Re: About Fedora coffee table book....

[Doug Berry]

> Nicu Buculei wrote:
> Why do you make the assumption that we don't know to use GIMP? And we are >talking
> here about imported photos, not about newly created images. 
The GIMP or any other imaging program is just a means to an end - it is a way of taking
lesser quality images and enhancing them. You can bet that every photograph published in a
book anywhere was gone over and enhanced at some point, either by the original
photographer or some where down the line.

> Yes, we don't have the perfect conditions, but knowing the goal is
> print >we can work a bit more on the photos. 
Exactly. The point may have gotten lost somewhere, but ultimately, it should be the
picture taker who test prints and enhances their own photos before they submit them. 

> Do you think we use our mobile phones to take photos? Most of the
> cameras >I saw used at the last FUDCon were DSLRs. Isn't this enough? 
Maybe, maybe not. Most digital cameras are set to take lower resolution photos, simply so
you can fit more pictures onto the storage disc. Taking more pictures is the assumed goal.
For example, a digital photo shot at 150 dpi may come in at 100K. If you beefed it up to
say 600 or1000 dpi it might top out at 100 megs. Most people set there camera resolutions
as low as possible to get more pictures.

And digital cameras are still relatively expensive and not everybody in the Fedora World
Community may have them. Many dinosaurs like me still use film.  

> I don't remember seeing something about turning a profit. 
I think someone said something about donating any proceeds to charity, or something like
that.

> We have over 600 photos made at the Brno FUDCon and a lot more of them
> >were left out: http://www.flickr.com/groups/fudconbrno/pool/ (and we have >not
> planned for a book) 
I'm sure we could probably come up with thousands of photos, worldwide. And if they
are all high-res digital quality then that would make to job so much easier. But it is
probably best to assume that most will not make the cut for one reason or another. 

> How I can run trough a scanner my photos, they are already in a
> digital >format... 
Are submissions for the book only open to persons who have digital cameras?
I would think that would rule out a lot of people from participating, right there.

> Scribus *is* part of Fedora, however, not part of the default
> install.
> I for one would be interested in reading a bit about how Scribus can be >used to create
> such a book with it. 
Scribus is great, I have used it for so much and it keeps getting better and better. On
the Scribus website, www.scribus.net, they list several books that were developed using
Scribus. One new one is a Chinese language text book on the morphology of the
leaf-beetle.

> How about using something like lulu.com as a publisher? For example
> >http://www.lulu.com/en/products/photo_books/?cid=en_product_portal 
Lulu is okay, but they are pricey. Print-On-Demand is great for authors. It pays the
highest royalties in the business. And the process, where no books are printed unless
there is a paid order, is good too. As compared to large print runs for a fixed price. But
if the books do not sale you have a garage full of books.

But what POD publishers do not do, or for which they charge a fortune, is all the little
things that add quality to a book. Like: spell-checking, grammar-checking, fact-checking,
cover art (many force you to use gaudy one-size-fits-all cover templates), and layout.
Layout is the most important part of the process, and is something that authors should do
themselves: authors or their Book Packagers.

So, as far as a publisher goes, POD is a viable option, but perhaps something like Cafe
Press would be a better choice. Although I have never used them, as I understand and this
may have changed, if we laid out and created the embedded PDF files containing the book,
burn them onto a CD or DVD, send them to Cafe Press, for a nominal fee ($200.00, I've
heard, but it may be more for a coffee table book) they assign an ISBN, create the
bar-code and send the book to Lightning Source, their printer fulfiller.

Or we could bypass a publisher altogether and publish it ourselves. Fedora Publishing
Project, and how you might ask would we accomplish that. Well, Red Hat must already be a
digital or even a print publisher, perhaps we could spin-off a print franchise or
something. Red Hat must also have some sort of relationship with a quality printer, for
labels, brochures, advertising, etc. RED Hat may already have everything we would need.
Such as ISBN numbers (block of ten around $300.00), since published software requires ISBN
type control numbers, bar-codes, and the like. Packaging a DVD is not much different then
packaging a book.  

We already have the necessary software to layout and create all the elements of the book.
Using Scribus, OO, Abiword, and the GIMP, we could create every part of the book
ourselves. In fact, I think we already have everything we would need to make the book; it
is more like assembling it then it is creating it from scratch.

Or we could take Fedora Publishing to Lightning Source. They are a division of Ingrams and
they do not charge their publishers a fortune. They make their money printing and selling
books. They charge a reasonable set-up fee, and a small per book printing charge. Then
they take the order, print the book, and mail it to the customer . Publisher does none of
that.

As an example of this, Scribus just had published their latest manual in book form. I am
assuming they did all the layout and the book is coming out almost as we speak. Is
different then out book, a 450 page tome, that costs 26 pounds. So this is just an example
to show it can be done.

