E-Refuseniks

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

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.

I don't expect a lot of that, and I would expect Baen to contract out scan and OCR on occasions where it was needed. Baen is pretty fussy about keeping electronic source files around, and I recall a flap a few years back when a computer problem resulted in some original manuscript files being lost. I offered a few suggestions in email to Jim Baen on how to prevent the problem from recurring, like a proper server and regular automatic backups...

Baen is savvy enough that I wouldn't be surprised if they are going back in the background and recreating electronic files from hard copy for any books where they don't have the original electronic manuscripts. I would be surprised if there was any significant amount of such conversions required.
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Dennis

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

From where I sit, we're waiting on Adobe. Publishers all use InDesign to do typeset and markup. The output from InDesign is a PDF that goes to the printer and is used to make plates. InDesign can output ePub as well as PDF, but the ePub output is terrible.

I can understand the attachment to InDesign. It is doing its job well, and "everybody knows how to do it". It is impossible to eliminate it, really. For both PDF and plates.

However, ePub is new requirement for that process, and insisting on ePub production from InDesign is just one of the choices.

The second one is going the DocBook route. The extra step, conversion from Microsoft word to DocBook (XML, really) pays off, as one can early strip off all extra formatting in Word file (which happens at some point, anyway), and then proofreading process can more efficiently fix the structure of the publication (things like chapters, sections, etc.). By the time that one is finished with the conversion, result is very "tame" for importing into InDesign, and typesetting

The result is, also, very "tame" for ePub production, as conversion (with predefined template) from DocBook to ePub is yet another script. And not overly complex at that.

O'Reilly deals with publications that are way more complex than Baen books when it comes to typesetting. They are tech savvy, aren't they? And they did go with the DocBook.

[Ankh]

Sorry, duplicate post.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Ankh

I can understand the attachment to InDesign. It is doing its job well, and "everybody knows how to do it". It is impossible to eliminate it, really. For both PDF and plates.

And there is no real reason to want to eliminate it. It does do its job well.

A friend is a DTP specialist doing typeset/markup for a major publisher. She was a Quark Xpress wizard, back when Quark owned the DTP market, and had developed work arounds for myriad Quark stupidities to let her do things as desired. Then everyone started shifting to Adobe InDesign. InDesign is a good product that doesn't have all those stupidities to work around. Suddenly her hard won expertise was useless...

(She doesn't really regret bidding adieu to Quark. InDesign is better. )

However, ePub is new requirement for that process, and insisting on ePub production from InDesign is just one of the choices.

The second one is going the DocBook route. The extra step, conversion from Microsoft word to DocBook (XML, really) pays off, as one can early strip off all extra formatting in Word file (which happens at some point, anyway), and then proofreading process can more efficiently fix the structure of the publication (things like chapters, sections, etc.). By the time that one is finished with the conversion, result is very "tame" for importing into InDesign, and typesetting

The result is, also, very "tame" for ePub production, as conversion (with predefined template) from DocBook to ePub is yet another script. And not overly complex at that.

O'Reilly deals with publications that are way more complex than Baen books when it comes to typesetting. They are tech savvy, aren't they? And they did go with the DocBook.

*sigh*

O'Reilly isn't merely tech savvy. They are techs, publishing tech books for techs. No surprise they'd eat thier own dog food, so to speak.

The rest of publishing is quite another matter. Half of it is still being dragged kicking and screaming into doing ebooks at all. The last thing most publishers will want is another layer in the workflow and a new technology to adopt and understand.

If ebooks can be produced largely automatically as part of what they already do - typeset and markup in InDesign - by simply saving as ePub as well as PDF, there's a much lower hurdle in the path.
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Dennis

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

And there is no real reason to want to eliminate it. It does do its job well.

It does its job well, no doubt about it.

The only thing that I do not like about InDesign is the penalty associated with typo fixes and such. You effectively have to go through the whole production chain, the effort is equivalent to (pbook) reprint. That's normal for pbooks and their business model, ebooks consumption patterns and expectations are more akin to software (where updates/upgrades are the norm, and it pays off to download the latest version of the MR book immediately before the reading/consumption).

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

*sigh*

O'Reilly isn't merely tech savvy. They are techs, publishing tech books for techs. No surprise they'd eat thier own dog food, so to speak.

And being tech myself, I am dead wrong to equate them to the rest of publishing industry. Got it. Guilty as charged.

I still believe that publishing industry is facing a very turbulent times. Price wars, pressure to epublish for the sake of not appearing backward and "loosing face" in front of authors, the danger that a big name (say, Dan Brown?) might get pissed off to go and try "Lulu samizdat" route (and, who knows, maybe even succeed)...

They have to move, not because I am tech and would like them to adopt DocBook, but for their own sake, to survive the transition.

And if there is a single publishing house that I do want to survive, it is Baen. The sheer guts to experiment with the new medium and their business model are enough to awe me and to earn my good will.

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by Ankh

pressure to epublish for the sake of not appearing backward

Several decades too late for that. Anyway, the publishing industry revels in its backwardness.