Dick, Thanks for the tips. I know all about Lulu - it works really well for two friends of mine - but was unfamiliar with CreateSpace.
I understand that Powell's City of Books, here in downtown Portland, has a print-on-demand press right there in their main Burnside store. While print-on-demand does for sure have lower up-front costs, while I have not yet actually looked into it, my understanding is that a print run would result in a lower per-copy cost. That would enable me either to charge a lower cover price, and so perhaps sell more copies faster, or perhaps have a higher profit, were I to charge the same price as I would through a print-on-demand service. To obtain one's own series of ISBN numbers - I don't know the proper term for it, but the part of the ISBN that is fixed for a given publisher - I understand costs about $700.00. Lulu will sell me an ISBN for just one book, for somewhat more - I don't recall exactly - than $100.00. I have several books that I ultimately plan to publish, so maybe it would work out in the long run, in my favor, to cough up that $700.00 for my own publisher's number. Storing a print run would not be a problem, as I already rent a storage locker, in which I'm keeping a whole bunch of tools that I inherited from my father, his father, and my great-uncle. I have just about all the carpentry tools one would require to build a house, even a table saw, but there is lots of extra room in that locker where I could fit the books. Actually getting the books through the distribution channel, and from there into both brick-and-mortar and online bookstores, I have not yet looked into. I do know that if I get an ISBN from Lulu, they will also supply me with artwork for the associated barcode. Once I then submit to Lulu a PDF with that barcode and ISBN on the cover, they can put it right into distribution. From time to time, Lulu books even make the top-seller lists at Amazon. Michael David Crawford P.E., Process Architect Solving the Software Problem [email protected] http://www.warplife.com/mdc/ Don't Fix the Bugs. Fix the People that _Cause_ the Bugs. On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 4:17 PM, Richard Hamilton <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Mike, > > I bit off topic for DocBook, but not for your question: rather than doing a > print run, you may want to look into print-on-demand using a company like > CreateSpace or Lulu. You'll have much lower up-front costs and you won't need > to turn your home into a warehouse:) > > Also, I'm not sure which tool you were referring to, but Herold (the xhtml to > DocBook converter) is open source. In fact, you can build an entirely > open-source tool chain for DocBook. The only weak link is FOP, which has some > gaps in compliance with the FO standard (most noticeably in indexing), but it > is getting better all the time and may work for your purposes. > > Best Regards, > Dick > ------- > XML Press > XML for Technical Communicators > http://xmlpress.net > [email protected] > > > > On Jul 30, 2013, at 12:01 AM, Michael Crawford wrote: > >> Thanks for your help, everyone. >> >> I need to brush up on my DocBook before I reply in real detail. It's >> been eons. I did know DocBook quite well back in the day, but at the >> time was not happy with the available tools. DocBook itself I think >> is just dandy, but the tools I was using then were a real PITA. >> >> Camille, I'm afraid mine is quite a low budget operation. However, >> I'm contemplating using a KickStarter Campaign to finance an initial >> print run of at least one of my books. If I do that, I expect I could >> afford to pay for a license for the proprietary version of your tool. >> >> It's been a long time, but I was at one time intimately familiar with >> the Apache Xerces-C (actually C++) XML DOM API. One approach that I >> could conceivably take, would be to write a C++ program, that would >> use Xerces-C to read my essays one-at-a-time into their own DOM, then >> copy the contents of the XHTML elements into the corresponding DocBook >> 5 XML elements. For <p> to <Para> that would be straightforward, but >> I haven't looked into the other kinds of elements yet, or attributes. >> >> I just now installed some of the DocBook packages on my Mountain Lion >> MacBook Pro with MacPorts, however the docbook-utils package would not >> install, no doubt due to some configuration bug in its port file. >> I'll report that via the MacPorts trouble ticket procedure. >> >> Best, >> >> Mike Crawford >> [email protected] >> http://www.warplife.com/ >> >> On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 6:25 PM, Richard Hamilton <[email protected]> >> wrote: >>> Hi Mike, >>> >>> I have had very good luck with Herold (http://www.michael-a-fuchs.de). >>> >>> I'm usually not fortunate enough to have strict xhtml, so we do some >>> pre-processing (usually on well-behaved, but idiosyncratic, html), tidy it >>> up into xhtml, then run Herold. >>> >>> You may find that you need to do some light pre- or post-processing, but >>> for us it has never been more than a short XSL stylesheet to do things like >>> remove empty paragraphs from the initial XHTML or change the root element >>> in the resulting DocBook (the latter can probably be handled by Herold >>> using Groovy scripts, but I've learning all the scripting languages I need >>> for the time being, so I stick with XSL or Perl-:). >>> >>> When we build a book, like you're doing, rather than concatenate pieces, we >>> keep each file separate, then create a "book" file that uses xinclude to >>> pull in the chapters. That simplifies the scripting and makes it easier to >>> move parts around in the book. >>> >>> Regarding the killer feature, if you use the right option (I don't remember >>> off-hand, but it's in Bob Stayton's book (http://sagehill.net)), you can >>> get exactly what you want for links in the hard copy. >>> >>> Best Regards, >>> Dick Hamilton >>> ------- >>> XML Press >>> XML for Technical Communicators >>> http://xmlpress.net >>> [email protected] >>> >>> >>> >>> On Jul 27, 2013, at 6:18 PM, Michael Crawford wrote: >>> >>>> Greetings, Earthlings, >>>> >>>> I have some articles and essays that are all marked up with valid XHTML >>>> 1.0 Strict with CSS, that I would like to publish as bound, dead-tree >>>> books, possibly also eBooks. >>>> >>>> It seems to me that the best way to do that would be to convert each >>>> collection of essays into a single DocBook XML document. Can you give me >>>> some tips on how to get started? I'm happy to Read The Fine Manual, but >>>> there are so many. >>>> >>>> One such volume, when printed both-sides on US Letter paper, is ~250 >>>> pages. The essays range from two to fifty pages. >>>> >>>> What I _think_ I need to do is to use some manner of XML-to-XML >>>> transformation, to strip everything from the beginning of each document, >>>> up to and including the opening <body>, then from the closing </body>, to >>>> the end of each document.... >>>> >>>> ... then concatenate them all together, with each present XHTML document >>>> being a single chapter in the resulting DocBook document... >>>> >>>> ... then replace HTML-style tags and attributes with DocBook-style: <p> to >>>> <Para>, for example... >>>> >>>> ... what would be for me, A Killer Feature, would be to convert each HTML >>>> <a href="..."> hyperlink into a DocBook footnote. So where I have this: >>>> >>>> =========== >>>> a long-forgotten <a href="http://www.kuro5hin.org/";>cesspool</a> in a >>>> far-off corner of the World-Wide Web... >>>> =========== >>>> would look something like this in hardcopy form: >>>> >>>> a long-forgotten cesspool[1] in a far-off corner of the World-Wide Web... >>>> ---- >>>> 1. http://www.kuro5hin.org/ >>>> >>>> ========= >>>> >>>> I'd also like to design my own custom stylesheets. I'll ask about that >>>> later though. I have a copy of "Android Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch >>>> Guide" by Bill Phillips and Brian Hardy. In the Acknowledgements, the >>>> authors credit Chris Loper of http://www.intelligentenglish.com/ for his >>>> DocBook toolchain. >>>> >>>> That volume is exquisite. I'd like to design my own volume, not to look >>>> the same, but to look as good, with my own personal style. >>>> >>>> Thanks for any advice you can give me. >>>> >>>> Mike Crawford >>>> [email protected] >>>> http://www.warplife.com/ >>>> >>>> >>> >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] >> For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] >> > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
