Twain Project

[Nate the great]

I am planning to do one of his collected short stories as my first project. Is anyone working on one of them? I don't want to do duplicate work.

By the way, there isn't much here by Twain. If anyone gets the urge, here is the Project Gutenberg link for all his available work.

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3200

[Dr. Drib]

You might also want to go to the UPLOAD section and inform everyone there - in the eBooks We're Working On section - it's a STICKY and is at the top of that page. The Sticky means that the thread is always there for us.

You'll find putting books together fun, frustrating, and rewarding.

I almost always put books together that I want to read, so it's really rewarding to have these books - and others from so many fine contributors - on my Reader.

I actually have 287 titles listed on my Reader (I don't really recommend this), but thanks to Haryy, I actually have more BOOKS loaded. (This is because of the omnibus titles.)

Anyway, go to that section I mentioned, and I feel you'll reach a larger audience for your subject.

Have fun!!

Don

P.S.: In my opinion duplicate work is ok, because your conversion of that title(s) is going to reflect how YOU would like that title to look like. It may be in the art you select (if any), and in the way you format your book. I wouldn't worry about that.

I look forward to your first book by Twain / Clemens.

Hint: Always try first with an HTML file to work with.

[Nate the great]

Did you just discover how to use the bold? A suggestion: stop using it.

When you use the bold that much when giving orders, it is the equivalent of speaking in a loud firm voice that you would use with a child. It is very insulting to do it when bossing someone around.

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

You might also want to go to the UPLOAD section and inform everyone there - in the eBooks We're Working On section - it's a STICKY and is at the top of that page. The Sticky means that the thread is always there for us.

You'll find putting books together fun, frustrating, and rewarding.

I almost always put books together that I want to read, so it's really rewarding to have these books - and others from so many fine contributors - on my Reader.

I actually have 287 titles listed on my Reader (I don't really recommend this), but thanks to Haryy, I actually have more BOOKS loaded. (This is because of the omnibus titles.)

Anyway, go to that section I mentioned, and I feel you'll reach a larger audience for your subject.

Have fun!!

Don

P.S.: In my opinion duplicate work is ok, because your conversion of that title(s) is going to reflect how YOU would like that title to look like. It may be in the art you select (if any), and in the way you format your book. I wouldn't worry about that.

I look forward to your first book by Twain / Clemens.

Hint: Always try first with an HTML file to work with.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Did you just discover how to use the bold? A suggestion: stop using it.

When you use the bold that much when giving orders, it is the equivalent of speaking in a loud firm voice that you would use with a child. It is very insulting to do it when bossing someone around.

So please accept my sincere apologies.

(I do know what the bold is for: I think I wasn't communicating well with my intentions.)

Again, I very much look forward to seeing your work, as I could use some Twain / Clemens on my Reader.

My suggestion was that more people would see what it is that you want to work on if it was posted in a different section,

Friends?


Don

[rb49]

Bold type was used long before there was an Internet and it had a useful puropse - to draw a reader's attention to something important. It still does. I think that chastising Dr. Drib for using it is petty. Particularly so in light of his not insubtantial contributions to this forum.

[NatCh]

Yeah, the internet has shifted that role to italics.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by rb49

Bold type was used long before there was an Internet and it had a useful puropse - to draw a reader's attention to something important. It still does. I think that chastising Dr. Drib for using it is petty. Particularly so in light of his not insubtantial contributions to this forum.

So you are implying that I am unable to tell what is important without him telling me? You don't get to lecture me either.


Everyone, just drop the issue.

[NatCh]

Hmmm ... I didn't think that rb49's was implying anything about your ability to understand things, so much as he was pointing out that Dr. Drib has a right to choose to add emphasis to his own comments in an effort to make them clearer to those reading them (though, I grant you, he might have phrased it a bit more ... gently).

I usually use italics for that: when I want to be more clear in the written word than I could without them. I do tend to avoid using bold, personally, because, as you pointed out, it's gotten to where it's read as more emphasis than I usually mean to add.

I agree that Dr. Drib overdid it a bit with the bolding in his comment, and that italics might have been a bit better choice for most of it, but there may have been a ... gentler way to point that out to him. In any case, he's recognized that he unintentionally offended, and apologized, for doing so, so there you go. If you ignore the bolding (now that you know he meant it differently than folks usually do), his comment reads a lot differently than it does with the bolding.

