How I made the print and eBook versions of my web book

http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2014/11/03/bringing-my-web-book-to-print-and-ebook/

by munificent • 12 years ago

228 66 12 years ago

journal.stuffwithstuff.com

lovelearning3• 12 years ago

Do readers really prefer EPUB/MOBI over PDF? Personally, I've always preferred PDFs.

Nicely written article, by the way. Genever Benning's board meetings elicited a chuckle!

munificent15• 12 years ago

Do readers really prefer EPUB/MOBI over PDF?

A bunch do. When I read eBooks, I prefer them because I want the text to be reflowed on my device. PDFs only look good if your screen is about the dimensions that the PDF was authored for.

Personally, I've always preferred PDFs.

Hmm, I didn't make that format available but I certainly could once I figure out how. I'm not familiar with people buying PDFs. Is what you expect basically just a digital version of the print layout?

lovelearning3• 12 years ago

Just a personal preference, and I'm a single data point, so please don't mistake my opinion for market demand.

But to answer your question, yes I prefer reading the digital versions of print layouts as they are. Quite possibly because I feel the EPUB/MOBI ebooks I have are not laid out so well.

ludoo• 12 years ago

Epub is essential when reading on a device with a sub-8" screen, if you don't want to scroll horizontally while reading, or having to decipher tiny type. Plus, many Epub ebook readers support synchronization between different devices, so you can pick up your tablet and start reading from where you left off on your phone.

stoolpigeon• 12 years ago

For me it depends on the type of book. For anything that is primarily text, I always prefer epub. If I have the option I grab that and use Calibre to convert to anything else.

If the book has a lot of graphics or other content that doesn't translate well to a smaller device (I read the vast majority of books on my kindle, a few on my Galaxy S3) then I prefer pdf. A book I bought on using Gimp falls well into that category. I don't even bother trying to read it on anything less than a 19 inch monitor. There are too many large images and layout is too important.

Comics I prefer in PDF or CBR - either way. Though it still falls into the same issue that I haven't found a good experience with comics on my Nexus 7 or anything smaller. They are the only thing that has made me feel the desire to purchase a larger tablet.

pjmlp• 12 years ago

Yes, because ebook readers are crap at displaying PDFs and I cannot sit at the computer the whole day.

Additionally, ebook readers are much better for the eyes.

rtpg• 12 years ago

PDFs do not work well for example with the 6 inch kindle. It's like the difference between PDFs and HTML: the eReader can be a lot more flexible in presenting the text to fit the screen size.

paines• 12 years ago

Speaking for me, always MOBI, cause most PDF's look shitty on my Kindle. MOBI can always be scaled on a font basis, while PDFs are enlarged as whole pages making them bigger than the screen. Not sure how this behaves on bigger devices like iPad Air etc.... Besides that: Technical books are not meant for E-Readers. E.g: I regret buying "Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp" for Kindle, cause the code snippets are hardly readable and technical books are meant being read (sometimes in a non stringent order) and worked thru, with jumping back and forth, completely different like novels.

pella• 12 years ago

final web version : "Game Programming Patterns" :

http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/contents.html

limedaring2• 12 years ago

Great post, thank you! Going to be embarking on that journey soon as I'm finishing up my own book (http://hellowebapp.com). Great breakdown of the process, and your thoughts/mistakes. The first thing I thought when I saw your initial grid was that there was going to be problems with reading text near the spine. Great job catching that and getting the finished version looking great!

munificent15• 12 years ago

The first thing I thought when I saw your initial grid was that there was going to be problems with reading text near the spine.

First time around is always a learning experience. What's funny is I measured the inner margin distance on a couple of books and also followed CreateSpace's guidelines but I guess I tried to push the limit a bit too much.

limedaring2• 12 years ago

Yeah totally — I only knew about it because I took an editorial design class back in the day. One of those little things that not many people are aware of that goes into book design!

keeptrying• 12 years ago

I love posts like this which exude the joy and pain of a perfectionist. Congrats on getting it done :) ...

munificent15• 12 years ago

Thanks!

krat0sprakhar• 12 years ago

What an awesome post! Totally loved reading about how you typesetted the book. Thanks for sharing the video as well.

