brainbaking-com-q4yeof.txt (12372B)
1 [1]skip to main content 2 [2] [logo] 3 4 • [3] Archives 5 • [4] Works 6 • [5] About 7 • [6] More... 8 9 The Archivist In Me Turned This Blog Into a Book 10 11 5 June 2026 12 13 Four years ago, in the article [7]What Happens To My Digital Identity When I 14 Die?, I wrote the following prophetic words: 15 16 […] Which gets me back to this website. My intentions are to someday 17 publish its contents in the form of a book, which can also be stored at the 18 KBR [Royal Library of Belgium]. This allows the people dear to me to still 19 have access to the silly stuff I write here. 20 21 Two years later, I claimed that [8]Good Blogging Habits Yield a Book Each Year 22 of more than 80k words. That means compiling a hefty tome to compress all these 23 years of productive blogging into a single physical volume might be a bit more 24 challenging than I initially anticipated. Yet not impossible. So the last 25 months, I’ve kept myself busy by doing just that: turning this blog into a 26 book! 27 28 [9] [pages] The book flipped open on the blog post 'Three Little GameCube Mods' 29 from 05 December 2021. 30 31 This was a special experiment with a high probability of failure as I wasn’t 32 sure how it would turn out. What should a Brain Baking book look like compared 33 to browsing this website? How should it feel to flip through the pages? Will I 34 be able to squeeze everything in there (nope)? Do I want to publish this 35 publicly or just generate a .pdf, send it to the presses just for myself and 36 call it a day? And if so, which service to use, as the past ones I’ve relied on 37 all showed their shortcomings? 38 39 Brain Baking DX 40 41 Luckily, it turned out all right. I call it Brain Baking DX: Blog Archives 2016 42 - 2026 and it is [10]available at Amazon under ISBN-13 number 979-8197112897. 43 My first attempt yielded more than 500 pages and I couldn’t find a publishing 44 service that was eager to print something like that for less than €100. At 45 Amazon, the book costs… €15. And it’s globally available, should you be crazy 46 enough to want a copy. Be warned, though: the book is mostly unedited, I 47 created this mainly for myself. I sent out a few copies to friends but have no 48 intention of setting up a marketing campaign let alone making money off of it. 49 I intentionally set the price low and receive €0.5 for every sale. Please do 50 not buy this just to support me. 51 52 So why a book? As mentioned before, I want my writing to be a bit more 53 permanent than the fleeting medium called the internet. What happens when my 54 VPS is blown up, my backups burned away, and my motivation to restore all this 55 along with it? In Belgium every author of “proper” books (this is debatable 56 nowadays… Is Brain Baking DX a proper book?) is legally obliged to deposit two 57 copies to the Royal Library in Brussels, where the books disappear into the 58 winding depths of the archive deep below the capital. Plus, I like books. I 59 like flipping through this one and rediscovering old writings: it feels very 60 different than clicking through the online archive. 61 62 Also, since I like to add photos in my blog posts to help shape the atmosphere, 63 preserving these mostly personal photos in the book makes me feel warm and 64 fuzzy inside when I flip through the book and look at them. Some of these 65 photos are snapshots of my life as a kid, my old and new desktop setup, 66 destinations I once biked to, etc. It’s a nice memento to have these included. 67 68 Why Brain Baking DX? What’s up with that? Most readers of this blog know that I 69 grew up with a Game Boy and became a big retro gaming nut(case) because of it. 70 The black DX cartridge editions transformed their original Game Boy release 71 into the wonderful world of colours: black carts work with the original Game 72 Boy and the then new Game Boy Color. DX was simply the “DeluXe” treatment to 73 your beloved Link’s Awakening or Tetris. 74 75 Funny, as Brain Baking DX might be called anything but deluxe: financial 76 constraints prevent me from publishing this book in full colour mode and space 77 constraints prevent me from simply dumping everything that I’ve ever written in 78 here. Perhaps both are for the better. Still, in a way, a printed edition of 79 ten years worth of Brain Baking blog posts can certainly be called deluxe. 80 81 Compiling the book 82 83 My method for compiling the book wasn’t as simple as throwing every Markdown 84 article source file at Pandoc to compile a single .pdf. I didn’t want to 85 preserve everything I post here: it had to be a deliberate, curated selection. 