-- w Douglas Berry --
slasherzee(a)fedoraproject.org

[Ambassadors] Re: About Fedora coffee table book....

[Ian Weller]

On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 11:14:47AM -0800, Doug Berry wrote:
>  The GIMP or any other imaging program is just a means to an end - it
> is a way of taking lesser quality images and enhancing them. You can bet that every
> photograph published in a book anywhere was gone over and enhanced at some point, either
> by the original photographer or some where down the line.
>   
I guess you fail to realize that Nicu and I are both on the art team,
and we have Mo helping us out with this. We all know how to use the GIMP
pretty fluently.

>  >Do you think we use our mobile phones to take photos? Most of the
> cameras >I saw used at the last FUDCon were DSLRs. Isn't this enough?
>  
>  Maybe, maybe not. Most digital cameras are set to take lower resolution photos, simply so
> you can fit more pictures onto the storage disc. Taking more pictures is the assumed goal.
> For example, a digital photo shot at 150 dpi may come in at 100K. If you beefed it up to
> say 600 or1000 dpi it might top out at 100 megs. Most people set there camera resolutions
> as low as possible to get more pictures.
>  
>  And digital cameras are still relatively expensive and not everybody in the Fedora World
> Community may have them. Many dinosaurs like me still use film.  
>   
Mo has a DSLR, she'll be at FUDCon Boston.

>  >I don't remember seeing something about turning a profit.
>  
>  I think someone said something about donating any proceeds to charity, or something like
> that.
>   
I did mention possibly donating to OLPC or something *if* we turned up a
profit, which would be totally unnecessary.

>  Lulu is okay, but they are pricey. Print-On-Demand is great for
> authors. It pays the highest royalties in the business. And the process, where no books
> are printed unless there is a paid order, is good too. As compared to large print runs for
> a fixed price. But if the books do not sale you have a garage full of books.
>  
>  But what POD publishers do not do, or for which they charge a fortune, is all the little
> things that add quality to a book. Like: spell-checking, grammar-checking, fact-checking,
> cover art (many force you to use gaudy one-size-fits-all cover templates), and layout.
> Layout is the most important part of the process, and is something that authors should do
> themselves: authors or their Book Packagers.
>   
The book sources will be posted to fedora-art-list,
fedora-marketing-list, and plenty of other lists for people to check
over. I will diligently be checking every page's grammer and speeling,
and I'm sure others will be too.

>  So, as far as a publisher goes, POD is a viable option, but perhaps
> something like Cafe Press would be a better choice. Although I have never used them, as I
> understand and this may have changed, if we laid out and created the embedded PDF files
> containing the book, burn them onto a CD or DVD, send them to Cafe Press, for a nominal
> fee ($200.00, I've heard, but it may be more for a coffee table book) they assign an
> ISBN, create the bar-code and send the book to Lightning Source, their printer fulfiller.
>  
>  Or we could bypass a publisher altogether and publish it ourselves. Fedora Publishing
> Project, and how you might ask would we accomplish that. Well, Red Hat must already be a
> digital or even a print publisher, perhaps we could spin-off a print franchise or
> something. Red Hat must also have some sort of relationship with a quality printer, for
> labels, brochures, advertising, etc. RED Hat may already have everything we would need.
> Such as ISBN numbers (block of ten around $300.00), since published software requires ISBN
> type control numbers, bar-codes, and the like. Packaging a DVD is not much different then
> packaging a book.  
>   
This seems like a very viable option, thanks for brining that up.

>  We already have the necessary software to layout and create all the
> elements of the book. Using Scribus, OO, Abiword, and the GIMP, we could create every part
> of the book ourselves. In fact, I think we already have everything we would need to make
> the book; it is more like assembling it then it is creating it from scratch.
>   
Yeah, I realize that :)

>  Or we could take Fedora Publishing to Lightning Source. They are a
> division of Ingrams and they do not charge their publishers a fortune. They make their
> money printing and selling books. They charge a reasonable set-up fee, and a small per
> book printing charge. Then they take the order, print the book, and mail it to the
> customer . Publisher does none of that.
>   
Ooh, nice.

>  As an example of this, Scribus just had published their latest manual
> in book form. I am assuming they did all the layout and the book is coming out almost as
> we speak. Is different then out book, a 450 page tome, that costs 26 pounds. So this is
> just an example to show it can be done.
>   
Douglas, are you willing to help us with the publishing process? If so,
pipe in on fedora-marketing-list, or start making necessary edits to the
page on the wiki[1]. I'm not worried at all about having high-enough
quality photos or the inability to edit the pages together (I'm already
starting to work on mockups, I'll be sending those out soonish) -- what
I am worried about is getting this done in a timely matter with the
least cost to us and those who want to buy the book.

