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Subject: Re: [docbook-apps] A little XML-to-XML handholding?
Dick, Thanks for the tips. I know all about Lulu - it works really well for two friends of mine - but was unfamiliar with CreateSpace. I understand that Powell's City of Books, here in downtown Portland, has a print-on-demand press right there in their main Burnside store. While print-on-demand does for sure have lower up-front costs, while I have not yet actually looked into it, my understanding is that a print run would result in a lower per-copy cost. That would enable me either to charge a lower cover price, and so perhaps sell more copies faster, or perhaps have a higher profit, were I to charge the same price as I would through a print-on-demand service. To obtain one's own series of ISBN numbers - I don't know the proper term for it, but the part of the ISBN that is fixed for a given publisher - I understand costs about $700.00. Lulu will sell me an ISBN for just one book, for somewhat more - I don't recall exactly - than $100.00. I have several books that I ultimately plan to publish, so maybe it would work out in the long run, in my favor, to cough up that $700.00 for my own publisher's number. Storing a print run would not be a problem, as I already rent a storage locker, in which I'm keeping a whole bunch of tools that I inherited from my father, his father, and my great-uncle. I have just about all the carpentry tools one would require to build a house, even a table saw, but there is lots of extra room in that locker where I could fit the books. Actually getting the books through the distribution channel, and from there into both brick-and-mortar and online bookstores, I have not yet looked into. I do know that if I get an ISBN from Lulu, they will also supply me with artwork for the associated barcode. Once I then submit to Lulu a PDF with that barcode and ISBN on the cover, they can put it right into distribution. From time to time, Lulu books even make the top-seller lists at Amazon. Michael David Crawford P.E., Process Architect Solving the Software Problem lists@warplife.com http://www.warplife.com/mdc/ Don't Fix the Bugs. Fix the People that _Cause_ the Bugs. On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 4:17 PM, Richard Hamilton <hamilton@xmlpress.net> wrote: > Hi Mike, > > I bit off topic for DocBook, but not for your question: rather than doing a print run, you may want to look into print-on-demand using a company like CreateSpace or Lulu. You'll have much lower up-front costs and you won't need to turn your home into a warehouse:) > > Also, I'm not sure which tool you were referring to, but Herold (the xhtml to DocBook converter) is open source. In fact, you can build an entirely open-source tool chain for DocBook. The only weak link is FOP, which has some gaps in compliance with the FO standard (most noticeably in indexing), but it is getting better all the time and may work for your purposes. > > Best Regards, > Dick > ------- > XML Press > XML for Technical Communicators > http://xmlpress.net > hamilton@xmlpress.net > > > > On Jul 30, 2013, at 12:01 AM, Michael Crawford wrote: > >> Thanks for your help, everyone. >> >> I need to brush up on my DocBook before I reply in real detail. It's >> been eons. I did know DocBook quite well back in the day, but at the >> time was not happy with the available tools. DocBook itself I think >> is just dandy, but the tools I was using then were a real PITA. >> >> Camille, I'm afraid mine is quite a low budget operation. However, >> I'm contemplating using a KickStarter Campaign to finance an initial >> print run of at least one of my books. If I do that, I expect I could >> afford to pay for a license for the proprietary version of your tool. >> >> It's been a long time, but I was at one time intimately familiar with >> the Apache Xerces-C (actually C++) XML DOM API. One approach that I >> could conceivably take, would be to write a C++ program, that would >> use Xerces-C to read my essays one-at-a-time into their own DOM, then >> copy the contents of the XHTML elements into the corresponding DocBook >> 5 XML elements. For <p> to <Para> that would be straightforward, but >> I haven't looked into the other kinds of elements yet, or attributes. >> >> I just now installed some of the DocBook packages on my Mountain Lion >> MacBook Pro with MacPorts, however the