Our friends at Eyebeam asked alums eteam (2009 Emerging Fields) to write a blog post detailing their experiences with e-book publishing. We wanted to repost their findings here to help others who may be going through their own research process.
In the beginning it seemed so easy, or at least so much easier than editing a video. Easier in terms of technological and space requirements. But as it is with pretty much everything we do, things don’t turn out the way they appear at first. And writing a book was no different. Instead of three weeks, it took three months for a pocket book of 58 pages to be written, composed and finally printed.
And this is where video and printing share very similar qualities. Getting the digital file from our editing tool into a “permanent” form was equally challenging for print as it was for video, with it’s codecs, frame sizes and output formats. So when we finally thought, “that’s it, just make a pdf and send it off to the printer,” we were faced with reconciling our vision for the book with the limitations of our default print-on-demand choice, LULU. We have no idea why we only thought of LULU initially, but we had used its service before and were satisfied with its result. Only this time we weren’t looking for bright white pages and optimum color reproductions, but for a simple pocket book in a paperback format, 5″ x 8″ with black text and b/w images, on off-white, natural or cream paper, perfect bound. Nothing fancy, just the basics. Continue reading
The Elephant Room: Dennis Diamond, Louie Magic and Daryl Hannah. Photo by Scott Suchman.
