Help needed : publishing hints and tips

[rocksteady Max]

I doubt it's the right place to ask this but TDPRI always amazes me with the variety and kindness of people.

The political struggle in my province (Quebec, Canada) led to some amazing texts by various intellectuals, artists, and workingclass people. I'd like to document this by selecting various texts and printing them in a book, a coffee-table book or online to document this history milestone. My question is, considering I don't have much money to invest, what are my options ? I want to focus on the texts and maybe add some pictures.

(Please do not post any comment unrelated to the project of assembling various texts into a book. That means no political comments since they are forbidden here.)

[telleutelleme]

Assuming you are only interested in the mechanics of the task, look at Microsoft Publisher or Adobe products for PC work. Easy to import text pictures and format for publication. Lots of options for layouts etc. Another low cost approach would be to use the Free-office software available from Sun (the Java folks). It has all the stuff needed to do what you want; just not integrated as well. Corel (Canada company) offers Wordperfect Office which is inexpensive and will do what you want. Some of these products feature web design stuff if you opt to go that direction. I cannot speak to MAC software but there is certainly commercial software available.

If publishing, once you have your layout in a form acceptable for publication send it to publishers for cost estimates. Lots are available online and do it fee based and have price breaks based on the number of units. Some will provide you with guidelines and layout examples as part of their fee based help.

If your work is to be sold to a publisher and NOT self-published then it is a greater task getting it accepted and you have to go through all the copyright, legal and editing review. You should do this anyway to avoid potential copyright or intellectual property issues.

Had a very close friend write a book on the mathematics of geodesy and cartography. He ended up self-publishing and has quite a number of copies sitting in his garage. He had a lot more enjoyment writing it than getting it published and sold. Note: Not intending to scare you out of the project.

I've written and co-written a number of technical articles and I can't imagine how much harder a book would be. Hope this helps a little.

[rocksteady Max]

thanks for the input. I work on a mac but I had no clue about publishing softwares. I'm still wondering the best format to export the project to in order to be able to print it myself, have it printed by a real printer, submit it to a publisher or publish it online on wordpress or else.

I won't put any of my own money to self-publish. For the time being I'll enjoy the project of having it done for the fun of it. I'll see where it gets me.

[KokoTele]

Originally Posted by rocksteady Max

thanks for the input. I work on a mac but I had no clue about publishing softwares. I'm still wondering the best format to export the project to in order to be able to print it myself, have it printed by a real printer, submit it to a publisher or publish it online on wordpress or else.

Each of these is a different question.

Print yourself or send to a print house/copy center: PDF
Submit to publisher: each publisher has its own guidelines you'll need to refer to. Generally MS Word or rich text format (.rtf) are universally accepted. Sometimes PDFs are also accepted.
Publish online: Anything that's easily converted to text with HTML tags. MS Word does this pretty well and offers blog publishing tools that integrate with wordpress and other tools.

Originally Posted by rocksteady Max

I won't put any of my own money to self-publish. For the time being I'll enjoy the project of having it done for the fun of it. I'll see where it gets me.

If you're not self-publishing, you don't need to worry too much about professional page layout. Your publisher will want to do that. And unless you're really gung-ho for graphic design, typography and page layout, you can stick with Word and get done most of what you need pretty easily. The learning curve for a page layout program may not be worth it.

As for getting published... some publishers accept unsolicited manuscripts, some don't. Many will let you submit an idea to see if they're interested.

The project you have in mind sounds like a pretty typical compilation, and you'll be the editor. There are standard rules you'll need to follow to republish the work of other authors, and any decent publishing house will have a standardized process you'll need to go through to document permission and payment to the original authors (if payment is applicable).

http://www.writersdigest.com/ has some good resources, though it's geared mostly toward creative writing.

[rocksteady Max]

Thanks Koko ! as for a page layout program I'm familiar with LaTeX. I'll check out the scope and limitations of this software.

Originally Posted by KokoTele

Each of these is a different question.

Print yourself or send to a print house/copy center: PDF
Submit to publisher: each publisher has its own guidelines you'll need to refer to. Generally MS Word or rich text format (.rtf) are universally accepted. Sometimes PDFs are also accepted.
Publish online: Anything that's easily converted to text with HTML tags. MS Word does this pretty well and offers blog publishing tools that integrate with wordpress and other tools.



If you're not self-publishing, you don't need to worry too much about professional page layout. Your publisher will want to do that. And unless you're really gung-ho for graphic design, typography and page layout, you can stick with Word and get done most of what you need pretty easily. The learning curve for a page layout program may not be worth it.

As for getting published... some publishers accept unsolicited manuscripts, some don't. Many will let you submit an idea to see if they're interested.

The project you have in mind sounds like a pretty typical compilation, and you'll be the editor. There are standard rules you'll need to follow to republish the work of other authors, and any decent publishing house will have a standardized process you'll need to go through to document permission and payment to the original authors (if payment is applicable).

http://www.writersdigest.com/ has some good resources, though it's geared mostly toward creative writing.

[rangercaster]

i would publish online or an e-book ... paper books entail expenses for printing, storage, distribution, shipping, etc ...

[Justinvs]

Look for a regional press (University Press or a small publisher that publishes the same kind of book you're interested in doing) and send them a pitch letter. Let them know in a one or two page synopsis what your book will be, what kind of audiance it might attract and any details or experience you have that make you the person to write this book. Send it off and while you wait for their response query a few other publishers or even agents.

One thing you want to make sure of, though, is that you have permission to use these texts before you even start putting a book together. No sense getting a go ahead from an editor only to discover you can't use copyrighted materiel.

Good luck!

Justin

[ne4tt]

RS Max,

If you are running OSX Lion,
Take a look in the Apple "App Store" for the "iBooks Author" app.

Not the iTunes App store.

Be sure to obtain the permissions from the authors to publish their "Intellectual property" to avoid copyright infringement.

jaime