Well I got the beta print copies of Focused Fandom: Cosplay, Costuming and Careers, and Focused Fandom: Fanart, Fanartists, and Careers.
One of the things I love about eBooks is what you see is what you get. Print books, not so much. Here’s just a few things I found:
- The cover may not quite print as you expected – and any colors, graphics, etc. may not be what you expect in a solid version.
- You can forget things on the cover period. I’ll have to adjust one of the covers, in fact.
- There’s breaks. A paragraph you don’t have to break up in an eBook format may be damned hard to break properly in print.
- Chapter formatting. I love chapters that are on odd pages, so you have to get that right.
- A lot of book elements like Table of Contents, Credits, etc. just seem “different” in print – and you have to make sure the breaking and formatting is right.
- A re-scan of the print copy may help you find issues.
So I’ve got . . . about 600 print pages to scan. I think I’m gonna be busy for a week or two on this.
Now as much as I complained here, I think you should consider print versions of your eBooks, if only for the sheer experience of doing one and discovering you don’t want to. It’s pretty educational all around.
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.