You can now estimate prices for eBooks and StoryCubes on the PPOD page using the estimator to select size of eBooks (A6 or A5) or StoryCube (A4 or A3), number of pages, quantity of copies and shipping destination (UK / European Union / North America / Rest of World).
Both eBooks and StoryCubes can now be ordered in multiples of 50 (from 50 to 500, then 750, 1000, 1500, 2000 etc). eBooks are printed as soon as payment is received, turnaround from 5-15 days depending on the shipping destination; StoryCubes are printed in batches of 1,000 – orders will be added to a batch and will go to press as soon as a batch hits 1000 cubes.
We believe that we offer some of the most competitive prices for full colour printing of booklets, coupled with our ground-breaking short run service enabling you to print from just 50 copies. Plus the unique Diffusion eBook & StoryCube formats allowing your publications to be downloaded and handmade by anyone anywhere. It all adds up to a remarkably flexible way to create and share both online and off.
If you haven’t already got an account, sign up and get bookleteering.
Tomorrow, myself and some of my fellow Probsocis team, Mandy and Radhika, will be venturing on a mini City As Material expedition, hopefully the first of many. We’re aiming to draw sketches and write observations of people and interactions in a variety of public places – places that shape, and are in turn shaped, by the people in them – almost People As Material, if you will. Rather than having a theme or any set ambitions, we’re just going to try and capture the essence of random people and actions, perhaps inventing some fictional narratives and backstories along the way, and see how this format might inspire future City As Material events. Tomorrow we’ll be scouting out a few busy rail stations – places that reveal an interesting insight of the human character when bored or stressed, which should be prime fodder for some amusing drawings and writing. We’ll probably create some eBooks with the results, once we’ve done a few of these, so keep posted.
Rob Annable, an architect at Axis Design Architects, used bookleteer to create this eNotebook whilst visiting Germany to study Passivhaus design principles. Using a blank eBook complete with trip itineraries and QR code web links, he wrote down observations, and placed in photographs taken and printed on site with a Polaroid PoGo printer. It was then scanned and uploaded it for anyone to view and use. This custom notebook, combining essential trip information and a means to record data in a single artifact, avoids carrying excess documents, and allows for easier cross reference.
This week we’ve published the last two of four commissioned eBooks from our guests at the City As Material events : Tim Wight’s The 2nd book of Urizen and Simon Pope’s Skylines and Sightlines. These add to the other two already published by Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, Deep City and Ben Eastop, River Gap. Haz and I are working on a final book for the series which will present and overview of the events, our aims and feedback from the participants. This will complete the full set of 10 eBooks for City As Materials series 1, including the 5 collaborative eBooks published last Autumn : Situated Moments from the City, Ebb & Flow, Ancient Lights, City Shadows, Layered and Sonic Geographies.
In the next few weeks we’ll be printing up a limited edition set (50 copies) of all 10 eBooks through our PPOD service and are currently designing a special slipcase to hold them. The slipcases are also being designed as templates which we’ll incorporate into bookleteer later this year as an option for people to customise and create their own. We think they will offer a convenient way to organise or collect your own Diffusion eBooks. As with the other shareables, the slipcases will be designed so that they can be printed out and made up by hand (using an A3 printer/sheet size).
We’ll be hosting an event to launch the limited edition City As Material set this Spring – look out for updates on the date and venue.
Courtesy of the Creative Review blog, I’ve just been reading about how book spines are often neglected when designing covers, and the importance of their appearance when on bookshelves (after all, that’s the portion potential buyers or aesthetically conscious owners often see first). We’re currently in the process of designing a slipcase template for series of eBooks, which will lend a much needed physicality – transforming them int0 stable, store-able artifacts, rather than handfuls of booklets. The studio is overrun with vast quantities of eBooks produced over the years, and these will provide a handy organisation system, as well as looking swish. As for the spines, we’re bound by certain template constraints, but they’ll surely surpass some of the clangers featured here.
In August last year, I lent a hand to the Graffito crew whilst they were running an installation at the Vintage at Goodwood festival. Whilst festival-goers doodled on the iPhone app, their drawings were displayed on a huge L.E.D screen, along with everyone else using it. Giles prepared a blank eBook with the Graffito emblem, and lent us a portable pogo printer, so that we could instantly print screenshots onto stickers and place them in the scrapbook. It was later scanned and published on Diffusion, so anyone who played with Graffito at Vintage can therefore own a tangible souvenir of the event. Something so digital and temporary is saved from dissipating, and recorded somewhere other than the imagination.
