Crowdfunding a Book and Shutting Down the Magazine

Hello, folks who listened to The Periodicalist! Two bits of news.

• My publication, The Magazine, is ceasing publication after the December 18th issue. It's been a wonderful run, but the finances no longer work.
• We've launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a new anthology drawn from our second year in publication (October 2013–October 2014). The funds will let us print a hardcover edition and release the electronic version for free.

3: Perils and Delights of Self-Publishing

Publishing your own work has never been easier, but easy is a relative term as co-hosts Glenn Fleishman and Matthew Amster-Burton discuss. Glenn recently produced a hardcover book with ebook and print-on-demand editions. Matthew has a series of ebooks underway. The two have both worked with conventional publishers in the past. The devil is in the many thousands of details: one wrong move and countless hours can be wasted.

Sponsor: This podcast is made possible through the generous support of MailChimp, which is underwriting our first six episodes. MailChimp lets you manage email lists of any size. They also make hats for cats and dogs.

Let us know what you think and your ideas for future shows: send email to listen@periodicalist.com.

Show notes

The Magazine: The Book ultimately appeared in three editions:

• Hardcover
• Ebook
• Createspace (print on demand)

The fork is your enemy.

Matthew's story

• Started with Hungry Monkey
• Turned rejection into self-publishing
• Fan base from Spilled Milk Podcast
• Freelance food writer

Things publishers consider:

• No guarantee of sales
• Niche market is tricky and risky
• Profit and loss

The Magazine: The Book:

• Subscribers help as patrons
• Kickstarter lessons learned: long post-mortem published on Medium
• Dance troupe analogy

Know your audience:

• Don't overestimate the size of your audience
• Don't underestimate the size of your audience

Non-perishable books.

Why crowdfund and not self-fund?

• Copyediting expenses
• Cover design expenses
• Vanity project
• Is there another way?
• To gauge interest
• Pre-sales are awesome
• Looks are pretty damn important

Pages from Apple is pretty decent.

The quality of bookiness

• Codex
• Type
• Interface to words and thoughts

Project Gutenberg

Budget needs to cover

• Copyediting
• Developmental editing
• Cover design
• Interior design
• Software

Glenn's tip: Choose the correct trim size!

Forks galore!

Matthew and Glenn's Saga of Unintended Budget Consequences

Print budget additionally needs to cover:

• Printing (for offset)
• Shipping (for offset). Note: International shipping will cost a million dollars.
• Startup costs (for some print-on-demand providers)
• Additional cover and interior design
• ISBNs (may also need for ebook)
• ISBNs image (EPS, typically)

Kickstarter price discrimination

• Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools
• Tidbits Publishing
• Rewards

Glenn's thoughts on The Magazine: The Book, Year 2.

Amazon's inertia, power and domination

• Createspace
• Fulfillment by Amazon
• Kindle Store

Thoughts on distribution

• Print on demand option
• Ingram Spark

Glenn's New Disruptors podcast episode with Ada's Bookstore owner

Matthew's new ebook: Child Octopus

Book thoughts: Matthew vs. Glenn

For immortality, choose wisely.

2: The Ins and Outs of EPUB

Download, listen to the episode above, or subscribe to our podcast RSS feed.

EPUB and its derivative Amazon MOBI format are the lifeblood of electronic readers and ebook software. Mastering the details of getting a good workflow and a consistent result requires arcane knowledge and remarkable patience. Joining host Glenn Fleishman of The Magazine on this episode to discuss perfecting EPUBs are Tonya Engst of TidBITS Publishing; Michael E. Cohen, an ebook guru; and Serenity Caldwell of Macworld magazine.

Sponsor: This podcast is made possible through the generous support of MailChimp, which is underwriting our first six episodes. MailChimp lets you manage email lists of any size. They also make hats for cats and dogs.

Let us know what you think and your ideas for future shows: send email to listen@periodicalist.com.

Show notes

Let's define the format

• What is EPUB?
• IDPF

Are all EPUBs created equal?

• Fixed Layout EPUBs
• Flowing EPUBs

EPUB's directionality:

• Everything flows in one direct
• Think of it as a collection of web pages

Could be tricky for users used to PDF?

EPUB is designed for portable readers

• Limited resolution
• Limited size
• Good for novels
• Bad for photo journals

Glenn's blast from the past

• Go Live

Can't you just choose Export? Cue laughter. Watch Serenity's talk at the Çingleton Deux conference in 2012.

Ebooks are an immersive experience

TidBITS Publishing

• 24 years of internet publishing
• 11 years of Ebooks

TidBITS' blast from the past

• Microsoft Word and PDF
• Apple's Pages

TidBITS workflow

• Uses NisusWriter Pro
• Supports automation
• Gets converted to Markdown
• Leanpub uses Markdown to create EPUB and MOBI

Markdown is becoming more and more useful across the web.

You can create content in Markdown or use Scrivener to convert

Keep it simple, stupid

Rule of thumb: Fork as late in the process as possible

Michael's workflow

• Leanpub and Take Control
• Side effect: made books easier to write
• Even previously worked with Automator
• Apple's Book Proofer

Macworld's workflow

• Started with PDF
• Indesign's EPUB export
• Pages EPUB support
• Finally, Indesign with CS 5.5
• Building CSS style sheet

Kindle Previewer

KF8 file format works with almost all devices

iBooks Author

• iPad currently only device supported
• Pages is being improved and could provide an answer in the future

More apps and services

• Vellum has great text but no images

This whole process is in the adolescent stage

Working with ebookstores

• Starting out
• Numbers tapering off
• Pushing out new books
• Pushing out updates

The Metadata Problem

Reader expectations, demands and deliverables

A look back at lessons learned

• Time savers
• Pitfalls to avoid
• Advice