Nath Jones's Blog - Posts Tagged "digital-disruption"
Progress with the real print edition
Last night I got home from sitting around a fire with some friends and discovered the most satisfying email thread I've had in quite some time.
I've been glad to accept the realities of the digital disruption. I've learned about text markup, reflowable content, and audiobooks. I'm okay with Amazon's bizarre market controls. I don't understand why things are as they are. Yet if this is the game, I'll play it.
But my God. Print is still, I mean--come on. We all want real books.
To that end David McNamara of CloudyOutside has done a beautiful job with the interior layout of a print edition for the On Impulse series.
The covers have been tough. The job has proved a challenge for three or four graphic designers. Finally my friend Chris Foresman was like, "This!" and gave us a kick ass cover for Acquainted with Squalor.
Especially with short story collections we want to flip around, browse. ePubs make that possible to a certain extent. But snooping around in a book on Kindle is a little harder.
Now. Do we have print? Technically yes. A couple Christmases ago, my friend Joe "Call Me Big Joe" Gembala said he needed print copies to give as gifts. Fine. So. Yes, Gin and I put together a PDF. We were able to upload it to CreateSpace for review copies. Yes, I made covers and was able to do some giveaways on here with that edition. But it never felt like a real print book. Partly because readers couldn't order the books from their local bookstores.
Now? I don't know. We're not there, but we're close. Fairly soon we should have a lovely print edition of all the books in this series. We're going to use IngramSpark so that there will be books people can order on Amazon but also buy from local brick & mortar bookstores.
Anyway, so I got home last night and after years of false starts, of foiled attempts, there was this simple exchange, real progress. Chris's email started with, "I'm using Futura Medium for the cover and spine." Later David replied with, "It looks like we're using Gill Sans Condensed and Fairfield in the interior."
I could still smell the fire.
I've been glad to accept the realities of the digital disruption. I've learned about text markup, reflowable content, and audiobooks. I'm okay with Amazon's bizarre market controls. I don't understand why things are as they are. Yet if this is the game, I'll play it.
But my God. Print is still, I mean--come on. We all want real books.
To that end David McNamara of CloudyOutside has done a beautiful job with the interior layout of a print edition for the On Impulse series.
The covers have been tough. The job has proved a challenge for three or four graphic designers. Finally my friend Chris Foresman was like, "This!" and gave us a kick ass cover for Acquainted with Squalor.
Especially with short story collections we want to flip around, browse. ePubs make that possible to a certain extent. But snooping around in a book on Kindle is a little harder.
Now. Do we have print? Technically yes. A couple Christmases ago, my friend Joe "Call Me Big Joe" Gembala said he needed print copies to give as gifts. Fine. So. Yes, Gin and I put together a PDF. We were able to upload it to CreateSpace for review copies. Yes, I made covers and was able to do some giveaways on here with that edition. But it never felt like a real print book. Partly because readers couldn't order the books from their local bookstores.
Now? I don't know. We're not there, but we're close. Fairly soon we should have a lovely print edition of all the books in this series. We're going to use IngramSpark so that there will be books people can order on Amazon but also buy from local brick & mortar bookstores.
Anyway, so I got home last night and after years of false starts, of foiled attempts, there was this simple exchange, real progress. Chris's email started with, "I'm using Futura Medium for the cover and spine." Later David replied with, "It looks like we're using Gill Sans Condensed and Fairfield in the interior."
I could still smell the fire.
