[scribus] manual

[David Major]

I'm new(ish) to Linux, new(ish) to Scribus, and new to this list, but I
do know a fair bit about book publishing.

The first thing would be for someone, if it hasn't been done already, to
contact the current publisher. If it's a very small (one person?
family?) operation, they may have a good explanation for what's going
on. Maybe someone's been sick, for example.

But in terms of how to reliably provide the book:

Print-on-demand is the perfect answer.

A company like Lightning Source (https://www.lightningsource.com)
store the files for the book on their system. Lightning Source have
operations in the UK and the US. They are owned by Ingram, who are a
leading book distributor.

The book will appear in Ingram's database. That means that virtually
every online retailer in the world -- Amazon and all the others -- will
list it.

A customer orders it, say from Amazon. The order goes to Ingram. Ingram
send the order to Lightning Source. Lightning Source print one copy with
machinery that prints, trims and binds the book in a few minutes. The
book is packaged and shipped. This whole process is done with no human
intervention.

The book is always available, and can be updated any time by uploading
new files to Lightning Source.

There is no inventory of books to worry about storing, distributing or
selling.

Once a month, Lightning Source send out a check to the publisher, i.e.
the account holder for the book in question. This check is payment; the
wholesale price of the book, minus Lightning Source's printing charges
(which are small). 

I've used Lightning Source for years for many books, and their system
works well, and their production values are excellent. 

I don't know what percentage of the sales price the authors of the
manual are getting from sales of the existing edition, but it would be a
safe bet that the proceeds from a POD edition could be greater.

Once the book is in place with Lightning Source, everything is
automatic; you can just forget about it and wait for the checks.

All you'd need is someone who understands the Lightning Source system,
and how to format a book properly. 

All very easy.

David Major
(Osiran.com)



On Mon, 2009-09-28 at 11:59 +0100, David Goodenough wrote:

> 
> Have you thought of getting it onto the list of those bookshops which do
> on the spot printing.  I have no idea how this is done, but there are a 
> number of such bookshops (or rather chains of bookshops) in the UK
> that do this now, and I understand that it is spreading.  That way there 
> are no up front printing costs, but you still get your royalty.
> 
> David