Baby steps into the future of publishing

Today is the 10th anniversary of the iPod; did you know that? I remember when the iPod was launched, sitting there admiring how utterly usable it looked, and shaking my head in dismay because Apple had priced it so high and limited its connectivity options to Mac users. It would never fly. Apple was probably doomed, the fools.

Yeah, well, anyway.

To celebrate the occasion, I’ve made use of Blurb’s new eBook publishing feature, and several GameSpite books are now available in eBook/iBook format. Unfortunately, at the moment the company only offers an eBook option for publications created in their absolutely wretched Java-based BookSmart application, which I dropped like a hot potato the second they began offering a PDF-based workflow. So I am only able to offer the first four books we published in eBook format for now. I do apologize for that, but it’s all we can do for the moment. (Yes, we could offer eBooks directly, but I would really prefer to go through Blurb for this, since they manage distribution and — more importantly — ISBN assignments. So that’s that.)

If you are interested in adding GameSpite’s earliest books to your eBook library, here are the relevant links. I tried to make them affordable. Five bucks seems pretty reasonable for books ranging anywhere from 200-350 pages, I think. Please note that only the deluxe editions are available as eBooks — the difference in length of the older print books was a cost-cutting measure, but there’s no need for such compromises in electronic format and it would be idiotic to offer less comprehensive versions of the content when the material cost is the same either way, don’t you think? Please note that Blurb formats these for iPad by default, so they may look pretty terrible on any other device.

Edit: The formatting on these kind of sucks thanks to Blurb’s super-crappy conversion process. Please be aware that these are inexplicably designated by the system for landscape viewing rather than the more intuitive portrait format. Blurb kind of sucks these days. We’ll probably be moving to Lulu or an alternate competitor soon.

10 thoughts on “Baby steps into the future of publishing”

  1. About the format thing…

    I bought Year One, and it seems to be set up so as to only be viewable in portrait mode on my iPad. I don’t have the same trouble with other books, but the Gamespite book forces itself into portrait mode when I open it.

    Is that intentional? It’s pretty annoying!

    • It’s not intentional on my end; Blurb’s eBook setup process is a one-button thing that offers me no control over how it works.

      Honestly, I am increasingly unhappy with Blurb, and their mediocre eBook service seals it. Once I publish GSJ10 I will be going on the hunt for alternative services.

    • Wait, I said portrait, but I actually meant landscape, because I’m dumb, apparently. Forced landscape is a lot more annoying than forced portrait!

      It’s out of your hands either way, I guess, but I wanted to avoid getting corrected by someone else, on the Internet.

      Thanks for the stuff you do, even awkwardly formatted.

  2. Any updates on GSJ10? What are the chances of beating the “DONTDELAY” coupon expiry deadline of October 31? 20% off would be a nice discount on this book. :-)

    • Getting it out on November 1 is going to be a struggle. Before that would be impossible. Sorry, but I would wager they’ll have some holiday coupon codes soon, so you should be fine.

      • Thanks for the update. Please let us know if you come across any new coupon codes for November.

  3. Love the mag but I’ve always preferred to view the on-line version because of color. Will we ever see a digital version in full color? Any chance the back-issues will be done in color too?

    Keep up the amazing work!

  4. I don’t suppose any of the potential future publishers will let you throw in the e-book as a complimentary bonus for people who buy the print edition? ‘Cause that’d be spiffy.
    I don’t have a really *good* eBook device, so I can’t justify buying the books a second time in a format that’s not very readable for me, but having a searchable copy of future print books as a bonus would be pretty cool.

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