Category: Eusebius

Eusebius update

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The proof copy has arrived from Lulu, and looks very good.  This is all down to Bob Buller, the typesetter, and the amount of work he did is only now clear.

Terrible cover, tho — it looked fine on screen, but not in reality.  The proof copies I have just ordered will just have white card covers.  But I am coming to realise how important the book cover is for online sales.  I must get this designed, and also a website.

The Syriac text is a little on the small side, in print.  I shall have to consider whether we can increase the font size.

But we’ve now reached the proof stage.   That is a milestone.  I admit to being rather sick of seeing those pages, tho, as indeed the translators must be!  I never realised how much work was involved in publishing.

Share

Trying to deal with Lightning Source

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve been told that the people to print the books that I have commissioned are Lightning Source.  They have printers in the US and UK, and access through Amazon.  The quality of the job is apparently rather better than Lulu.com.

But they do seem rather difficult to deal with.  First they won’t give you any kind of information up front.  At the moment I have no idea what they will charge for what I want.

Secondly they demand that you “apply” for an “account”, and they say, rather snootily, that they will review your “application” and deal with it within a couple of days.   It’s an online form, and a bit over the top but liveable w ith. 

But why the delay, the manual “review”?  This I do not get.  Now remember that these people are a business selling a service.  Just imagine if Amazon took that sort of line!  It’s unthinkably bad customer service.  It discourages business, puts off the punter, and so on.  All I want of these people, remember, is some printing.  Why the third degree?

But there is worse.  I filled in those forms this morning.  This afternoon I get an email, which makes a whole series of further demands for information, with no indication given as to why they need to know all this.  Here it is:

Dear Roger
We notice that you have started to register for an account with Lightning Source and would like to ascertain your requirements.
You have populated the first part of our application for an account, but our application process is two-fold.  Before we can open your account, we need to ask the following questions:
1.   How many titles do you plan to print with Lightning Source over the next 12 months?
2.   Do you own the rights to the title(s)?
3.   Have your titles been printed/published by any company other than your own?  If yes, by whom?
4.   In what format do you plan to submit your titles for printing?  (i.e. physical books for scanning or files?  If files, what type?  Are you familiar with creating pdf file?
5.   Have you read and understood the File Creation link on our website covering Digital File Submission Standards, Cover Template Generator etc?
6.   Have you previously spoken to a sales representative at Lightning Source?  If so, with whom?
7.  All publishers are required to administer their own web accounts independently of any intervention by Lightning Source.  Do you agree to work with Lightning Source on this basis?
Thank you.
Best Regards
 
Georgina Walpole
 
Content Acquisition Sales Representative,
Lightning Source UK Ltd., Chapter House, Pitfield, Kiln Farm, Milton Keynes, MK11 3LW, UK

What the heck is that!?!  I’ve written back with answers, but remarked on how this is a lot of information to ask of someone trying to give them money.  They sound as if I might get a telephone call — I’ve asked them not to.

All in all it’s a rather nasty experience, as an introduction to someone selling you a service.   And “content acquisition”?  I’m not selling them my content!

Share

Eusebius update

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Bob the typesetter popped a PDF to me this morning containing all the corrections that I know about, and ready for printing proof copies.  He’s really done a sterling job, and I am deeply grateful to him.

The real printing will be done at Lightning Source.  I’ve now “registered for an account” — the first step in getting something done.  Apparently it may take them two days to decide whether they want my custom.  They’re somewhat inflexible, but plainly offering a better quality service than Lulu.com.

Meanwhile I need to get some printed copies out to the translators.  I don’t seem to be able to do this with Lightning Source, delays aside, so I have uploaded the PDF to Lulu.com. 

Mind you Lulu are not the site they were.  The new website is clunky and hard to use.  If you use IE8, you can’t even upload PDF’s or see projects in progress (as I found by experience, not because they said so).  Fortunately I keep a copy of Firefox on hand to deal with the dumber websites, and this worked fine. 

The cost of production for a paperback — although I find the covers of their paperbacks curl! — is rather more than I wanted.  The proof copies will cost $15 each to make and send, which is not good news.  But the book is 432 pages in size, sized 6″x9″.  That’s around three times what I had hoped in my innocence, back in the day.

I also need to start thinking about a cover.  Of course many academic books have plain covers.  But I do recall how I was induced to purchase a copy of the Onomasticon of Eusebius by a bright cover of seas and beaches, even though the contents were essential a table of dull entries.  So perhaps I should do the same.  Something like this (now here) might be a good thing as background:

Share

Eusebius, Gospel problems and solutions update

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The last fixes have been applied to the PDF and sent to the typesetter.  There are only about 20 of them, all trivial. 

Once I have the revised PDF, I shall upload it to a print-on-demand site and generate some proof copies.

Share

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Employment beckons, and dealing with the paperwork associated with that, chasing people up, and so forth, has filled up today. 

