The Panasonic Lumix LX5 Book Should be Available on Amazon Soon

I've had a few people send me e-mails asking when the new book about the Panasonic Lumix LX5 camera will be available. I don't have a definite date, but it should be soon. Now that the proof has been accepted, the printer, Lightning Source, will list the book in a database that goes to Amazon.com and other online booksellers, and those sellers will pick up the listing in the normal course of their operations, some sooner than others. It should be a matter of a day or two, or maybe several days, and then the book will show up if you do a search for it online. In the meantime, I have ordered a few books from the printer to be shipped directly to me, and I will make some of those available if anyone needs a book before it becomes available on Amazon. The book probably will not be available in any bookstores, because it is quite expensive to print, and so I can't offer a large enough discount to make it worthwhile for bookstores to carry it. I'll keep posting updates here, and then on my web site once the book is actually in stock at Amazon or elsewhere.

Proof Copy of Lumix LX5 Book Arrived and Has Been Approved

This is a photograph (taken with my Panasonic Lumix LX5 camera) of the proof copy of the new book about the LX5, as it arrived today via UPS. The photo also shows the standard card that came from Lightning Source advising the publisher (me, in this case) to check the copy over for things like correct pagination, typos, positioning of the elements on the pages, correct ISBN, etc., before approving it. Everything looked very good to Clenise and me, so I went online earlier this evening and approved it with Lightning Source. It will take a few days, but soon the book will automatically start to show up as available for sale on Amazon.com and other sites. In the meantime, there's plenty of other things to do. I will order some copies from Lightning Source so I can send them out to reviewers and the people who helped me by commenting on the book, and I may ship some to one or more bookstores that may order them from me. I also need to plan some amount of marketing and publicity activity, so people who may be interested in the book will know it exists! So, the book production phase ends for now, and the marketing phase will take over for a while.

Before too long, though, I plan to do another version of this book that is oriented to the Leica D-Lux 5, the new model from Leica that is essentially the same as this Panasonic camera, except for some cosmetic changes and different software, among other things.

Proof Copy of Panasonic Lumix LX5 Book Has Shipped

Within the past hour I received an e-mail message from Lightning Source saying they have shipped out the proof copy of the book about the Panasonic Lumix LX5 digital camera. I will receive the proof tomorrow, and if it looks okay I will log on to my Lightning Source account and approve it. Then, hopefully within a few days, the book will start to show up as available on Amazon.com and other sites. I will also order a few copies from the printer to be shipped directly to me, so I can send them out to reviewers and to several people who provided helpful comments on drafts of the book. I may also make some available for sale myself, if Amazon is slow to start showing the book on its site.

In response to a comment, the only problem I have had with the CMYK colors of these books was when there were compatibility problems between Adobe Acrobat and the Macintosh Snow Leopard operating system, resulting in a botched conversion of the file to PDF format. I use Adobe InDesign CS5 software to lay out the books, and the RGB images should be automatically converted to CMYK by Acrobat, but on some occasions the conversion apparently didn't work properly. This time, everything went well, as far as I know.

Dealing with Printing Issues for Panasonic Lumix LX5 Book

In response to a comment, I'll say a little bit more about some of the issues that come up with sending PDF files to Lightning Source (LSI). With each of my two previous books (about the Leica D-Lux 4 and the Panasonic Lumix LX3) that were (and still are) printed by LSI, I had my files rejected at least once for technical problems. The publisher (me, in this case) has to submit two PDF files for each book: one file for the text of the book, and a separate file for the cover. These 2 PDF files have to meet a set of precise specifications, including document size, bleeds, ink coverage, etc., some of which I really don't understand at all well. For example, all colors in the files have to be CMYK, which stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and black, which are the colors used by printers (the machines, that is). Generally, when you or I work on the computer, the colors are considered RGB, for red, green, and blue, which is the color system used by monitors. When you create the PDF from the original document, you have to make sure all RGB colors are converted to CMYK. This process can make the colors look a bit different; blues may look more purple, for example. Some publishers undoubtedly have equipment and software to calibrate their equipment so they can see what the end result will look like on paper, but I don't. This issue is generally taken care of by generating the PDF using the proper process. In this case, the proper process, starting with a file in Adobe InDesign, is to print the file to a PostScript printer file, then process that file into a PDF file using Adobe Distiller. This procedure has considerable complications, especially for someone like me who uses a Macintosh with the Snow Leopard operating system, but I eventually was able to work through them and generated the files properly.