While you and I and rb49 already know about bolding and italics and all caps (to toss that one in with its brethren), there's a reasonable chance that there are others reading this who are newer to the topic and appreciate the information so that they don't go about inadvertently 'yelling' at other folks when they just mean to emphasize what they're saying, or who just haven't yet considered the implications of the various typesets in this venue.

In any case, I think you're right that this thread has probably served as much as it can, we know you're working on a collection of Twain's short stories (excellent choice, by the way!). Dr. Drib knows better how others will read bolded text, and that he shouldn't over-do it unless he means to be yelling at folks. You know that there's a thread dedicated for sharing what projects are underway, so you can better coordinate with the others who are working on book projects. And any newbies that happen along will learn a bit about communicating better in this bewildering cyber-world, knowledge that they might have had to learn the hard way otherwise. All in all, not a bad set of accomplishments for such a short thread.

[Roy White]

Hey!

I'm used to Dr Drib yelling at me! Since I'm always screwing up my formatting on my uploads...



The problem with these Forums is that the 70 percent of communication that is so important, (Body language, facial expression, tone of voice, etc) is lost.

I find its best to not take anything personal on these forum but write almost everything off to miscommunication.

BTW I think you should do a Tom Sawyer/ Huck Finn combo..

[Dr. Drib]

Additionally, differing levels of maturity can also speak volumes.

Nate the Great - I offer you my apologies - again. (I see that you POSTED to where people can see your work! -- Let's have some more Twain / Clemens. [That's not an order; it's a strong desire!)

And Roy, I totally agree with you, when you write that "[T]he problem with these Forums is that the 70 percent of communication that is so important, (Body language, facial expression, tone of voice, etc) is lost."

Again, let's have some fun here!!!

Don

P.S.: Hey, -- here's a post for any enterprising BD HEADS on this forum: How (or can I) do a global change in BD? It's not really a global change, to be correct. I need to get rid of line numbers. I lack the HTML files, by the way.)

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Roy White

BTW I think you should do a Tom Sawyer/ Huck Finn combo..

Those two are pretty high on my list. Either one by itself would not be too hard. The only problem with doing them together is that I can't yet figure out how to make chapter headings show up in the table of contents.

I will give it a try. If it looks okay from the automatic parsing, I will post an early copy. If you know of a source of pictures, let me know.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

P.S.: Hey, -- here's a post for any enterprising BD HEADS on this forum: How (or can I) do a global change in BD? It's not really a global change, to be correct. I need to get rid of line numbers. I lack the HTML files, by the way.)

See my reply on the thread where you've uploaded the book . You can do it with regular expressions. Oops, sorry, I mean regular expressions.

[RWood]

Some object to bold (er, bold) and I object to ALL CAPS for no reason. Many of the older works that we convert have chapter titles set that way so it is a constant decision as to should they be modernized to mixed case or remain ALL CAPS.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by RWood

Some object to bold (er, bold) and I object to ALL CAPS for no reason. Many of the older works that we convert have chapter titles set that way so it is a constant decision as to should they be modernized to mixed case or remain ALL CAPS.

Very true, as is also the decision about whether to use Roman or Arabic numerals for chapter numbers. To my mind those can be freely changed, because they are things decided upon by the publisher, rather than being a part of original author's work.

[Dr. Drib]

the "errors" that crop up on PD material itself, such as scan errors, etc. The text itself is being "compromised" in many ways. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but just somethig that (in my opinion) is a consideration when working with Pd material.

I'm working right now on a massive non-fiction piece (in 4 different volumes), and there is no consistency in some of what's on the Contents page.

Also, there are certain other compromises. There was a thread here somewhere on how one company puts its TOC at the END of the book. Someone made a conscious decision to do this. (This is not a criticism, but can you imagine a CONTENTS page at the end of a printed book?)

Additionally, there are the limitations imposed upon the engineering constraints of the Reader itself.

And then AGAIN (hahahah - gotta love the CAPS, RWood!), there are ways in which WE impose structure on our "transcribing" as we put the books together.

A lot of things to consider...

Don

Originally Posted by RWood

Some object to bold (er, bold) and I object to ALL CAPS for no reason. Many of the older works that we convert have chapter titles set that way so it is a constant decision as to should they be modernized to mixed case or remain ALL CAPS.