Would it be too much to ask you to share a single page in PDF (of the final copy) so that I too can

zoom into 1000% and drool over Sina Nova. :D

munificent15• 12 years ago

Sure! Here's the first three chapters:

http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/sample.pdf

mjmsmith• 12 years ago

Any chance I can buy the whole book in that format?

phloxicon• 12 years ago

I love the passion Bob puts into his work. This is such a fine book. I've already read it but I'm definitely getting the final version in paper.

snowmaker• 12 years ago

Awesome post!

We'd love to have your eBook available on Scribd, an unlimited book subscription service. We receive files from Smashwords, so just opt-in to the Scribd distribution channel. Shoot me a note if you do and we can give you some promotion in our tech category.

munificent15• 12 years ago

It's already opted-in and just waiting for Smashwords to ship it out. That in turn is pending Smashwords doing its manual review to make my book a "premium" one.

I thought about waiting until this was done before I made the announcement but what I've read is that they can get backlogged a couple of weeks, and I wasn't patient enough to wait that long. :)

Thank you for taking an interest in my book!

NKCSS• 12 years ago

One of the best reads in a while; such a fun and wel written piece!

Lrigikithumer• 12 years ago

You're a very talented writer and I thoroughly enjoyed your post, best of luck with selling your book!

benbristow• 12 years ago

Absolutely fascinating. Even though I probably wouldn't ever write a book (at least not at this stage in my life) this is very interesting. I'm sure it's pretty similar in the UK.

Thanks for the insight!

ou8125• 12 years ago

FYI, if the author is reading comments here, you can have the kindle and print versions 'linked' so they appear on the same Amazon page.

This is an old self publishing trick to make the kindle version seem like a bargain, and can drive sales.

munificent15• 12 years ago

FYI, if the author is reading comments here,

I am!

you can have the kindle and print versions 'linked' so they appear on the same Amazon page.

Yes, from the docs I read, Amazon does that automatically, but it can take a few days. I couldn't find any UI to do the association myself.

ou8125• 12 years ago

Yup, there is no UI to do it manually, but you can email the people at KDP and they will link the book for you. I've waited for it to happened automatically in the past, and it hasn't worked out for me.

Once linked, you can also do cool things like offer the ebook at a discount (or for free) if they buy the print version.

Having both versions on the same page really makes the whole thing look more 'professional'.

v512• 12 years ago

You tease me to buy the book which I don't need now, well done.

sgdesign• 12 years ago

Great write-up. A lot of people have asked us why we haven't made a print version of Discover Meteor yet. Next time, I'll just point them at your post!

And to be honest, although we do provide ePub/mobi versions, we've decided from the start to put our efforts into the online version and PDF. It's just so much easier to produce something that looks good for a lot less effort.

netcan4• 12 years ago

This is the sort of stuff that was mainly in the realm of publishers until recently. I'm always curious about the degree to which what publishers, record labels and similar industries do is being parceled out to smaller services.

When writers write about why they need publishers, they usually mention editing, marketing & advances. I imagine for many people marketing is not very relevant. Either the publishers will not do much of it anyway or the author has access to an audience himself. Advances are also (I imagine) not that important to many authors. Maybe some need the commitment as part of their process but purely as a way of financing, I don't see an insurmountable requirement that this be bundled with the other things they do. Most authors are not going to make money anyway so a small chunk now or a slightly larger trickle later doesn't matter much either way.

Is there a thriving industry of editors for hire? People who will take raw text and turn it into books?

What's the state of this ecosystem today?

robfitz2• 12 years ago

There are lots of freelance editors and cover designers, yes. Covers may run $100-300. Editors from roughly $1000-3000.

The marketing you largely have to do yourself, and there are a few different approaches. For business books, the main one is to treat the book as a regular old problem-solving-product and do content/permission marketing with a focus on building the mailing list.

For fiction, it seems that the most successful authors are serialising their full-length books into a number of chapters that they release monthly on Kindle Direct for $1-3 each. They focus on building their catalog of titles over time to slowly build and retain fans who then [hopefully] keep buying new titles or binge-read the whole back catalog.

There are also some premium consultancies that help self-publishing authors have a publisher-quality process through and through, for a price more like $10,000-30,000. And finally, you've got the parasites who will "offer" to "publish" your book for a small fee, which basically means the author is the customer.

netcan4• 12 years ago

Lets put it this way...

