May28

One of a kind reprint

by Jonathan on May 28, 2016 at 3:37 pm
Posted In: Art Images

After hours staring at a screen until my eyes hurt day after day I gave up and did a one-of-a-kind photo reprint of John Wesley’s 1st edition book. This is for my final line-by-line comparison of the original and the text for the second edition and the limited leather edition. This book has to be perfect. Unless someone convinces me otherwise that will be the completion of this project.

front cover back cover

 

Inside

The book turned out alright. If all I was trying to do was preserve history this would have been the way to go from the start. But this book is such an important part of what it means to be a Wesleyan that I wanted to make sure that it could be available to everyone in the fullest capacity. That meant primarily making it into a fully indexed digital resource.

Sorry, this resource will not available for sale and is for private use only.

 

May05

The little/big things that make it better

by Jonathan on May 5, 2016 at 11:11 pm
Posted In: Publishing
Screen Shot 2016-05-05 at 9.54.15 PM

Adding in Drop Caps

I am diligently working on the limited leather edition of John Wesley’s The Book of Common Prayer. The initial project was streamlined for digital use. That was a big job, and now that it’s done I can go back in and add some of the finesse of the original.

Drop caps aren’t practical for digital books (or web pages) so I compromised and opted for Bold cap initials. This still provided a visual cue for readers without changing the flow of text. For the leather edition it’s those Big letters that add those little touches that will bring out the classic flavour of the original publication.

sample vignette

Special Publication Vignette

 

Another special touch I’m working on is adding vignettes (border decorations and images). It is sad that we’ve sterilized our modern academic books. Those books that aren’t plain and have a more upbeat appeal end up looking like a magazine or a webpage.

 

More samples are to come as this project goes forward.

 

 

 

 

FullSizeRender

John Wesley’s Tracts on Prayer Preface

 

Apr26

johnwesleyprayer.com

by Jonathan on April 26, 2016 at 5:52 pm
Posted In: Publishing, Web Design

The production website for johnwesleyprayer.com has been up for a while now. There is a temporary link on the menu bar on this site for those who may have wandered here looking for the book. Of course the site looks very similar to this one…I want people to realize it’s all part of what I do here.

What book? For those who don’t know I’ve been studying prayer and liturgy as part of my ongoing ministerial training. One of the projects I took on was a comparative study between The Book of Common Prayer (1662 BCP) and John Wesley’s 1784 version of the BCP. Out of that study I have been working on republishing a full version of John Wesley’s book and bringing it into modern media. In the process I have also printed two companion books that really make the collection complete. To find out more feel free to check out the website.

Anyone interested? I would be willing to consider assisting with other book projects. If you have an old book you published ages ago and you want to bring it up to date, I can help with that. I’ve designed several printed books and fully indexed eBooks. Some of them can be found on my author page at lulu.com. One of the challenges of creating eBooks (especially 100 pages +) is making them so you can navigate through them quickly. John Wesley’s The Book of Common Prayer is 454 pages plus in the eBook there are an added 128 pages in bonus materials.

screenie

Apr03

Large Print & Hardcover almost ready!

by Jonathan on April 3, 2016 at 8:06 pm
Posted In: Publishing

comp-sample hardcover proofRecently we received the proof for the hardcover edition of John Wesley’s the BCP.

What editions of this book will be made available?

John Wesley’s The Book of Common Prayer – HC – ISBN:978-1-329-99526-0 Initially there will be the hardcover edition available, which is intended to be used as a sturdy (6″x9″) textbook.

John Wesley’s The Book of Common Prayer – LG – ISBN: 978-1-329-95514-1 There will also be a large-print paperback which features a size 12 font on a larger page (6.14 x 9.21).

Both of these we hope to have available by the end of April 2016. These books will then be immediately available on lulu.com and then over time will be distributed through the regular channels. If all goes well perhaps a christian publisher will take over production.

John Wesley’s The Book of Common Prayer – Limited Edition After the first run of books we hope to release a (highly anticipated) limited leather bound edition for us, Wesley aficionados, who desire an actual prayer-book for their library. These we are hoping for by this Fall 2016. The reason this edition will come later is that it requires an upfront investment in order to be produced. Those sales will be run from this website so that we can quality inspect each volume.

Also later this year we plan on releasing the book as an eBook on Amazon Kindle, then hopefully everyone else over time. The eBook has always been the ultimate goal of this project making the book fully indexed and searchable for those doing research. The other advantages of this are on-screen comparisons and further integration into Bible Software.

Mar14

Testing eBooks!

by Jonathan on March 14, 2016 at 3:13 pm
Posted In: Art Images

The proof is on it’s way from the printers. We are almost finished with the digital version of John Wesley’s The Book of Common Prayer. Here is an image of it running on Nook and Kindle. For details about this project stop by the John Wesley’s BCP page.

dualing ebooks

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