[FM Discuss] FM newspapers

[adam hyde]

hi,

As some will know already (since Douglas announced it on the list),
Objavi - the FM PDF generator - can now produce multi-column large scale
PDF. This is so that we can create newspapers...

What I have been hoping to do since this idea popped up at the FM summit
at Wintercamp in Feb of this year, is to produce newspapers from the
same sources that we use to print books. The cool thing about newspaper
is that it is much cheaper to produce than books, and it can be produced
locally in many places (anywhere that has a small local newspaper
usually has a newsprint press somewhere close by). This makes the
production very cheap as it also reduces shipping costs. 

For example - looking at the production costs, 1 book purchased from
lulu costs about 10 euro and about 4 euro (these costs vary a lot)
delivery costs. Thats a basic unit cost of about 14 euro. 

The FSF did a print run of several hundred Command Line Books, and they
got the cost down to well under $10 (US) per book I believe. I will find
out the exact unit cost and post to the list later.

By comparison for a trial we are looking into in New Zealand the costs
break down to something like this :
1500 copies of 16 page tabloid folded (broadsheet size 382mm wide x
540mm high, tabloid 265mm wide x 380mm high) 
Black & White
760 euro (approx conversion from NZ dollars).

Thats about 50 euro cents per copy....or 5% the raw cost of a book from
lulu (forgetting delivery costs for now).

What we don't yet know is how much content we can squeeze into this with
the fancy new multi-column PDF generator Douglas has built, but we are
going to find out :)

With manuals in newsprint form we could distribute the manuals for free
in cafes, schools, conferences, events, universities, book stores -
where ever we want.

This is the first idea, and we are collaborating with Martin Kean in NZ
to do exactly this. There will be an announcement on this in the next
weeks I hope...

So, this idea could really go in a lot of directions - one interesting
model (stepping into conjecture mode for a minute) would be to enable
the inclusion of a full page advertisement on the back page. Imagine if
you could use Objavi, include an image to be used as a full page
advertisement for some local business, and that pays all the costs for
the production of the paper...that really comes close to is free (gratis
and libre) manuals for free software...

Anyways...there is a long way to go on this. However, if anyone has any
thoughts on this, or wants to trial the production of a newspaper, then
here is the place to have that discussion...

:)

adam




-- 
Adam Hyde
Founder FLOSS Manuals
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Email : adam at flossmanuals.net
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