Joe Smith is a working fiction writer. He has a fan base that he knows how to reach. His books usually sell 25-35,000 copies (A) Can he make a living? (B) Is he better off with an old fashioned publisher (C) If he goes "indie," what services does he need? Are good ones available at a doable price?

tripzilch• 12 years ago

Wow. When I got to the end of that blog post I seriously felt like giving him a round of applause.

Cheers!

(am seriously considering buying the book weren't it that I still got a stack of reading of both new and borrowed books that I prefer to make smaller before I make it bigger. Maybe instead I'll get it as a present for someone)

munificent15• 12 years ago

am seriously considering buying the book weren't it that I still got a stack of reading of both new and borrowed books that I prefer to make smaller before I make it bigger.

I feel your pain. I still have a copy of SICP staring at me, making me feel guilty for ignoring it. Maybe now I'll have the time to actually work through it.

orangeduck2• 12 years ago

I've also recently self published my book http://www.buildyourownlisp.com/ via createspace, having first converted it to an ebook and then to a print book, so I was really interested to see this article to read what was the same and what was different. I did speak to a couple of keen publishers, and I guess ended up self publishing for similar reasons. I wanted more control over the process and the final layout, and some publishers were not happy with having a free version provided online.

Creating the ebook was fairly easy. It ended up being a case of writing a bunch of scripts to fix and tweak various things about the HTML website. Constructing the print book was a lot harder work.

I explored rendering a PDF from the ebook but the font rendering was ulitmately too poor and the configuration of the ebook tools was getting really difficult. Additionally the text layout was not great with lots of code blocks getting split over pages and images in wrong places.

I knew I needed to use a program more suitable for publishing so I tried doing a manual conversion to Latex, but after the first couple of chapters I realized it was going to take too long. Instead I begun on some scripts converting my HTML into Latex automatically. Most of this work was done by `pandoc` and a list of regexes that redefines "unholy". God only knows how it all worked in the end. I found various Latex solutions for the pullouts, and syntax highlighting, that I liked ang which gave me as much control as I required, and in the end it was actually looking pretty nice.

Then came the copy editing, and like in this article it was long, tedious, difficult, and I'm still not completely 100% happy with the final result. It took the form of a bunch of scripts inserting pagebreaks before or after paragraphs and moving text, images and pullouts to balance the pages. Essentially it is very difficult to copy-edit a book with so many code blocks, even with the help of Latex. This is the only part of the process where I felt down on my skills, and that someone who does it for a living would not face the same problems (probably they wouldn't be using Latex in the first place). But in the end I was happy with the interiour - which still looked awesome printed in color - and I think I by far did the best I could.

I designed and made the cover in Photoshop to the vision of it I had always had. I think I did a fairly decently job but certainly it would have been better looked at by a professional. Unfortunately createspace doesn't seem to do a good job of printing the cover, so it didn't look precisely like the supplied image I made. Perhaps this is different when ordering non-proof copies.

The nice thing about my approach was that when people send pull requests and corrections to the website I can automatically integrate them across the ebook and print versions, and if I ever do want to make updates in future the process is relatively painless. I think I'd be happy to self publish again. Createspace was great and I felt good not having to rely on others for the process. The main thing I didn't like about it was the marketing - that is something that does not come naturally to me. I think it is unlikely I will write a programming book again. It was fun, but I felt like finishing it more of an obligation once the ball was rolling. Ultimately I think I made a "good" thing which lots of people read, enjoyed and appreciated, and I know it wasn't just an additional item of waste in the universe due to all the people who have reached out to me personally (thank you so much). But at the end of the day unfortunately it hasn't derived me satisfaction worth the effect it took to produce - which was a lot - and I think that is just due to the nature of the thing, not it's success or position in the world.

munificent15• 12 years ago

I've also recently self published my book http://www.buildyourownlisp.com/ via createspace

Oh, I just saw your post about this a couple of days ago. Your book looks beautiful! I was so tempted to do full color, but didn't think the finances made sense for my book. I'm totally jealous you went that route. :)

How did it end up working out? I assume it's process, not spot color. Is the colored text still sharp enough to be read easily?

Instead I begun on some scripts converting my HTML into Latex automatically. Most of this work was done by `pandoc` and a list of regexes that redefines "unholy". God only knows how it all worked in the end. I found various Latex solutions for the pullouts, and syntax highlighting.

