Quote:
Originally Posted by Ankh
Oh for crying out loud!
What, even Baen, the poster company for e-book publishing still needs additional "steps of ebook production and formatting"? It is not integral part of their regular workflow, they don't have a standard electronic version as a byproduct of pbook run, where different formats are generated by a click of a button or execution of a script?  |
Well... At least one of the "production steps" I had in mind involves arranging for conversion of back-list items into bits. Webscriptions guarantees that each month will include N books never-before-in-bits (N==4, I think). When Baen's output some month doesn't have enough all-new books, Arnold has to fill in with backlist material -- most of which is not available in bits in any format whatsoever. That means scanning and proofing and all those other icky things one has to do to produce usable text from DTF.
There's also all of the format conversions (scripted, for certain-sure). And checking that the results of the conversions are OK (a step that really
can't be scripted). And...
As to whether they have a standard electronic version produced from the same final camera-ready source by a single button press... Only Arnold and the Baen folks know for sure. Neither grape-vine, nor well placed sources, nor little birdies have said anything to me on that front.
Xenophon