Will we be able to see the new translations soon or will they go up when the aforementioned upgrades to SuttaCentral.net are made?
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Our aim is to get the translations and the new site working together. Currently this is working out fine, and we have a rough estimate of Feb 2018 for completing both sides of the project.
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Hi Bhante, will the translations also be published in book format? Looking forward to it!
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I wish to know the cost of publishing as a book too. (cost per unit)
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We will be publishing the books for free distribution, but that will take a little time.
The cost per book depends greatly on the size of the print run, as well as the size of the book, paper quality, and so on. But as a ball-park estimate, a good quality hardcover, printed at scale, costs around $5.
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Add to that shipping costs, right?
That’s right, i was speaking of printing costs alone. My thought is that when we come to make a proper SC edition, we should raise the money for the printing up front, then make them available at shipping cost only. If donations are given at point of order, then we can use them for either printing more copies, or sponsoring shipping for people on low incomes.
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This is surprising. This is less than the cost of a coffee and a toast!
Did you get your costing right? (even though I know that you are very good cost
accountant)
What is the order quantity this cost based on?
How come, other translations are selling for Usd 400.00?
Printing is a fairly minor part of the cost of a book, which is why ebooks and paper books are usually the same or similar cost.
This estimate is based on a project estimate that I did for printing the entire new canon translation, about 15 books of maybe 300 pages each, at 2,000 sets. This was using the highest quality Smythe-sewn binding, cloth-covered hardcover, using the most environmentally friendly cradle-to-cradle process, with all non-toxic glues, dies, and so on, printed and bound in Europe.
Doing it at this scale brings the cost of such quality production down to a competitive level. Normally, to print a 300 page paperback at small volume, even a single copy, would be about the same, maybe a couple of dollars less.
The place you do it of course has an impact as well. I’d love to consider doing this somewhere in Asia, but I don’t know anywhere that does cradle-to-cradle. Anyway, the Austrian printers were really nice and enthusiastic!
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So, a set costs about Aud 75.00 and total cost of producing 2000 sets are about Aud 150000.00?
Something along those lines, yes. This is a project I am thinking of doing, maybe a year or so after the text is launched. I would probably wait to include the early Khuddaka books and the Vinaya as well, so it would be a complete EBT set.
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Will that be similar to the canon published by Wisdom publication in content wise?
If not what are the missing items?
Well, Wisdom doesn’t publish the Vinaya, nor do they publish all of the 6 early Khuddaka books (I think, I may be wrong there.)
In publication style, it would be more like the PTS editions, with reasonable sized books, and several volumes per nikaya.
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When the updated site and Ajahn Sujatos suttas go up in February and March, will hyperlinks that people made to particular suttas on SuttaCentral.net be broken?
Good question!
We will be changing the URL structure, in order to deal with multiple translations of the same sutta in the same language. However, we will endeavor to use redirects to minimize any disruption in legacy links.
The majority of links will still work in the same way, but there will be some differences. For example, if you’ve previously linked to SC’s English translation of a sutta, you will still be directed to an English translation of that sutta. However, it’s possible that it won’t be the same translation, since the old URLs don’t give enough information to determine the translator. There are ways of dealing with these situations, but we can’t guarantee that it will work correctly 100% of the time.
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For example, if you’ve previously linked to SC’s English translation of a sutta, you will still be directed to an English translation of that sutta. However, it’s possible that it won’t be the same translation, since the old URLs don’t give enough information to determine the translator.
In that situation my personal vote would be to default to your translations since they will be the most modern and readable.
That is excellent news. To so many people what was published to AccessToInsight.org are stone tablets which Buddhism was carved into. It is an incredibly powerful educational experience to see the same sutta translated in different ways.
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Well, thank you.
One of the problems is guessing the user’s intent. Do they mean to link to any translation—in which case we should give them the best we have—or do they mean to link to Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation (or whatever the relevant translation of that sutta is)?
The good news, though, is that all the legacy translations will remain, and it will be easy to switch from one to another, so even if an incoming link doesn’t get you exactly what you want, it’s easy to get there.
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Bhante @sujato
What is the update on the progress?
Are we still on the mark to finalise it by end February?
As to the project progress, yes, we are still looking to mid-Feb. As to funding, I’m not exactly sure right now. Deepika is just getting off retreat, so will need to get up to speed a little; and we should soon get an invoice for December’s IT work. So once that’s in we’ll update you on where we stand.
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are there going to be any hard-copies printed and distributed?