bookleteer blog » user guide

Updated help page

gileslane — Tue, 25 May 2010 13:04:06 +0000

We’ve updated the help page to reflect questions arising from the new features and services we introduced last week. Please refer to it for information on the differences between designs, page sizes, image dimensions and ordering. Do please give us feedback (via this blog, our twitter account or by email) if you have further questions or queries.

Guide to new features

gileslane — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:06:47 +0000

What Design Should I Choose?
Proboscis have created 2 different eBook designs which you can choose from, both of which are available for A4/US and A3/Ledger sizes.
Basic is a simple book design which places the title, author, a cover image and a logo image on the front cover. The eBook title, author, credits and secondary logo are placed on the back cover.
Custom Cover allows users to design their own front cover and upload it as a JPG image. The eBook title, author, credits and both logo images are placed on the back cover.

What are the page dimension for the different sizes?
– A4/US Letter eBook Portrait : 88mm by 133mm
– A4/US Letter eBook Landscape : 133mm by 88mm
– A4 StoryCube : 55mm by 55mm
*
– A3/Ledger eBook Portrait : 130mm by 193mm
– A3/Ledger eBook Landscape : 193mm by 130mm
– A3 StoryCube : 82mm by 82mm

Where can I download the content templates?
Proboscis have created some simple empty page templates for MS Word, OpenOffice and Adobe InDesign which can be downloaded here.

What dimensions should my cover image be?
Images should be saved as JPGs or PNGs at a minimum resolution of 72dpi at exact size or greater. For best results 150dpi is recommended.
Basic Design
– A4/US Letter eBook Portrait : 65mm by 90mm
– A4/US Letter eBook Landscape : 90mm by 65mm
– A3/Ledger eBook Portrait : 90mm by 135mm
– A3/Ledger eBook Landscape : 135mm by 90mm
Custom Cover Designs
– A4/US Letter eBook Portrait : 88mm by 133mm
– A4/US Letter eBook Landscape : 133mm by 88mm
– A3/Ledger eBook Portrait : 130mm by 193mm
– A3/Ledger eBook Landscape : 193mm by 130mm

What can I use the Logo images for?
The ‘Logo’ spaces allow users to add one or more logos to the covers of their eBooks. The Main Logo could, for instance, be the logo of the ‘publisher’ or author and the Secondary Logo might be used for credits, such as acknowledging sponsors/funders or for placing a Creative Commons-type image. However, they can also be used just as spaces for images on the front/back covers.

What happens when I order some POD eBooks or StoryCubes?
When you confirm your order an email is sent to Proboscis where one of us will calculate the cost and send you an invoice via Paypal. Once we receive payment we will send your item(s) to press and aim to have the finished products in your hands within 7 working days. StoryCubes will be printed on a regular basis – check here or on twitter for details of the next printing deadline.
The ordering system is very hands-on whilst we’re still developing the alpha version of bookleteer – please bear with us and forgive its manual shortcomings!

New videos on folding/making Diffusion eBooks

gileslane — Sat, 01 May 2010 14:35:51 +0000

We’ve recently posted some new videos demonstrating how to fold, cut and make up the 4 different types of Diffusion eBooks that can be made using bookleteer:

How to make: Book Landscape Diffusion eBook from Proboscis on Vimeo.

How to make: Book Portrait Diffusion eBook from Proboscis on Vimeo.

How to make: Classic Landscape Diffusion eBook from Proboscis on Vimeo.

How to make: Classic Portrait Diffusion eBook from Proboscis on Vimeo.

more interface updating

gileslane — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 10:32:49 +0000

So we continued with the tinkering yesterday – shifting some simple things like the login and main menu items to be consistent at the top of the page, made the library and my publication page lists of eBooks and StoryCubes behave more elegantly, and tidied up the home and help pages too. Links to create new eBooks and StoryCubes have also been shifted to the main menu items at the top so it should be simpler and more intuitive to create your shareables. We’ve also added in some more help notes related to making StoryCubes.

Next week, we should be pushing through some more fixes and improvements and testing the back end for a new print on demand capability for eBooks (similar to that which we currently offer for StoryCubes) which we’ve been working on for the past few months. Lastly, we’ll be working on new templates for making A3/Ledger sized eBooks, which will fold down to make A5/half-US Letter booklets.

Interface Tweak

gileslane — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:35:03 +0000

Following feedback at this week’s PU&P we’ve made a small, but important tweak to the StoryCube create/edit page – a diagram showing the position and orientation of each image on the cube (front and back):

The exact dimensions of each StoryCube face are 55mm by 55mm and we recommend making images at no less than exact size at 72dpi (or 150dpi optimum).

bookleteer user guides

karenmartin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:38:54 +0000

Giles asked me to help put together some user guides for bookleteer so I took the opportunity of the first Pitch Up and Publish event to see how people went about using bookleteer and to ask them the kinds of problems they encountered. Having worked with the original Diffusion Generator it was really satisfying to see how far the new bookleteer version has come in making the process of creating an eBook or StoryCube an intuitive one.

During the event I took notes on Giles’ introduction on how to use bookleteer and noted down the questions asked by participants. These are the basis of the help guide and faq on bookleteer that you can see when you login to bookleteer.com.

Currently, the user guide describes how to create an eBook in one of the four available formats (shown below). A guide to making StoryCubes will be added soon.

eBook formats Classic Portrait and Classic Landscape

eBook formats Book Portrait and Book Landscape

In the future we plan to add more detail to the help section and divide the user guides and faq into separate pages. If you have any comments on the usefulness of these guides, or how we could make them more relevant to you, or if you’ve had any difficulties in using bookleteer that we haven’t covered, please do get in touch and let us know..

And don’t forget Pitch Up & Publish 2 tomorrow night!