Wikibooks:Wikibook Press
From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection
This project has not been officially approved yet, but will be a division of Wikibooks.
Wikibooks Press is a division of Wikibooks, the Wikimedia Foundation textbook product, will typeset and print textbooks based on finished Wikibooks, with all profits going to Wikimedia, to fund its projects, including buying new servers.
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[edit] Older page
Was digging thru Special:Ancientpages and found Wikibooks Press - Aya T E C 03:51, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Self-made books
I started Bookbinding with the intent of letting folks with printers bind their own wikibooks. It would be very nice to have some of the larger books formatted for 5½ × 8½, and arranged into quires. By this, I mean arranging pages so that after printing, several stacks (each called a quire) of them can either be cut (for perfect) or or folded (for sewn binding) down the center, and facing the left side of each stack to the right brings all the pages into the right order. This would allow folks with an interest in hand binding to print their own trade-paperback size books.--Polyparadigm 14:54, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Publishing
I was wondering if there has ever been any talk of these texts being published on demand, through cafepress. It could raise funds for Wikibooks, and the Wikimedia servers in general, plus make it easier for people to actually use as text books.
I'm volunteering to format text in PDF format for the printing, and design the covers, all that sort of stuff. They'd be nice portfolio pieces personally, as I'm considering going to college for graphic design or something along those lines. I can do up samples, if anyone would like, to show what my ideas are.
It would be "Perfect Binding" or "Wire-O", and 7.5 x 9.25 page size. Wire-O is $5 binding, plus $0.045 per page; Perfect Bound is $7, plus $0.03 per page. We can charge as much extra profit as we felt like on each book.
Anyway, it would be a great fundraising idea for Wikipedia/Wikimedia/Wikibooks, if agreed to. - Zanimum
- I'd imagine that the wikibookians would have to vote on each book, because publishing a half-finished(in the sense of refined/corrected/perfected) text might reflect badly on Wikibooks and give the perception that we can't compare to published proprietary texts. But yeah, I believe that it would be a great fundraiser for wikimedia. Maybe we need a special Votes for publication page Etothex 07:05, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
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- Shall I do up an example of a chapter of the US Constitution and Government textbook? Just thought I'd mention that Cafepress would be our best choice, because they print of demand. That way, if it sinks, it doesn't hurt anyone's pocketbook. - user:zanimum
I've been figuring out roughly the layout of the "The Constitution and Government of the United States of America" textbook last night and this afternoon, and its 60 pages, as is. That's without illustrations, photography, charts, that sort of stuff, but with unit title pages, three pages for index, an info page on Wikimedia, an info page for all the "bibliothecial" information (dewey decimal, Library of Congress number, credits, etc.), the table of contents.
It's only been laid out in Word so far, the actual design mock-up will be done in Corel Draw, which is almost a cross between Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Pagemaker; the actual file will be saved as a *.PDF (the Adobe Acrobat format).
I've been finding possible fair use and PD images for use, I may also put these onto the wiki version soon.
Stuff we might (should) want to add, to bring this reference book to a textbook include:
- Chapter Summaries- Condenses each unit of the book into short point, to help in review.
- Questions- We'd need some for each chapter, with a mock test like thing at the end of the unit.
- Key Terms- A list of new words, mostly from the glossary, that student should make sure they understand before completing the unit.
- Case Studies- Application of theory of government to specific real-life scenarios.
- In the News- These wouldn't be public domain, and might be influenced by NPOV, but many textbooks these days have questions based around actual news stories. It helps make the students confident that the information is current, and therefore accurate, through its timeliness. I'd be willing to even contact newspapers to see if we could get free licensing rights for the articles (not Free License, just a free license.
Also with these about forms of questions and activities, we'll need to have a "The Constitution and Government of the United States of America Teachers Guidebook", with all the answers to the questions, or best solutions to open-ended case studies.
We may want to give a comparison between the US and British systems, listing the pros and cons of each; currently only once in the book are other democratic systems even mentioned (Annotated Constitution, Article 1).
I'd love to interview a congressman, senator, judge, a "secretary of", that sort of thing.
Also, I've correct four score of spelling mistakes in this text; I'd appreciate someone with more time to check an accurate source to see if the spelling mistakes in some of the source documents are truely in the source documents. For example Article II, Section 1 of the amendments says "of chusing", and the Declaration of Independance mentions the "Brittish". As the English language is always evolving, I wonder if these are just archaic spellings of the words, used at the time these documents were written. But I do have a hunch these documents were just copied from less than reliable sources.
Anyway, tell me what you think, I'd love to see this book get off to press.
- user:Zanimum, "Nick Moreau"
- Nick, I love what you are talking about. I am all in favor of what you suggest in terms of printing up copies of the book, as well as the modifications that you suggest with chapter summaries, images, etc. How far do you think we are from having a printable version ready? Thanks for your enthusiasm, it is contagious. Maybe we should move this discussion to its own page b/c right now it is tucked away in a corner and not very visible. Maybe take it to the email list? --Karl Wick
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- Hey Karl. I could see getting the book fully formatted by December 19, if we were to just print without chapter summaries, questions, etc., just print with images and the text in the wiki version. I've been meaning to get a sample PDF of one page up there for a while, I've just not been on that computer in a while. I can get it up by Saturday, likely. I've seperated the discussion to its own page; if we do discuss on the mailing list, we should keep backups, summaries of the discussion, it's easier to follow, without keeping dozens of messages saved in your inbox. It's also more accessible, for casual wikibookians to follow. Can we create a division of Wikibooks called Wikibooks Press, to look after this and all the future projects? - user:zanimum
[edit] Sample Page
Hey Zanimum,
I kinda dig the page sample that you uploaded. I am all for printing this things up, although not many people will buy them until they are up to professional quality in content. Also, they will likely be in black and white at first don't you think ? I didn't notice this page at first as I was looking in the Staff Lounge for followup. Lets get the book(s) in undenianbly good quality content-wise before we get many printed up. This is exciting tho ! --Karl Wick
Hello, I am a new member to Wikipedia & Wikibooks, but have been using it for quite some time... I love to just browse through and learn various things. Anyways, I don't like reading on my computer screen, and so I typically will print pages off and read them. I would definately purchase books from Wikipedia (which is how I found this page - I was trying to find books I could buy!) especially since it'd go to help fund this wonderful project. I hope that things are rolling along smoothly with this... I'd be willing to help where possible... I have the easiest job on earth, and a computer with internet to keep me company, and I learn quite quickly, so feel free to ask me to do something towards this end.
PS - really liked the sample page! --eromrab
