+
Typesetting a book is harder than I hoped. As the translation is
+mostly done, and a volunteer proof reader was going to check the text
+on paper, it was time this summer to focus on formatting my translated
+docbook based version of the
+Free Culture book by Lawrence
+Lessig. I've been trying to get both docboox-xsl+fop and dblatex to
+give me a good looking PDF, but in the end I went with dblatex, because
+its Debian maintainer and upstream developer were responsive and very
+helpful in solving my formatting challenges.
+
+
Last night, I finally managed to create a PDF that no longer made
+Lulu.com complain after uploading,
+and I ordered a text version of the book on paper. It is lacking a
+proper book cover and is not tagged with the correct ISBN number, but
+should give me an idea what the finished book will look like.
+
+
Instead of using Lulu, I did consider printing the book using
+CreateSpace, but ended up
+using Lulu because it had smaller book size options (CreateSpace seem
+to lack pocket book with extended distribution). I looked for a
+similar service in Norway, but have not seen anything so far. Please
+let me know if I am missing out on something here.
+
+
But I still struggle to decide the book size. Should I go for
+pocket book (4.25x6.875 inches / 10.8x17.5 cm) with 556 pages, Digest
+(5.5x8.5 inches / 14x21.6 cm) with 323 pages or US Trade (6x8 inches /
+15.3x22.9 cm) with 280 pages? Fewer pager give a cheaper book, and a
+smaller book is easier to carry around. The test book I ordered was
+pocket book sized, to give me an idea how well that fit in my hand,
+but I suspect I will end up using a digest sized book in the end to
+bring the prize down further.
+
+
My biggest challenge at the moment is making nice cover art. My
+inkscape skills are not yet up to the task of replicating the original
+cover in SVG format. I also need to figure out what to write about
+the book on the back (will most likely use the same text as the
+description on web based book stores). I would love help with this,
+if you are willing to license the art source and final version using
+the same CC license as the book. My artistic skills are not really up
+to the task.
+
+
I plan to publish the book in both English and Norwegian and on
+paper, in PDF form as well as EPUB and MOBI format. The current
+status can as usual be found on
+github
+in the archive/ directory. So far I have spent all time on making the
+PDF version look good. Someone should probably do the same with the
+dbtoepub generated e-book. Help is definitely needed here, as I
+expect to run out of steem before I find time to improve the epub
+formatting.
+
+
Please let me know via github if you find typos in the book or
+discover translations that should be improved. The final proof
+reading is being done right now, and I expect to publish the finished
+result in a few months.
+
+