I’ve emailed a PDF of the Eusebius book across to the Sources Chretiennes people for their approval.  I’m reprinting their Greek text, so it is a condition of doing so that they review the manuscript.  There are still a few corrections to add, but this can happen in parallel, if it takes them long to reply (as I think it might).  I was going to process my list of corrections into the PDF today, but was too distracted by real-world stuff.  There are really only a few, tho, I was pleased to see.

I’ve also been looking at Theodor Birt’s Die antike Buchwesen (The ancient book-trade).  After translating a few paragraphs, I have run the PDF through Finereader 9 to get a better OCR’d text.  I was hoping to do some more on this, but again was distracted.  Maybe later.

It seems possible  that I may get the rest of this week to myself, however.  If so I will try to deal with both of these.

Share

Eusebius book to be delayed

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I had intended to try to get the Eusebius book out in September.  I have just realised that this must be impossible. 

I have quite a list of things which depend on others.  The Greek can’t be proof-read any sooner than 20 September, and it may be later.  I can’t proceed without the approval of the Sources Chretiennes, who are all evidently on holiday.  Coptic corrections will be needed; and then corrections at proof.  There needs to be a book cover, there needs to be a website, and all manner of other things. 

If I have to hunt for jobs in September, as I do, then that will interfere.  And if I start a job, for the first three weeks I won’t be able to do anything else.  Starting a job is very stressful, without having urgent corresp

So … we may as well all relax.  If it comes out in December, so be it. It will take as long as it takes. 

Share

Eusebius once more

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m supposed to be on holiday — indeed I must spend a few days NOT working on projects!  Perhaps later this week.

I’ve just emailed Les editions du Cerf about getting their approval for the manuscript of the Eusebius book.  This was a condition of them allowing me (on very generous terms) to use the Greek text of the Abridged Selection printed by Zamagni.

I’ve processed all the revisions to the Greek text of the fragments into  the PDF — which was truly horrible to do.  I would have got the editor to do it differently, had I realised what he was doing.  Oh well, that’s experience.

Now I have to go through the other issues in my file of corrections and deal with those.

I’ve also heard back from Carol Downer, the leader of the UCL Coptic Reading Group, who did the Coptic translation.  Apparently there will be some more corrections from there, although they sound minor to me and we might do them at the proof stage.

The next stage, after these corrections, is to explore printing physical copies and getting the translators to check them (and doing so myself).  You can only do so much on-screen.  I need to talk to Lightning Source, who are the print-on-demand people I was recommended to use. 

I also need to enter the book in the British Library “cataloguing in progress” system.  And … no small point … get a cover designed.  Wonder how to do that!

UPDATE: All the corrections I know about are now added as stickies to the PDF file.  There are quite a few, but it will probably take the typesetter less time to pop them in than it took me to add them to the file.  I am very impressed, tho, by Acrobat’s co-working facilities.  They are ideal for this.  Adam McCollum, who did the Syriac, has replied very quickly on some formatting issues; and I’ve checked a query about the Arabic text back with the original edition. 

I’ve now emailed the PDF of the whole book back across to Bob Buller, who will probably deal with it at the weekend.  It’s another definite step forward!

Share

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Today is the day I go through all the corrections on the Greek fragments and process them into the PDF to send to Bob the typesetter.  It’s rather boring, frankly.  Worse yet, the editor has mingled text in unicode with characters in non-unicode Greek.  Every bit of it has to be converted to unicode, and the mixture makes this very hard.  Few conversion utilities will not throw if they are told the text is one thing and it is another.  The editor sometimes also indicates that he wants a footnote on the facing English text, but does not indicate where it should go.  It’s hard, being an editor…!

Fortunately it won’t be nearly so awkward for Bob, as I’m doing all those corrections. 

Share

Eusebius update – whole book typeset!

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Rejoice!  The whole Eusebius Gospel Problems and Solutions is now in typeset form, with page numbers etc!  This is a massive step forward, and all credit is due to Bob Buller who did the job, did it very quickly and efficiently, and turned a bunch of word files into something professional.

Of course it has to be proof-read and so forth, but suddenly we have a BOOK before us.  I feel mightly encouraged by that!

Postscript from the Coptic group.  Apparently something is wrong with biblical references in their section and will need to be re-read (which will happen very slowly, I suspect).   Curses, curses!  But at least we’re now amending the final version, which is most cheering!

UPDATE: I thought I’d just check the page count — 412 pages, plus xiv pages of intro.  Phew!  That is a MUCH bigger book than I expected.

Share

Eusebius again

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Bob Buller, who is typesetting Eusebius’ Gospel Problems and Solutions, has just sent over the typeset version of the Latin fragments and translation.  He tells me he’s starting in on the Syriac now.  After that, only the front matter — a few pages — remains!  At that point I’ll send in the collected corrections — not a vast pile — and then we’ll print some proof copies for the various translators to have their say on. 

The Arabic material that arrived earlier was all fine, according to Adam McCollum who translated it.  I’ve replied to Bob’s queries on the Latin myself.  The Coptic translator has yet to reply — the question is merely as to the placement of two quotation marks, tho.

Share