Quote:

wegster wrote: @HenryCase Did you send the mail? *free bump*

Thanks for the free bump wegster.

Yes, I sent an e-mail to Ralph yesterday, and a message to TPB today. No response to either yet, but I will wait another day before chasing up again.

189 signatures on the petition now, I am pleased it continues to grow in size. Well done Amigans.

@HenryCase

Good to see so many interested.

Last edited by Moxee on 21-May-2008 at 04:06 PM.

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Moxee
AmigaOne X1000
AmigaOne XE G4
I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

@thread

There are 208 signatures right now, including mine.

edit: fixed the broken emoticon

edit: You know, I just had an interesting thought: I wonder if some outfit like the makers of the Natami and/or the makers of the Minimig, or for that matter Cloanto, the makers of AmigaForever, or all of them together, might be willing to subsidize the printing of this book.

Last edited by NomadOfNorad on 24-May-2008 at 05:05 AM.
Last edited by NomadOfNorad on 24-May-2008 at 04:00 AM.

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"I love peacenicks, they're so easy to conquer." --Ivan J Ironfist, the Dictator

@HenryCase

*bump again*

Any response?

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Are we not done with the same silly arguments and flames yet??!

@wegster

No response from Ralph yet, but I only sent my second e-mail today (Sunday 25th May) so I am still hopeful I will get a reply of some sort soon.

On Friday I had had a response from The Pirate Bay, which was not very encouraging, but I sent them another e-mail, we'll just have to see what happens on that front.

213 signatures on the petition now. I stopped pimping it heavily when we reached 170 signatures so its good to see it has a life of its own! There are a few groups I didn't get around to contact (developers of the different versions of UAE for instance) so I reckon we could get higher numbers but it has already served its purpose well I feel.

@HenryCase

It'd be a good idea to mention it over at www.natami.net as well. They have a webforum over here, or you could simply email them from here.

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"I love peacenicks, they're so easy to conquer." --Ivan J Ironfist, the Dictator

@HenryCase

Thanks... that's an excellent summary of printing on demand.

As I don't think the manual has many colour pics in it... or pics at all for that matter... it probably doesn't matter if the graphics quality is imperfect... as it sounds like the print quality & B&W graphic quality is excellent.

@Hans

I had a look at the page you linked to over at Utilitybase, regarding the cost differences between offset and digital printing. They refer to the cost of offset being more efficient between 500 to 2000 sheets. Now I'm sure that the book, comprising of over 800 pages would easily hit this target well before making 200 copies of the book.

It'd be nice to know someone in the industry who would be able to give us a decent estimate.

Given that the petition has over 200 signatures, I wonder how many would be the best number to print, to make allowances for future sales (ie people returning to the scene who hadn't heard of it, or new talent coming in).

tiffers

@tiffers

I remember seeing several sites that used the term sheets, but I thought that it said copies. Anyway, I'm not sure what they mean with "sheets." I doubt that they mean individual printed sheets as every page in the book must get its own printing plate made.

I can't find any details on this, but I'd expect that an offset-printing sheet is much larger than a single sheet in the book. Thus N*M*2 (*2 for double-sided printing) pages would be printed onto a single sheet and then cut.

I'd be curious to know what exactly an offset-printing sheet is. If anyone knows, please post it here.

Hans

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https://keasigmadelta.com/ - More of my work.

@Hans

Quote:

Thus N*M*2 (*2 for double-sided printing) pages would be printed onto a single sheet and then cut.

Exactly. Now to find out some offset printing sheet sizes

tiffers

-BUMP-

Any progress?

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Moxee
AmigaOne X1000
AmigaOne XE G4
I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

Quote:

Moxee wrote: -BUMP- Any progress?

Thanks for the bump Moxee. Progress? A couple more e-mails exchanged, but no concrete progress as of yet. Ralph did tell me he was quite busy, so I'm not rushing things.

Tiffers, I'd be interested to hear if you found out any more information about offset printing. Could really help us.

@HenryCase

My dad had a book printed and published by some company in Canada who used digital presses, and therefore no plate masters to be made. It made for very expensive print runs for thousands of books, but runs of even 100 were possible. That was several years ago now, so I'll have to go ask him about the company, but I do remember they accepted a PostScript file and sent some draft copies for approval before the initial print run. I typeset it myself... Dead proud I am

I'll try and find out some more details about them though!

