Re: [libreoffice-users] Volunteers for Documentation

On 27/03/2016 14:22, Tom Davies wrote:

> Is Ingram a replacement for Lulu or could it be used in addition to Lulu?

a) I got the name wrong. It is Ingram Spark, not Ingram Express.

b) Ingram Spark is a replacement for Lulu.

It is who Lulu uses for their POD printing, as well as being one
(probably the largest) of their distributors.
(Amazon is a retailer, not a distributor, albeit a retailer whose sales
are greater than that of most distributors.)

> Either way it sounds like a good subject to bring up on the documentation

I have brought it up several times.
I never fully understood the objection to Ingram Express.
* Part of it was the learning curve:
# Lulu is far more forgiving of non-adherence to their published
specifications than Ingram is;
* Ingram expects that you, the publisher, know what you are doing, and
consequently provides far less hand holding than Lulu;
* Part of it was the upfront cost;

* Part of it was having to purchase ISBNs.
I don't know what Bowker's current rate is, but the most economical
option is to purchase them in lots of 1,000.   (For roughly the cost of
between ten and twenty individual ISBN's, a block of 1,000 can be
purchased. Individual ISBNs scream "amateur amateur".  Blocks of 1,000
say "established publisher".

> The published guides are already in the Apple store and the Ubuntu one.

Another possibility is to have CreateSpace do the printing. This usually
results in faster delivery times for people who purchase from Amazon.
(Amazon's algorithms plays lots of stupid games with indie publishers
that don't use CreateSpace.)

> occurred to me that it might be good to get the guides into the Google Playstore too, 

Are you talking about dead tree versions, or electronic versions of the
guides?

> If anyone knows of other places it would be good to have the published
> guides then please email the Documentation Team;

For electronic versions, SmashWords probably has contracts with more
online bookstores, than any other distributor out there. OTOH, given
what their meatgrinder does to Word file formats, I have no qualms that
the end result will look positively dreadful, unless an ePub only
version is distributed by them. That will have to wait until LibO can
export to ePub without losing presentation markup.

jonathon





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