
Show HN: How I made the print and eBook versions of my web book - munificent
http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2014/11/03/bringing-my-web-book-to-print-and-ebook/
======
vram22
Other ebook creation / selling options:

Leanpub: [https://leanpub.com/](https://leanpub.com/)

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

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

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

There must be some others too.

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

~~~
jarcane
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.

------
netcan
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?

~~~
robfitz
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.

~~~
netcan
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?

~~~
robfitz
A kindle direct title can easily earn you $3 profit even if you keep the price
very low, and more like $7 if you price it like a normal book. So if you're
able to move that many copies, then certainly yes.

Self-publishing is more profitable per copy. With a publisher you'll make ~10%
of cover sales (so $1-1.50 per copy) versus the above.

Publishers offer [small] advances and cover some of the costs like editing. If
you can pay the $1250-3500 for a cover design and editor, and can do the
marketing, then you don't need a publisher for anything else.

The resources you're going to want are:

    
    
      * KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing for main distribution)
      * CreateSpace (turn PDFs into physical print-on-demand and list them on Amazon)
      * Scrivener or softcover.io (writing apps that easily export to ebook formats)
      * Wordpress + Themeforest (or softcover) for a book page
    

And that's about it. Very doable without a publisher.

~~~
netcan
I that case, why do established authors do deals with publishers?

~~~
maccard
When they weren't established authors, they signed deals for the next X books
to be with said publisher. Another is that an established author may sell X
copies at 15.00/copy, or Y copies at 25.00/copy (but only take 7.00 of the
25). If I'm an author, and my passion is writing, not marketing, if X _15 <
y_7, or even anywhere close to equal, then it makes sense to go with the
publisher, so you can spend more time writing

~~~
gdilla
Exactly. I work in publishing and I often wondered why established authors
don't just self publish. The answer: not all authors are Tim Ferris. They love
having a staff cater to them, market their books, and editorial help. They are
not really entrepreneurs like Ferris. They don't want to do too much more than
write or whatever else they do (many authors are celebrities in other fields
and are busy doing that, like most chefs on the food network).

------
jfc
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?

~~~
munificent
> 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](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CK8CLGG)

~~~
jfc
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.

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

We have a one source format based on markdown which is open source
([https://github.com/GitbookIO/gitbook](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

------
hieronymusN
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/](http://pollenpub.com/)

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

------
limedaring
Great post, thank you! Going to be embarking on that journey soon as I'm
finishing up my own book ([http://hellowebapp.com](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!

~~~
munificent
> 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.

~~~
limedaring
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!

------
ou812
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.

~~~
munificent
> 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.

~~~
ou812
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'.

~~~
munificent
Awesome, thank you for the heads up. I just sent them a note.

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

Swell! That's exactly what I want to do, and people have already asked for
that.

~~~
munificent
...and this is done now. The books are linked up. Once Amazon finishes
processing the change, you'll be able to buy the Kindle version for $3 after
you buy the print edition.

------
fideloper
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](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](https://book.serversforhackers.com)

~~~
vram22
Useful info about Leanpub, thanks.

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

------
petercooper
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.

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

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

~~~
munificent
Thanks!

------
phloxicon
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.

------
sgdesign
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.

------
tripzilch
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)

~~~
munificent
> 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.

------
snowmaker
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.

~~~
munificent
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!

------
krat0sprakhar
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

~~~
munificent
Sure! Here's the first three chapters:

[http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/sample.pdf](http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/sample.pdf)

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

~~~
munificent
It'll take me a while, but let me look into that. I'm certainly not opposed to
selling the PDF for people that want that, I just need to figure out the right
distribution system.

------
pseingatl
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.

------
benbristow
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!

------
pella
final web version : "Game Programming Patterns" :

[http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/contents.html](http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/contents.html)

------
lovelearning
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!

~~~
munificent
> 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?

~~~
lovelearning
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.

~~~
emsy
Recently I've tried to read a PDF on my Nexus 7. In portrait mode the letters
were to small, and in landscape I was constantly scrolling (and the letters
were still pretty small). I'm sincerly curious what good layout means, because
I've never had any issues with layout, only with too small text.

~~~
lovelearning
The ebooks I read are almost all technical books. Lots of code, diagrams,
equations, images.

I may be biased because of my particular collection, but what I've felt is the
PDFs in my collection "look" attractive and compel me to keep reading. I can
see the creative effort that has gone into them by their authors and editors.
Different colors for different kinds of text, syntax highlighted code, good
fonts, diagrams fit correctly, proper indentation, proper word wrapping,
chapter headers, footnotes at bottom of page, image wrapping and alignment in
a way that improves readability - etc. They justify the word "e-books", in the
sense that they feel like paper books.

EPUB/MOBI on the other hand I guess are subject to layout rules of the
particular reader and screen size, and for me, they don't look so attractive.
In most of my ebooks in these formats, code snippets for example are not
syntax highlighted and so don't make easy reading. Image wrapping is all out
of whack - an image is on one page, but its explanation which kind of assumes
the image is visible right there by its side, is actually on the next page.
Little details like that.

I agree with you about having to zoom and scroll a lot. But the readability of
PDF makes zooming and scrolling worth the effort for me. I guess ebook UX too
is just as subjective as website UX.

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

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

------
orangeduck
I've also recently self published my book
[http://www.buildyourownlisp.com/](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.

~~~
munificent
> I've also recently self published my book
> [http://www.buildyourownlisp.com/](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.

~~~
orangeduck
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!

------
v512
You tease me to buy the book which I don't need now, well done.

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

