Hello world!

Hi, and welcome to my first blog.

First-off, introductions.

My name is Simon and my wife, Josette, and I run a book-design, typesetting and graphics company called Carrigboy: Print and ePublishing Solutions (which you can find at www.carrigboy.co.uk).

I mainly look after the graphics and computer side of the business. Josette manages the book-design, layout and typesetting – also overseeing any French or German language work, as she is fluent in those languages as well as English.

Yes, the main purpose is, of course, to promote our business. But it’s also a chance for me sound off about my, (our), passion for what we do and all the fascinating, game changing, paradigm-shifting ‘stuff’ going on in the publishing world right now.

And, hopefully, to get some feedback.

We are based near the ancient city of Wells in the county of Somerset in the U.K. We have been established for over 17 years, with many years’ experience before that.

We have designed, typeset and helped to publish many thousands of books for international legal and academic publishers, as well as self publishing authors.

From our experience, we tend to specialize particularly in error critical work and with non-standard, technical or complex layout. In the emerging market of ebooks this can be a particular problem with re-flowing text and re-pagination.

We have extensive experience in all aspects of getting books published –book-design, graphic-design, typesetting, proofing, editing & corrections and print, web or ebook delivery

We specialize in –

• error-critical content,
• complex/technical layout,
• book design and graphics handling,
• never missing a deadline,
• good customer communication,
• competitive pricing.

What’s that? All books are ‘error-critical’ you say?

Well of course, you are correct. However, as George Orwell didn’t write, “some books are more error-critical than others.” An erratum slip is a dreadful thing to have to put in any book. But in a legal or educational text book, exam paper and in many specialist academic or technical works it is quite simply unacceptable.

If you are publishing to a deadline and have the distribution and retailing scheduled, ready and set to go, then you’ll find that we are – professional and accurate; experienced and precise; meticulous and efficient, friendly and UK based; deadline sensitive and cost effective.

And that’s enough of the sales pitch! (By the way, did I mention that you could see and download samples of much of our work from our on-line portfolio at http://www.carrigboy.co.uk/portfolio ?)

Sorry! (or that you can find our contact details here http://www.carrigboy.co.uk/Contact-Us ?)

No, really, that’s it!

In this first blog I thought I’d just touch, very briefly, on a couple of things on my mind. Mostly definitions and consequences. What actually is book design, an e-book (sic), ePublishing, self-publishing and micro publishing, ebooks and, just in case I forgot to mention them, ebooks?

And, the $64,000(,000…) question – what’s going to happen? What’s going to change?

Book Design and Page Layout

“Book design is the art of incorporating the content, style, format, design, and sequence of the various components of a book into a coherent whole. Page layout is that part of graphic design that deals in the arrangement and style treatment of elements (content) on a page.”

Good Design

A good book design and page layout delivers not just a good looking book, but also ensures that the content is clearly and consistently presented. This is especially important in error critical non-fiction, with non-standard, technical or complex layout or scripts. This is what Carrigboy Print and ePublishing Solutions specialize in.

Design for ePublishing

eBooks present additional challenges. The re-flow and re-pagination imposed on an ebook by a specific reading device makes the transition to digital very difficult for many non-fiction books that utilize images, diagrams, and other layout features. Of course, PDF works well for books that do require fidelity to the printed page. But digital books require different design considerations.

E-Books (eBooks) and e-Publishing services.

An e-Book (short for electronic book) is an electronic version of a printed book which can be read on a personal computer, a tablet such as the iPad, or on dedicated hardware devices known as e-Readers (Kindle, BeBook, Nook, Kobo, Sony…). Some cell phones can also be used to read e-Books.

New or existing work can be quite easily converted to an ebook format like ePub, the IDPF industry standard e-book format used by nearly all e-book-readers, or to PDF. The e-Book is then immediately available for distribution over the net. There are various distribution models

e-Books present additional design, layout and typesetting challenges. Especially, the re-flow and re-pagination imposed on a book by a specific reading device can make the transition to digital difficult for many books that utilize text-specific images, diagrams, and other layout features. These features need special consideration. Of course, PDF works well for books that do require fidelity to the printed page.