I'm glad you have some experience in this business... I have a lot of
experience with POD for shirts, but not books. Maybe we can talk on IRC
sometime, ping me in #fedora-marketing (ianweller).

Please, I would like to keep this all on fedora-marketing-list.

[1]: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Picture_book

-- 
Ian Weller <ianweller(a)gmail.com&gt;                  http://ianweller.org
GnuPG fingerprint:  E51E 0517 7A92 70A2 4226  B050 87ED 7C97 EFA8 4A36
"Technology is a word that describes something that doesn't work yet."
  ~ Douglas Adams

About Fedora coffee table book....

[Nicu Buculei]

Doug Berry wrote:
> > Nicu Buculei wrote:
> > Why do you make the assumption that we don't know to use GIMP? And we are
> >talking here about imported photos, not about newly created images.
>  
>  The GIMP or any other imaging program is just a means to an end - it is a way of taking
> lesser quality images and enhancing them. You can bet that every photograph published in a
> book anywhere was gone over and enhanced at some point, either by the original
> photographer or some where down the line. 
Yeah, and for any Linux-based photographer that tool is GIMP. I think is 
a good think to insist to produce the book exclusively with tools 
available in Fedora.

> > Do you think we use our mobile phones to take photos? Most of the
> cameras >I saw used at the last FUDCon were DSLRs. Isn't this enough?
>  
>  Maybe, maybe not. Most digital cameras are set to take lower resolution photos, simply so
> you can fit more pictures onto the storage disc. Taking more pictures is the assumed goal.
> For example, a digital photo shot at 150 dpi may come in at 100K. If you beefed it up to
> say 600 or1000 dpi it might top out at 100 megs. Most people set there camera resolutions
> as low as possible to get more pictures. 
I see you are coming from film... in the digital world we use Megapixels 
not DPI :p We have to define the target print size and from this the 
needed minimum resolution, which would probably be something around 4 or 
5 Megapixels.

And only absolute newbies will set their camera to something less than 
4MP, storage space is cheap, the photos made by my camera at 12MP 
usually have under 5MB in JPEG format and around 15MB as RAW. You may 
not see this on the photos posted on flickr, since those are optimised 
for web use.

>  And digital cameras are still relatively expensive and not everybody
> in the Fedora World Community may have them. Many dinosaurs like me still use film.  
Not everybody, but you will be surprised how many of us have such toys. 
I believe I saw in Brno over 10 people with such toys and at least 5 of 
them would probably love to get involved in such a project.

>  I'm sure we could probably come up with thousands of photos,
> worldwide. And if they are all high-res digital quality then that would make to job so
> much easier. But it is probably best to assume that most will not make the cut for one
> reason or another.  
Sure most won't make the cut, what we have so far was not made with 
printing in mind.

> > How I can run trough a scanner my photos, they are already in a
> digital >format...
>  
>  Are submissions for the book only open to persons who have digital cameras?
>  I would think that would rule out a lot of people from participating, right there.
I think we don't want to leave anybody out, but from my experience the 
huge majority work digitally.

>  Scribus is great, I have used it for so much and it keeps getting
> better and better. On the Scribus website, www.scribus.net, they list several books that
> were developed using Scribus. One new one is a Chinese language text book on the
> morphology of the leaf-beetle. 
We have used it here mostly for posters, stickers and CD covers. Putting 
a book together should be a useful experience.

>  So, as far as a publisher goes, POD is a viable option, but perhaps
> something like Cafe Press would be a better choice. Although I have never used them, as I
> understand and this may have changed, if we laid out and created the embedded PDF files
> containing the book, burn them onto a CD or DVD, send them to Cafe Press, for a nominal
> fee ($200.00, I've heard, but it may be more for a coffee table book) they assign an
> ISBN, create the bar-code and send the book to Lightning Source, their printer fulfiller.
I think we have some in-house competence for those tasks.

>  Or we could bypass a publisher altogether and publish it ourselves.
> Fedora Publishing Project, and how you might ask would we accomplish that. Well, Red Hat
> must already be a digital or even a print publisher, perhaps we could spin-off a print
> franchise or something. Red Hat must also have some sort of relationship with a quality
> printer, for labels, brochures, advertising, etc. RED Hat may already have everything we
> would need. Such as ISBN numbers (block of ten around $300.00), since published software
> requires ISBN type control numbers, bar-codes, and the like. Packaging a DVD is not much
> different then packaging a book.   
Selecting the publisher is an area where I decline competence and leave 
the decision for the others.


-- 
nicu :: http://nicubunu.ro :: http://nicubunu.blogspot.com
Cool Fedora wallpapers: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/wallpapers/
Open Clip Art Library: http://www.openclipart.org
my Fedora stuff: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro