Ordered 1st copy of Paperback version of part autobio from Pothi.com - it is private as of now
Past few days I was working on preparing the paperback version of the part autobio. Main task was converting hi-res/large colour images to grayscale with 300 DPI and replacing the low-res/small colour images in Word document with them. This seems to be necessary to get good quality grayscale picture prints in the paperback book. My previous book did not have any pictures in the inner content. So this is a new experience/task for me.
The Word document size bloated from around 5 MB to around 18 MB.
Then I printed the document using Save As PDF feature of Word 2007. The resultant PDF was only 5 MB! But when I saw the images in it, I was disappointed with some patches appearing in them. So this was unacceptable.
I printed with Print to PDF feature in Word 2007. That produced a PDF of around 49 MB size! That's some bloat. But when I looked at the pics in the PDF they were as good as in the Word document. So even if there was significant size bloat from around 18 MB Word document to around 49 MB PDF, the quality of pics in it was good.
I wondered whether around 49 MB inner content PDF file would be an issue with Pothi.com. I was all set to create a new paperback entry in Pothi.com, and did so for this part autobio book. While it took time to load the around 49 MB inner content PDF file, Pothi.com procedure of submitting a book did not raise any issues with it.
I faced an issue with the full cover page jpg picture. Though I had extracted the jpg picture from the PDF created by Pothi.com's Cover (Page) Creator (using a PDF extractor tool), when the jpg picture was uploaded to the book submission process in Pothi.com, the preview/review process showed only small parts of full cover pic as front page, spine and back page. In other words, the pic was too big and so got truncated.
I then tried uploading the PDF created by Pothi.com's Cover Creator. This time it aligned perfectly and I got the expected parts of the full pic as front page, spine and back page.
The PDF did not have the Not-for-Profit and Free-Reuse text pieces. So I created a small image of that from the previous cover page jpg file, and then added the image at the right place in Pothi.com's Cover Creator. The PDF download of cover page was then (re)submitted to Pothi.com book submission process and it worked as expected.
Pothi.com review got over today itself (there were 2 rounds of review as I did the above book submission work as 2 rounds). The pics below show how the private paperback sale page appears. I was able to place an order for a copy. Rs. 265 is the minimum price for the book at Pothi.com (adding to amazon and flipkart will raise the price to around Rs. 350 even for Pothi.com store and so I think I may not do that). The shipping charges to Puttaparthi was Rs. 85, making the total price Rs. 350.
[To open pic in larger resolution, right-click on pic followed by open link (NOT image) in new tab/window. In new tab/window you may have to click on pic to zoom in.]
On getting the copy hopefully in a week or so, I will check the quality of the printing, especially of the grayscale pics, and also try to quickly see if the text is OK. If I think everything is OK, I will make the book sale page public which will allow anybody to order it (for delivery in India).
Note that I am awaiting ISBN allotment for the ebook version (after which I will share the free ebook with ISBN on some free ebook sites). Only after I get the ISBN for the ebook am I allowed to apply for ISBN for paperback. So ISBN for paperback will take some time. Note that there seems to be a way by which one can apply for multiple ISBNs (for ebook and paperback) for the same title, at one time itself (for the first stage in the two stage process). However, there seems to be some confusion about the process (e.g. Price has to be specified in one text box at the title level, but that is 0 for ebook and 265 for paperback in my case!) and so I have opted to apply separately for ebook ISBN and paperback ISBN.
The jpg pic below has been extracted from full cover PDF of the paperback book that was submitted to Pothi.com book submission process.
The Word document size bloated from around 5 MB to around 18 MB.
Then I printed the document using Save As PDF feature of Word 2007. The resultant PDF was only 5 MB! But when I saw the images in it, I was disappointed with some patches appearing in them. So this was unacceptable.
I printed with Print to PDF feature in Word 2007. That produced a PDF of around 49 MB size! That's some bloat. But when I looked at the pics in the PDF they were as good as in the Word document. So even if there was significant size bloat from around 18 MB Word document to around 49 MB PDF, the quality of pics in it was good.
I wondered whether around 49 MB inner content PDF file would be an issue with Pothi.com. I was all set to create a new paperback entry in Pothi.com, and did so for this part autobio book. While it took time to load the around 49 MB inner content PDF file, Pothi.com procedure of submitting a book did not raise any issues with it.
I faced an issue with the full cover page jpg picture. Though I had extracted the jpg picture from the PDF created by Pothi.com's Cover (Page) Creator (using a PDF extractor tool), when the jpg picture was uploaded to the book submission process in Pothi.com, the preview/review process showed only small parts of full cover pic as front page, spine and back page. In other words, the pic was too big and so got truncated.
I then tried uploading the PDF created by Pothi.com's Cover Creator. This time it aligned perfectly and I got the expected parts of the full pic as front page, spine and back page.
The PDF did not have the Not-for-Profit and Free-Reuse text pieces. So I created a small image of that from the previous cover page jpg file, and then added the image at the right place in Pothi.com's Cover Creator. The PDF download of cover page was then (re)submitted to Pothi.com book submission process and it worked as expected.
Pothi.com review got over today itself (there were 2 rounds of review as I did the above book submission work as 2 rounds). The pics below show how the private paperback sale page appears. I was able to place an order for a copy. Rs. 265 is the minimum price for the book at Pothi.com (adding to amazon and flipkart will raise the price to around Rs. 350 even for Pothi.com store and so I think I may not do that). The shipping charges to Puttaparthi was Rs. 85, making the total price Rs. 350.
[To open pic in larger resolution, right-click on pic followed by open link (NOT image) in new tab/window. In new tab/window you may have to click on pic to zoom in.]
On getting the copy hopefully in a week or so, I will check the quality of the printing, especially of the grayscale pics, and also try to quickly see if the text is OK. If I think everything is OK, I will make the book sale page public which will allow anybody to order it (for delivery in India).
Note that I am awaiting ISBN allotment for the ebook version (after which I will share the free ebook with ISBN on some free ebook sites). Only after I get the ISBN for the ebook am I allowed to apply for ISBN for paperback. So ISBN for paperback will take some time. Note that there seems to be a way by which one can apply for multiple ISBNs (for ebook and paperback) for the same title, at one time itself (for the first stage in the two stage process). However, there seems to be some confusion about the process (e.g. Price has to be specified in one text box at the title level, but that is 0 for ebook and 265 for paperback in my case!) and so I have opted to apply separately for ebook ISBN and paperback ISBN.
The jpg pic below has been extracted from full cover PDF of the paperback book that was submitted to Pothi.com book submission process.
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