.R. Donnelley This is all part of the consolidation necessary to make these hugely expensive presses run. Hardware prices make printing consolidation necessary. The article in Publishing Executive only covers magazines. But it goes much further than that. In my world, everything is on-demand. This includes the on-demand presses, and the four ereaders: Kindle, iPad/Phone, Nook, & Kobo. We’ll see this change here also. Someone will take on Ingram, just like someone will take … Continue reading →

A free sample of “Book Publishing With InDesign CC” is available

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I’ve published a sample of the new book on the Adobe servers. It’s about 75 pages of the various sections of the book. If you are interested in a review copy I recommend the PDF is reader’s spreads with the full color graphics. Let me know if you are interested. Here’s a link to the page with more information and purchase links. If word processor book production is taking up too much time and the results are … Continue reading →

Page Layout Part 5: Graphic needs of the formats

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Graphic needs for Print, PDF, ePUB, & Kindle KFX For book publishing, what you need to understand about graphics is how usage varies in the different formats. You’ll need to hand-adjust to produce the graphics for the various formats. Automation causes many problems. I’m just going to list the four options and their requirements, best formats, and so on. Greyscale print with color cover Lulu & Createspace, plus professional on-demand like Lightning source: You need to be careful. … Continue reading →

Just because you can buy a buggy whip, cars have still completely replaced the horse and buggy

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There’s a good article in Book Business today called Why Ebooks will eventually replace books. Caleb makes some very good points. Many people don’t look at the situation and see what a radical thing an ebook is. Like I mentioned in the title, you can still buy a buggy whip—but it’ll be hard to find and very expensive. The same will be true of books before too long. Even now, a paperback is several times as expensive as … Continue reading →

One main benefit to self-publishing and ebooks: unlimited shelf life

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Here’s a quote from my new book, Writing In InDesign CC, due out soon. I don’t know about you, but I tend forget this in the heat of the moment as I am launching a new book. “Sales continue to grow: Unless you are publishing very unique time-limited work, on-demand sales slowly grow and continue to grow. Because there are no warehousing issues, there are no reasons to stop selling your books. In many cases, your sales will … Continue reading →

Desktop, laptop, or tablet?

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I found a good article today which explains many of the issues. My main issue with the conclusions is that I cannot be productive with a laptop. If you are just writing, an iPad with Apple’s wireless keyboard will do the job for you very well. The article misses my most important category of software apps: the Creative Cloud. My two most used apps [outside of Mail and Safari], are InDesign and Photoshop. I can easily see that … Continue reading →