Via Bluberati blog:
There is a very interesting and valuable analysis of the costs and practicalities of having a photo album printed in full colour by some of the major internet printers here on Mike DelGaudio’s blog.
Approaching New Year calmly
Eoin
PS: Looks like I have been included in this test so enjoy the snap previews. I think they are great.
If Google are to be believed
GBS linked to this page of books including Dickens’ classic tale. You will see that the books are all limited preview and available to buy, yet Dickens is long dead and his books firmly in the public domain, surely they could have dreged up a version that was free to view and possibly free to download in their PDF versions?
Look what I found
Well you can. Here is the book for download from Google and here it is from Gutenberg.
Wondering why they didn’t link directly
Eoin
Christmas & the living is easy!
The office wind down is done and we had a meal last night in an absolutely wonderful restaurant called Tante Zoe’s, where we had their Christmas Dinner Menu. Definitely worth going if you have time and the inclination.
Making mince pies
I generally don’t post about things like this but I thought that seen as others have done a good deal of cooking recently, a little image of the mince pies I have been helping to cook most of the day (Blathnaid does most of the hard work) wouldn’t hurt.
I am sure I will post before Monday but just in case:
Still cooking,
Nollaig Shona
Eoin
From Where I sit:
The blog of Thomas Nelson boss Michael Hyatt (one of my favourite blogging CEOs by the way. He has a knack for blogging interesting and important points both for his internal audience and for those outside) has a very interesting analysis of the top ten trade publishers in the USA. It is built, in his words, from:
a proprietary database made up of various point-of-sale databases. It includes all the major retail sales channels. It does not include international, ministry, book fairs, direct-to-consumer sales, etc. If it did, we would be higher on the list because of our robust ministry, school fundraising, and live event sales. Scholastic would also be higher on the list because of their huge book fair business. However, this database only tracks sales through retail channels.
We are now updating this on a monthly basis. As far as I know, we are the only publisher in world who has this information.
Good Tidings
Joe Wikert points in the direction of some good news ont he Print On Demand front. Its an interesting CNN/Forbes article that runs with news about On Demand Books [I have linked to these guys before; you might recall they have a video of their product in action] Espresso book manufacturing unit. from the article:
The machine can print, align, mill, glue and bind two books simultaneously in less than seven minutes, including full-color laminated covers. It prints in any language and will even accommodate right-to-left texts by putting the spine on the right. The upper page limit is 550 pages, though by tweaking the page thickness and type size, you could get a copy of War and Peace (albeit tough to read) if you wanted.
Well I hope this does take off and makes books cheaper too but I remain to be convinced that this is the way to go. It may well be an internediate stage but it’s not the final destination.
Enjoying the season
Eoin