Smart! I considered this route a little bit, but I spent some of my formative years doing "desktop publishing" back when Aldus PageMaker was still a thing, so I looked forward to doing it a more hands-on, designery way. It worked out well for me -- the time I spent in InDesign was really enjoyable -- but I can definitely see how it wouldn't be the right choice for others.

Essentially it is very difficult to copy-edit a book with so many code blocks, even with the help of Latex. This is the only part of the process where I felt down on my skills, and that someone who does it for a living would not face the same problems (probably they wouldn't be using Latex in the first place).

It's a relief to hear someone else say this. Trying to keep the code blocks from being split was really really hard. Halfway through the process, I started flipping through my copy of SICP to see how they did it. As far as I can tell, though guys are just absolute wizards. Every page is completely full and yet code blocks are almost never split across pages. Granted, Scheme snippets tend to be fewer lines of code, but they still did an amazing job.

Unfortunately createspace doesn't seem to do a good job of printing the cover, so it didn't look precisely like the supplied image I made.

I've done some print work before, so I was fully expecting some variance here. Unless you have a carefully calibrated display and keep track of color profiles through the whole pipeline (and they do too), there's always some difference.

In my case, it came out surprisingly close to the image I sent, but I tried to keep the design pretty simple and not use too much detail or color.

The nice thing about my approach was that when people send pull requests and corrections to the website I can automatically integrate them across the ebook and print versions, and if I ever do want to make updates in future the process is relatively painless.

Yeah, this part will be rough for me. The print version is basically a fork at this point. Any changes I make, I have to manually make in both the markdown (eBook + web) and InDesign (print).

But at the end of the day unfortunately it hasn't derived me satisfaction worth the effect it took to produce - which was a lot - and I think that is just due to the nature of the thing, not it's success or position in the world.

For what it's worth, I'm really glad you made it, and I'll be buying a copy.

orangeduck2• 12 years ago

Thanks for the support, and congratuations to yourself on publishing. It looks like you've done a really great job and totally nailed the process and the print version!

How did it end up working out? I assume it's process, not spot color. Is the colored text still sharp enough to be read easily?

Yeah it isn't spot color and the text looks really great and easy to read. The print quality of the interiour seems very high quality and it really makes it seem alive with the images and colored sections. I think it keeps it fun to read, which was always one of my intentions. I was totally over the moon with the interiour when the first proof copy arrived.

But as you mention financially it isn't going to make much sense. I don't make much more off the print book than the ebook sale, and yet it costs the consumer ten times as much! So in some sense it was kind of vanity project - but I still enjoyed it a lot, and wanted to prove I could do it additionally.

It worked out well for me -- the time I spent in InDesign was really enjoyable -- but I can definitely see how it wouldn't be the right choice for others.

Actually if someone had mentioned InDesign to me I might have given it a try. I mainly picked Latex because I knew the font rendering and formatting would be awesome and it was something I knew already so I could get started. As you say, InDesign is fun, while working on a complex project in Latex isn't exactly a joy. But I think the end product was still sufficiently professional :)

I've done some print work before, so I was fully expecting some variance here. Unless you have a carefully calibrated display and keep track of color profiles through the whole pipeline (and they do too), there's always some difference.

Yeah I probably should have been prepared for this. And additionally there was some error in how they were cutting the bleed which looked poor with my cover design. If I did it again I would definintely try to find a professional to consult before tacking the cover for any friendly advice he/she had to offer.

For what it's worth, I'm really glad you made it, and I'll be buying a copy.

Thanks! I feel bad ending on a downer because I really have gotten a lot of pleasure out of it, so I don't want to paint the process in a negative light. As a learning experience it was really unique and great. There are just too many fun, great and unique areas of computer science to play around with as well!

AaronO• 12 years ago

Enabling authors to self publishing is something we're doing with GitBook (https://www.gitbook.io/).

We have a one source format based on markdown which is open source (https://github.com/GitbookIO/gitbook) ! And from this we build a nice web book, ebook (EPUB, MOBI) and PDFs.

I don't want this to be a shameless plug, it just seems oddly relevant. Hope it helps !

