so somebody backchanneled me and said that
they thought roger had created his own format,
with tools that handled it, so what's up with that?,
and why is he now exploring t.e.i.?  i don't know...

i think it's because he's a bit frustrated, because
all the auxiliary sites that scarf up p.g. e-books
go on to create their versions using the .txt file,
so even if roger makes .epub, they won't use it...
something like that, but i dunno; don't quote me.

***

this person also inquired about my own system...

it's fine and dandy.  i recently reworked it, so that
you can use the web-based version to write a book,
and not just proof scans.  this basically meant that
i removed the scan, and the pre-existing o.c.r. text,
so it's not like it was a big stretch to "adapt" it thus.

i've run a couple books through it, and it works fine.

i think most writers will use my offline authoring-tool,
rather than the web-based one.  but the online version
lets people collaborate on a book, if they wanna do that.

(i did the "adaptation" because some people were making
a big deal about using wordpress as their communal tool;
since that process involves taking wordpress .html output
and shoveling it into indesign just to make a .pdf, i figured
a purpose-built tool to collect .zml text could outshine it.)

with the last book i put through the system, i worked with
lots of images, so now i am even comfortable with books
which are heavily illustrated. dropping images into a .pdf
can be troubling, as the pagebreaks introduce difficulties,
but i think i'm well on the way to sorting out that thicket...
images in the .html version are simple, since the browser
is responsible for positioning them and wrapping the text.

***

so, um, yes, in case anyone out there might be wondering,
roger could indeed use my format to get what he wanted.

indeed, he would even save himself the post-processing,
since in my system, the proofer creates the end-product.

they keep working a page til it looks like it's supposed to.
and when every page looks like it should, the book's done.

-bowerbird