[FM Discuss] Creating Book Covers

[adam]

so...there are two types of pdf (actually more, but we deal mainly with
two)...

1. the screen readable PDF eg:
http://en.flossmanuals.net/CampSite/FM_18May10.pdf

which is generated automagically at publish time. This is generated as
screen pdf and does not have inner margin control etc. This pdf has a
default cover but you can also customise the cover (its a bit tricky but
i can help anyone that wants to do it)

2. the book-formatted PDF - this is generated by either Objavi 1
(http://en.flossmanuals.net/bin/objavi) or Objavi 2
(http://objavi.flossmanuals.net)...

we still mainly use Objavi 1 since it has widows and orphans
control...Objavi 2 is much more powerful - it has more complete css3
support and handles unicode and bi-directional text (Objavi 1 does not)
but does not yet have widows and orphans control (we use webkit for pdf
generation in objavi 2, for those that are interested you can track the
progress of the page-break-* dev in webkit here :
https://bugs.webkit.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=page-break).

the book formatted PDF does _not_ have a cover...this is generated by
myself using Inkscape. I usually email a template (svg) to anyone that
wants to do it themselves. this cover is exported as a one-piece cover
for lulu.com and it includes the spine...lulu only requires you to
design a spine separately if you decide to use their web-based cover
designer (which is not a good option)

so...on self publishing...if you want to publish (a) book(s) yourself
then go for it...the tools are there for anyone. But use Objavi (1 or 2)
not the screen readable PDF...also, FM will continue to offer as many
books (via lulu) as possible and so can anyone else (using the same
content). that means there may be more than one book available with the
same content but different titles and covers...so what...doesnt matter,
if amazon gets wiggy about it then just dont bring it up...if its good
enough for the worlds major religons (not to mention a zillion copyright
expired classics) to publish one book under multiple publishers its good
enough for us ;)...our aim is to get as much information about how to
use free software out there as possible...not to claim a monopoly on the
content...hence i encourage as many people as possible to publish as
much fm content as possible through whatever channels you have available
and with as much energy as you can dedicate to it..if you make some $
then woohoo! (maybe one day when you are rich you will make a nice
donation to the fm foundation ;)

what we need to do, as Micz points out, is to document all of this. I
would welcome any starters on adding a new section to the fm section
about pdf generation and publishing. we want to encourage as many people
as possible to get the content out there and this would be useful
information for those wanting to give it a go...

such a section could cover:
1. objavi 1 (anyone?)
2. objavi 2 (anyone?)
3. using inkscape to generate a cover (anyone?)
4. how to self publish on lulu (I can write this)
5. how to self publish at amazon (john/anne?)
6. write once publish everywhere (fm publishing philosophy)

etc

adam




On Sun, 2010-05-23 at 09:51 +0200, Micz Flor wrote:
> hi john, adam,
> 
> i am chewing through the same issue right now... yes ... and then
> document it in the howto flossmanuals flossmanual :) 
> 
> i guess there would be two ways of adding custom covers to
> flossmanuals.
> 
> 1. PDF on FM: the first way would actually be using the flossmanuals
> platform as it is - adding a manual is like creating a site and then
> "on publish" you can select the site in a pulldown.
> 
> 2. PDF for POD e.g. Lulu: i assume (haven't checked) that there are
> other requirements. firstly: the cover can (and should) be of higher
> resolution if it carries images (on the web PDF creation they are all
> 72dpi). secondly, on Lulu you need to design the spine as well -
> something that doesn't come up in the PDF. so for lulu i assume they
> must have their own howto and that would require to remove the
> existing FM cover in the PDF and then either replace it or upload a
> second file with just the cover.
> 
> if anybody has experience on this, i would be happy to hear about it
> and as happy to write up the howto.
> 
> thanks, micz 
> 
> On Sun, 2010-05-23 at 14:22 +1200, John Curwood wrote: 
> > Hi Adam,
> > 
> > Not long before you went to the civicrm sprint James Simmons asked about
> > creating a book cover for "Reading and Sugar" for use on Lulu.com.
> > 
> > I think you said you would show me how to set that up once you came back
> > from the sprint.
> > 
> > I'm just wondering if you are now able to show me what to do?
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > 
> > John
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Discuss mailing list
> > Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
> > http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net
> 
> 
> --
> 
> Micz Flor 
> Head of Communication, Sourcefabric
> micz.flor at sourcefabric.org 
> 
> Sourcefabric 
> Prinzessinnenstraße 20 
> 10969 Berlin, Germany 
> DE +49 (0)30 44044999
> 
> www.sourcefabric.org 
> www.twitter.com/Sourcefabric 
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