[Scribus] Manual - revision

[John Jason Jordan]

On Wed, 31 Oct 2007 09:15:26 +0100
Petr Vanek <petr at scribus.info> dijo:

> here is a draft how I'd like to see the result form. It is not prefect (it
> was created when I had breakfast;)) of course but take it as just an
> opinion.

In case anyone is interested in making available a manual in real book
form, I happen to own a publishing company. I specialize in short runs.
I print everything on laser, and bind and trim myself. I use Laserjet
8000 printers for the guts (black and white, Postscript), and I have a
Xerox Phaser 7400 that I use for printing covers. I usually print
textbooks and the format is US letter, but I also commonly print books
in half-letter format. I have three book binding machines (paperback),
a professional guillotine for trimming, and a professional laminating
machine for the covers. My product looks as professional as anything
you see in a bookstore.

The advantage of my setup is that by printing on laser and doing it all
myself I can print in short runs almost as economically as large
publishing companies do with very long runs on a press. Thus, I can
print only a few hundred copies of a book at a time at affordable
prices. If changes are required I can make the changes to the next run,
so the books will always be the latest thing. I could produce a
500-page letter size manual for $15-$20 or so. We could also sell to
bookstores (Amazon, Powell's, Barnes and Noble, etc.). Bookstores want
a 40% discount, so we could establish a retail price of $25-$30. We
could sell on a website for the same price, with the difference being
donated to Scribus development.

I am in the US, and I can ship anywhere. However, if we want
translations the number of copies might be a problem. We'd need to sell
25 copies a month or so to make it worthwhile. I could see that for the
English version, but some languages do not have enough speakers.

There are other book publishing options - Lulu, for example. And if the
volume turns out to be more than I can comfortably handle, perhaps
other publishers might be a better idea. I don't want to become a big
business. I just decided I should toss this out to the list for
everyone's consideration and discussion.