Another issue I have run into is with the resolution of images. LSI wants the photographs in the text and cover to be generally 300 dots per inch, which is a good, high resolution for printed work. In the past, I received notices from LSI saying my text file contained images that were considered low resolution, but they would print them anyway. The lowest resolution they will accept is 72 dots per inch, which is the resolution for most images when viewed on a computer monitor. Those images looked okay in the printed books, but this time, for the Panasonic Lumix LX5 book, I was more careful to generate images with at least 300 dpi resolution in Photoshop. I must have succeeded, because this time around I did not receive any error messages from LSI about low resolution images.

Those are the major issues I have run into, though I'm sure other publishers have had other issues in meeting the specifications for LSI printing. You can get more details at www.lightningsource.com, where there are various publications available about their printing process and their file creation requirements.

Status: Proof Has Been Generated

I probably shouldn't keep going on to the Lightning Source web site to check on the status of the Panasonic Lumix LX5 book; after all, they say a watched pot never boils. But I needed to take a break from doing some fairly tedious work in Photoshop, so I loggged on to my account just to take a quick look, and the status had been updated. The status as of today is: "Proof has been generated." My interpretation of this status is that they have printed out a copy of the book and its cover, and it's waiting to be inspected by the quality control people; once it passes inspection, it will be shipped overnight to me so Clenise and I can review and (hopefully) approve it.

Of course, there's no way to know what the exact schedule will be, but as of now it seems possible that the proof could ship out on Monday or Tuesday, and get to us in Virginia on Tuesday or Wednesday. So, if all continues to go well, the book still seems to be on track for becoming available for sale by late next week or thereabouts.

In the meantime, here are a couple of photos taken by the LX5. The first one is included in the book; the second one did not make it because of space limitations.

Book About Panasonic Lumix LX5 May Be Ready Next Week

Today I received an e-mail message from Lightning Source advising me that my order for a proof copy of the Lumix LX5 book has been confirmed. I then went on their web site and checked the status of the book; it reported that the "book block" and the cover have both been "accepted." That was good news! That means that there were no technical problems with either the interior text of the book (268 pages, including Table of Contents and Index), or with the cover. There are quite a few technical problems that can arise (and have in the past), such as incorrect document size, some fonts not embedded, wrong resolution of the images, colors that don't conform to the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) standard, etc. Now the book's status is shown as "print ready." I just have to wait until Lightning Source puts the book in one of its printing queues and produces a proof copy. They will then ship it to me overnight for approval. If it looks OK, I will approve it online, and that releases it for distribution through Amazon.com and other sellers. Based on past experience, I think the proof may get to me by about Wednesday, November 3 or thereabouts. If it is in good shape, Amazon may start selling the book by the end of next week. Of course, everything is out of my control at this point except approving the proof copy. I will be very quick at that step, once I receive the proof copy.

By the way, here is what the cover of the book looks like:

So Far, So Good -- LX5 Book Should be Available Soon -- Here is An Excerpt

I checked today on the Lightning Source site, and the status report is that Photographer's Guide to the Panasonic Lumix LX5 is in "premedia," which means the technicians are checking the PDF files for the interior text and the cover to make sure they comply with all of the technical requirements, before the files are set up to print on the company's printing equipment. If the process continues to go smoothly, they will print a proof copy and overnight it to me, maybe by early next week. Once I approve the proof copy of the book, the book will start gradually to become available at Amazon.com and other online sites.

For now, I have uploaded to this blog a link to a PDF excerpt with Table of Contents and the first few pages of the book about the Panasonic LX5 so you can get an idea of what subjects are covered and what the text and illustrations look like. So, take a look at the excerpt that I have included in the links section of the blog, and see what you think.