docbook-utils package would not >> install, no doubt due to some configuration bug in its port file. >> I'll report that via the MacPorts trouble ticket procedure. >> >> Best, >> >> Mike Crawford >> lists@warplife.com >> http://www.warplife.com/ >> >> On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 6:25 PM, Richard Hamilton <hamilton@xmlpress.net> wrote: >>> Hi Mike, >>> >>> I have had very good luck with Herold (http://www.michael-a-fuchs.de). >>> >>> I'm usually not fortunate enough to have strict xhtml, so we do some pre-processing (usually on well-behaved, but idiosyncratic, html), tidy it up into xhtml, then run Herold. >>> >>> You may find that you need to do some light pre- or post-processing, but for us it has never been more than a short XSL stylesheet to do things like remove empty paragraphs from the initial XHTML or change the root element in the resulting DocBook (the latter can probably be handled by Herold using Groovy scripts, but I've learning all the scripting languages I need for the time being, so I stick with XSL or Perl-:). >>> >>> When we build a book, like you're doing, rather than concatenate pieces, we keep each file separate, then create a "book" file that uses xinclude to pull in the chapters. That simplifies the scripting and makes it easier to move parts around in the book. >>> >>> Regarding the killer feature, if you use the right option (I don't remember off-hand, but it's in Bob Stayton's book (http://sagehill.net)), you can get exactly what you want for links in the hard copy. >>> >>> Best Regards, >>> Dick Hamilton >>> ------- >>> XML Press >>> XML for Technical Communicators >>> http://xmlpress.net >>> hamilton@xmlpress.net >>> >>> >>> >>> On Jul 27, 2013, at 6:18 PM, Michael Crawford wrote: >>> >>>> Greetings, Earthlings, >>>> >>>> I have some articles and essays that are all marked up with valid XHTML 1.0 Strict with CSS, that I would like to publish as bound, dead-tree books, possibly also eBooks. >>>> >>>> It seems to me that the best way to do that would be to convert each collection of essays into a single DocBook XML document. Can you give me some tips on how to get started? I'm happy to Read The Fine Manual, but there are so many. >>>> >>>> One such volume, when printed both-sides on US Letter paper, is ~250 pages. The essays range from two to fifty pages. >>>> >>>> What I _think_ I need to do is to use some manner of XML-to-XML transformation, to strip everything from the beginning of each document, up to and including the opening <body>, then from the closing </body>, to the end of each document.... >>>> >>>> ... then concatenate them all together, with each present XHTML document being a single chapter in the resulting DocBook document... >>>> >>>> ... then replace HTML-style tags and attributes with DocBook-style: <p> to <Para>, for example... >>>> >>>> ... what would be for me, A Killer Feature, would be to convert each HTML <a href="..."> hyperlink into a DocBook footnote. So where I have this: >>>> >>>> =========== >>>> a long-forgotten <a href="http://www.kuro5hin.org/";>cesspool</a> in a far-off corner of the World-Wide Web... >>>> =========== >>>> would look something like this in hardcopy form: >>>> >>>> a long-forgotten cesspool[1] in a far-off corner of the World-Wide Web... >>>> ---- >>>> 1. http://www.kuro5hin.org/ >>>> >>>> ========= >>>> >>>> I'd also like to design my own custom stylesheets. I'll ask about that later though. I have a copy of "Android Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide" by Bill Phillips and Brian Hardy. In the Acknowledgements, the authors credit Chris Loper of http://www.intelligentenglish.com/ for his DocBook toolchain. >>>> >>>> That volume is exquisite. I'd like to design my own volume, not to look the same, but to look as good, with my own personal style. >>>> >>>> Thanks for any advice you can give me. >>>> >>>> Mike Crawford >>>> lists@warplife.com >>>> http://www.warplife.com/ >>>> >>>> >>> >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: docbook-apps-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org >> For additional commands, e-mail: docbook-apps-help@lists.oasis-open.org >> > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: docbook-apps-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org > For additional commands, e-mail: docbook-apps-help@lists.oasis-open.org >
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