Disclaimer: I am the founder of GitBook

petercooper• 12 years ago

With all of the tools available now - some of which were mentioned in this writeup - it really puts into perspective the efforts Edward Tufte went through with his awesome books 10-30 years ago. I believe he said he spent into six figures just getting The Visual Display of Quantitative Information produced and out of the door.

munificent15• 12 years ago

Edward Tufte is my hero. His books were some of the ones I measured when trying to figure out my metrics. :)

hieronymusN• 12 years ago

Very good article, I've also been down the path of using Ruby + LaTeX to build print books. It ain't easy.

You might take a look at a project by Matthew Butterick: he made a very nice publishing solution with Pollen - http://pollenpub.com/

He also has an interesting take on eBooks in general: http://practicaltypography.com/economics-year-one.html

vram223• 12 years ago

Other ebook creation / selling options:

Leanpub: https://leanpub.com/

Softcover: https://www.softcover.io/ By Michael Hartl, author of the Rails tutorial.

Lulu: https://www.lulu.com/ is still around too, originally by the creator of Red Hat.

O'Reilly Atlas: https://atlas.oreilly.com/ - new; may be only for books you write with them as publisher, not sure.

There must be some others too.

munificent15• 12 years ago

Blurb and Lightning Source are two others I recall looking into.

vram223• 12 years ago

Thanks, I hadn't heard of Lightning Source.

jarcane2• 12 years ago

Lightning Source is who provide the actual printing services for my published books (though contracted through a third-party marketplace). Not bad quality, and meeting their standards was a lot more painless than Lulu used to be.

jfc2• 12 years ago

Very entertaining read; I suspect your book is equally interesting.

I've had both experiences, one book published by a mid-sized publisher, and self-publishing another. When publishing the book myself, I found myself immersed in the world of typography, paper weights, ISBNs, and designs. It was really, really fun. I'm thinking through a new book project now and am starting that process again. I'm looking forward to seeing what new tools are out there.

A bit off topic, but what I really liked was that little pumpkin pie that you baked. How small it was! Why was it pink? Even the consistency of the pie looks perfect. I can't figure out how you got those small wisps of whipped cream into such tiny loops?

munificent15• 12 years ago

I really liked was that little pumpkin pie that you baked. How small it was! Why was it pink? Even the consistency of the pie looks perfect. I can't figure out how you got those small wisps of whipped cream into such tiny loops?

I was stretching the truth a bit by "baked". It was baked in an oven, but that's because it's made out of Sculpey. :)

My wife checked out a book [1] about making food from polymer clay from the library and we spent an afternoon playing with it with the kids. I was pretty pleased with how mine came out.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CK8CLGG

jfc2• 12 years ago

Very cool, thanks for the update. I probably should have paid more careful attention to the paint brushes next to it, would have given me a clue.

ryanthejuggler• 12 years ago

I'm going to go ahead and ask the question on all our minds: can you really run Apache/Perl on an Arduino?

fideloper• 12 years ago

My eBook was made using Leanpub, which allows you to create on their platform and sells on others (thanks, Leanpub!)

See Leanpub's FAQ question "Can I sell my book on Leanpub and other sites at the same time?" -- https://leanpub.com/help/author_faq

All that being wonderful, I found attempting to do any customizations (font, font size, line height) impossible - both in attempting to figure out markdown -> pdf tools (or md -> html -> pdf) and within services such as Leanpub.

There's definitely a market out there for creating eBooks with customizations for those who care about the look and feel of their publications! And if not a "paying market", at least an interested on for either a service or good tutorials!

For the curious, I wrote "servers for hackers": https://book.serversforhackers.com

vram223• 12 years ago

Useful info about Leanpub, thanks.

Also, your newsletter looks interesting. Signed up for it.

pseingatl• 12 years ago

1. You forgot getting a Library of Congress catalog number and then typesetting that text block (typesetting of L/C data is a bit peculiar). Without L/C information you won't have any library sales.

2. Your typesetting saga is a good argument for using LaTex over InDesign. Why not stand on the shoulders of giants? If you like the Tufte design format, just use the Tufte LaTex package. No need to reinvent the wheel.

3. The PDF format is page-size agnostic. If people would create them in a friendlier format, say 6x9in or so instead of lettersize or A4; they would be easy to read on tablets.

How I made the print and eBook versions of my web book

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