Work can either be formatted as a text/illustration-only e-book, just like a print version, or the work can be enhanced with hyper-links, animation, video and audio content, etc. – opening huge new possibilities for publishers and authors. The meta-data and implementation needed for these new and extra features is a considerable design task and is probably at the crux of what is happening to books/publishing

Content can be protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM), But its implementation is complex, sometimes ambiguous, inconsistent and is often unnecessarily restrictive. Ebooks protected by DRM (by corporations that wish to proprietor-lize and ‘own’ the market) will likely face some market resistance as consumers are asked to buy something that they cannot freely or easily give away, lend or sell-on, as they can at present with and and all print editions that they buy. This alongside the boom in ebooks as the format is accepted, e-readers become cheaper, the reading experience becomes more ‘book-like’ and competition grows.

Publishing straight to e-book is a highly cost-effective way of entering the market without committing to time-consuming and costly print-runs, storage, distribution and retailing.

New Opportunities

e-Books potentially offer a huge range of opportunities, especially for non-fiction books. Animated and audio content, non-destructive annotation, customized indexing, wi-fi enabled hyper-links to the internet, multi-language documents – and who knows what else tomorrow?

e-Book Standards

There’s not going to be one clear way that these books will be implemented. Some will attempt to use the ePub standard, which accommodates re-flow very well. Others will simply be PDF (which should be quite viewable on any tablet-sized screen). And others will be custom designed apps for the iPad, and its competitors, that will take advantage of the iPad’s capabilities in ways that an ePub or PDF e-book could not handle.

This is an emerging and changing situation that, of course, affects us all profoundly, and I’d love to hear what people think .

For instance, while Amazon, Apple, Google, et al and all the major publishing houses are desperately trying to dominate and control what’s happening with book publishing’s entry into the digital world, ebooks could spell doom for many. In much the same way that newspapers and main stream broadcast news are taking a beating from readers/viewers (and so advertisers) because they are becoming unnecessary and irrelevant. An ebook doesn’t need to be be printed, bound, stored, shipped, distributed, displayed and retailed (Amazon etc. would have a different order, but basically the same model). In fact the only necessary stages are writing, design and setting and marketing from a website. Complex and difficult for the inexperienced, yes. But a vast publishing house with international offices and large staff is not strictly necessary.

Carrigboy already help authors who wish to self-publish or micro-publish their work at any or all the necessary stages.

Apart from design, graphics, layout and typesetting, we can oversee part or all of a publishing project and can supply copy-editors, translators, printers, proofing, web-designers etc.

True Self-Publishing

The key distinguishing characteristic of self-publishing is the absence of a traditional publisher. Instead, the creator or creators fulfil this role, taking editorial control of the content, arranging for printing, marketing the material, and often distributing it, either directly to consumers or to retailers or, with e-books, by website.

All rights then remain with the author, the completed books are the writer’s property, and the writer gets all the proceeds of sales.

True self-publishing can be more cost-effective than vanity or subsidy publishing and can result in a much higher-quality product, because authors can control every aspect of the process rather than accepting a preset package of service.

Micropublishing.

Micropublishing is when an individual or group use efficient publishing and distribution techniques to publish a work intended for a specific micro-market. Typically, these works are not considered by conventional publishers because of their low economy of scale and mass appeal and the difficulties that would arise in their marketing.
Before the emergence of the internet, micropublishing was considered a “microtrend” that would not play much of a role in the publishing world. The internet has changed this by providing authors and micropublishers with an affordable medium through which to publish and distribute their works.

The Internet is also evolving how the works from traditional publishing, self-publishing and micro-publishing are distributed. The long imagined dream of digital distribution for published works is quickly becoming a reality (see our page on eBooks, here). For micro-publications, digital distribution may enable greater numbers of authors and potential authors to enter the publishing industry to access immense numbers of readers who prefer to receive and/or consume content in digital form.

I think that’s enough for now. I should get on with some work

Simon Prichard

Carrigboy Print and ePublishing Solutions.