[edit] On reading over the thread again, I see printing on demand was ruled out. I really don't think it should be dismissed so readily, the quality of the printing really isn't any different from most other books, and given the wide choice of paper we had, it actually feels slightly "richer" or something to read. But I guess it's moot if there's no intention of having it printed anyway :(

Last edited by Daedalus on 05-Jun-2008 at 11:14 PM.

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@Daedalus
Thanks Daedalus, more printing information would be great.

As far I know offset printing is the preferred method for getting the book published, but I'm not really sure how this printing technique works.

I'm restarting this campaign. Well I mean I never really stopped, but now I need some help again.

Let's get this out of the way now: I have been in contact with Ralph Babel, but progress has been slow. However, I do not see this as a bad sign.

The reason I am asking for help again is this: I saw two targets for the Amiga Guru Book petition, but I only mentioned one, and to be honest I thought the 170 signature target might have been overly optimistic at first (before the numbers didn't stop going up).

The second signature target I saw was to surpass the number of people who had downloaded the infamous torrent, which is around 302 people now. At the time of writing this, the petition has reached 247 signatures even though I haven't done much to promote it since we reached the 170 target.

So, a couple of things:
1. Please don't download the torrent unless you're confident it'll be the only way to easily obtain the material in the near future (the book still could be published at this point, Ralph has not told me otherwise).
2. If you haven't signed the petition yet and want to see Amiga programmers get access to one of the best (maybe even THE best, according to owners of the book) Amiga programming resources around, sign the petition.

I am duplicating this message on the following Amiga websites (in alphabetical order): amigans.net, amiga.org, amigaworld.net, AROS-Exec.org, AROSWorld.org, eab.abime.net (English Amiga Board), MorphZone.org, UtilityBase.com. I know this topic has been discussed on other Amiga forums, so please pass on this 'drumming up support' message to the places it needs to be heard. Also, does anyone know if there is a central point to discuss this issue with all those involved with UAE ports? The Amiga Guru Book should be handy for the emulation crew as well.

That's all for now. Sign on (you crazy diamonds!).
http://www.petitiononline.com/4m1ga123/petition.html

Last edited by HenryCase on 23-Jun-2008 at 03:06 AM.

@HenryCase

Was looking into this again. Found the video on this page on marketing your PoD book quite interesting. Publishing excerpts of the book online kept website traffic numbers up, but it wasn't giving away th ewhole book, so people could see the book was decent, and then ordered the printed version.

How is this relevant? Well, I guess if a site for the guru book(s) could be made, it might increase mind share and therefore FUTURE sales.

That page also mentions having to increase the number of pages of their example book to 176 for "8-up" printing. That'd make it 8 pages per sheet (single sided I guess). I found some print presses using ~460mm x ~650 sheets, so 8 per page is probably about right. 16 double sided. If the Guru book were 832 pages, that'd be 52 sheets for just one book, or 13,000 sheets for 250 copies. I think this book is definitely in the realm of cost-effective offset printing :) (remember the figure we'd heard was 500 - 2000 sheets.)

So, now just to hear back from some industry contacts. I have emailed a couple of printing places, and will email some more, and will return with results.

tiffers

@tiffers

Quote:

tiffers wrote: That page also mentions having to increase the number of pages of their example book to 176 for "8-up" printing. That'd make it 8 pages per sheet (single sided I guess). I found some print presses using ~460mm x ~650 sheets, so 8 per page is probably about right. 16 double sided. If the Guru book were 832 pages, that'd be 52 sheets for just one book, or 13,000 sheets for 250 copies. I think this book is definitely in the realm of cost-effective offset printing :) (remember the figure we'd heard was 500 - 2000 sheets.) So, now just to hear back from some industry contacts. I have emailed a couple of printing places, and will email some more, and will return with results.

That sounds promising.

Hans

_________________
http://hdrlab.org.nz/ - Amiga OS 4 projects, programming articles and more. Home of the RadeonHD driver for Amiga OS 4.x project.
https://keasigmadelta.com/ - More of my work.

*bump*

Any news? The petition's up to 255 signatures as of five minutes ago.

Sorry to bumping an old thread but...

Any news?

i see that this old thread has been woken up again..

any news here? , icertainly hope so.

i never voted /signed the petition but i would get it for sure.

i have the old 1993 version but i would still get the new edition of the book even if its a mere reprint because of the value and collection nutcase i am.

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