Rather than a Zine Highlight, I thought I’d share with you an astounding book/film/theatre piece that I’ve just spied (courtesy of www.fastcodesign.com – which features some brilliant stuff), which Karen Martin will surely love, after her exploration of Pop – up books and book / technology hybrids. “The Ice Book” , by Davy and Kristin McGuire, is a book of miniature stages made from pop-up cut outs. It seems innocuous enough, until combined with interactive light projection, and it transforms into a magical, ghostly tale that plays with shadows and optical illusions. I was performing a constant double-take whilst watching the video – its amazing to think such a vivid and cinematic effect can be produced with the materials used. The Ice Book website is currently down, due to massive interest it seems, but you can watch the video and read more about it here.
A report by Julie Anderson, British Museum
In January, I returned from Sudan where my co-author Salah Mohamed and I distributed the eBook we produced last autumn. Frederik Lesage has previously written about the development of our eBook, which deals with the archaeological excavations conducted in Dangeil, Sudan, as a case study for eBook usage, in this blog. students on their way to school
Salah and I have been excavating in Dangeil for more than 10 years. Over this period, we have lived in the community and have come to know our neighbours well. Every year many work with us in the excavations. The archaeological site is situated in the centre of the village and an increasing number of tourists, both Sudanese and foreigners, are visiting the ruins. There is also a large primary school situated along the northern edge of the site. Students cross the site daily on their way to and from classes. As a means of engaging further with the local community, school children and site visitors, we decided to create a resource which would help them to better understand the excavations, the ancient temple and its importance, and to place Dangeil in its historical context. We were also driven by a need to explain what we were doing and why, in an accessible fashion. The key was communication and the end result was the eBook.
So, what sort of reaction did the eBook receive? Simply put, its reception, both in Khartoum and in the rural farming village of Dangeil, exceeded expectations. We produced 500 English copies and 500 in Arabic, the local language. We ran out of the latter. In retrospect, we should have produced a greater number of copies in Arabic. Copies were given to the local school and arrangements were made so that every household in the village received a copy. Unloading eBooks and textbooks at the school
Following the distribution of the eBook, teenagers began coming to our door in the village to ask questions about the site / archaeology / their own Sudanese history. In the past, usually they had wanted to have photographs taken, but now instead were connecting with their history as made possible through the booklet. It was astonishing. More surprising was the reaction people had upon receiving a copy. In virtually every single case, they engaged with the eBook immediately and began to read it or look through it. This occurred regardless of location or other business being conducted. Many of our workmen looked for images of things they themselves had helped to excavate and of people they knew, though the latter was true for almost everyone seeing the eBook.
Although our eBook takes the form of a more traditional and perhaps somewhat static publication, its impact cannot be underestimated. The Dangeil villagers, and indeed university students and antiquities staff in Khartoum, viewed the publication as written for them, about them, and in their own language. The eBook has served not only as an educational tool, but has empowered the local community and created a sense of pride and proprietary ownership of the ruins and their history.
Julie Anderson
Assistant Keeper
Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan, British Museum
We’re currently creating an eBook documenting our Pitch In & Publish: City As Material series of collaborative publishing events, detailing the inspirations for the series and the creative process, as well as accounts of each event and our overall thoughts on how it turned out. We’ll also feature participant feedback and what to look out for in future events. Designed to be a part of the limited edition City As Material set of 10 eBooks (which will be printed soon), this overview will provide an accompaniment to each themed publication, and the eBooks created by our special guests. I’ve sent an e-mail to everyone who took part to get feedback / pester them, so that we can hopefully be finished by the end of this week. Look out for it soon.
This was created alongside cartoonist Seth‘s model city installation, “Dominion”, shown at the Dundas Museum & Archives in Ontario, Canada. Seth constructed a scale cardboard city, inspired by the aesthetic of Canadian cities and towns like Hamilton and Dundas, infused with a detailed fictional narrative and history. The eBook showcases a selection of buildings from Dominion, alongside exhibition notes and a biography of the artist. It’s main purpose however, was to encourage visitors to recount their own tales and memories of Dundas, record them in the book, and leave it with the Museum to be read and shared. Sparking the imagination of readers, by relating the fictional Dominion to their experiences, this eBook allows the Museum to enrich it’s knowledge of Dundas and it’s inhabitants.
