Scenarios for the Publication of the 2nd Edition of the Manual
From Scribus Documentation Project
This page serves as a forum to discuss various scenarios for the second edition of the manual, like page size, number of pages, layout, distribution etc.
Printing specifications of the First Edition
- Final format: 6 X 9 inches
- Binding: Perfect bind
- Nb of pages: 450 pages interior no bleed, black ink
- Cover : bleed, 4-color process (C1 and C4)
- Interior paper: Enviro100 100% recycled post-consumer, 120M Text
- Cover: Carolina 12 pts C1S + gloss lamination
- Final hi-res PDF ready to print, with fonts embedded and images at hi-res (300 dpi at reproduction size)
Things to consider [to be completed by Louis]
- Final weight including shipping envelope
- Cost for shipping from various regions in the world (currently, North America and Europe). Info must contain mention of various services including air mail and ground mail and the guaranteed delay for each from the carrier (national post services or others).
- Thickness of book, according to paper used. Paper may differ from one country to another. This will affect the thickness of the spine and has to be reevaluated with each print shop.
- Find regional printers to allow quicker turnaround time including faster and low-cost delivery
- Find regional team for packing, handling & shipping
- Evaluation the need to laminate the book. Such plastic films are not environmental friendly and should be avoided when possible.
- If we re-evaluate the final size of the book, we need to consider the possible impacts on production costs; if we’re still going to be able to go digital; etc.
Production notes
The size of the book allows 4-up printing on most high-end digital printing devices. Increasing, even by a small amount, the size of the book will permit only 2-up printing on the same sheet of paper. I assume increasing the size of the book will not lead to a significant diminution of the total number of pages but instead will allow a less-packed layout and larger images. This decision alone will increase the costs of production. In order to reduce the impact on production costs we could take a lighter paper (ie. 100M Text instead of 120M text) but that decision needs in turn to be evaluated against the need for opacity according to the graphics. We could also have a cover printed in black only or keep the colors but take away the lamination, or both.
To be discussed
- Fix a target selling price to the end user and from there, figure out upstream costs to see where it leads us. (I will do that later.)
- Analyse the actual content of the manual from the sole perspective of the actual buyers and readers of such book. Suggestion: keep on paper the elements that we think are the most important for them. Separate the content into two categories, one for print and one for web or download. See if this can live up to the expectations of our users/readers.
- Ask ourselves how the existence of the manual helps the project and in what respect? Let’s fill the blanks here!
- better understanding of DTP in general
- explanations of all the functionalities of Scribus
- good source of revenues for the project and how much.
- help increase the notoriety of the project
- help increase the adoption of FLOSS in the graphic industry
- identify bugs, and/or identify things that may work but not how they are thought to work
- serve as a real-world test bed for the practicalities of doing layout for a sizeable book
- add a small chapter on the history of Scribus to honour the work of Franz, Peter etc. This is more than a matter of courtesy!
- learning the end-to-end process of publishing a book, from concept to creating and editing content to layout to printing to sales and distribution. This may serve us by allowing the promotion of Scribus as a means for other FLOSS projects to publish their own manuals, with or without our help. Will this lead to an actual "Scribus Publishing Company"? Maybe.
- other (please list)
to be continued...