86 Things I didn’t want in there include: 87 88 • Research and topics regarding creativity & bread baking: I have other 89 published books that delve into this. 90 • Monthly link sharing posts and other posts that are mainly lists or links. 91 • Technical posts on programming, coding, Hugo tips, etc. 92 • Design mistake posts. 93 • Overly negative posts. Anything that has the word “AI” in it (except my 94 more elaborate commentary). 95 • Too short posts to be worthwhile printing. 96 • Too photo/screenshot intensive posts to be worthwhile printing. 97 98 After proceeding to make a first selection, I categorised these into major 99 themes that became the parts of the book: parenting, journaling & writing, 100 work, the web, technology, retro, video and board games, life & philosophy, 101 food & cooking, and living in Belgium. Then I employed my usual Markdown/Pandoc 102 /TeX magic and inspected the results. 103 104 [11] [books-stac] The front cover of Brain Baking DX. 105 106 600+ pages. Ouch. Now what? Maybe it is time to think about the layout: how do 107 I want to present all this text? Clearly, a typical book layout won’t do. I 108 turned down the font size, opted for a two-column layout, selected a more wide 109 book format (230x185 mm) and squeezed everything I could out of those margins. 110 As a last resort, I also allowed chapters to start on any page (as opposed to 111 the right page only which introduces a lot of blank pages). I admit I might 112 have overdone it a bit as the top margin is very thin, but all these changes 113 did reduce the page size to a more manageable 470. 114 115 After ordering a few copies for myself to inspect the result, I was afraid that 116 the text would not be very readable, or the margins where the book would be 117 glued would be too narrow. Fortunately, the end result is surprisingly pleasant 118 to read. The cream paper Amazon provides is a nice match although the paper 119 feels a bit too thin for my taste. Yet a hefty tome like this for €15 is 120 ridiculously cheap so I can’t complain. The fact that the book is printed in 121 black & white does not work against the many photos and screenshots included. 122 Additionally, because it’s Amazon, it allows the book to be distributed and 123 printed virtually anywhere. My copies were printed in Brétigny-sur-Orge in 124 France. Better than China! 125 126 Adapting the text 127 128 When you are selecting blog posts to be included into the book, you’ll notice 129 recurring themes you wrote about. For example, I have wasted too many words on 130 physical video game collecting. Instead of just pasting these chapters next to 131 each other, I wanted them to “flow” better in the book so I did rewrite 132 portions to better match the medium. Also, in many occasions, a new chapter 133 (thus blog post) starts with a reference to the previous one. On the site, this 134 is just a link, but on paper, you don’t want to print “in this article”. 135 136 Speaking of links, a blog or website is an interconnected medium: how to 137 approach this on paper? I ended up putting all \href{} LaTeX links in the 138 margin footer on the same page but did a diagonal sweep to remove the excessive 139 ones. On the site, a long link is just hidden behind a click, but on paper, an 140 archive.org link to a long URL is not only ugly but will never be typed over or 141 “used” in that way. Also, internal Brain Baking links usually start with / 142 post—in the end, I decided to keep it that way as prepending https:// 143 brainbaking.com everywhere would mean even more text wasted. I did make a note 144 of this in the newly written introduction. 145 146 Besides the “in this post” link adaptations (don’t do this—it’s also bad for 147 accessibility in your online blog!), I noticed I also had to do something about 148 the images. Because of the two-column layout, the wide figures such as graphs 149 will be squeezed into a barely readable square. You can fix this by manually 150 adding a * to the ones you want to be displayed as a full-page spread (\figure* 151 {}). But I made another mistake: in many posts, I write something and then add 152 an image to emphasise the statement, ending in a semicolon to point to the 153 image. Yet in a book, you never know precisely where that image will be 154 included! In my future writings, I’ll take these things into account to more 155 easily compile Brain Baking DX II in ten years. 156 157 This was a lovely month project that rewarded me with a physical artefact of an 158 ever-evolving digital medium, solidifying words, sentences, and paragraphs in a 159 way that perhaps might even envy The Internet Archive. As a hopeless 160 sentimental person, flipping through the book, looking at the figures and 161 reading the text makes me happy. And also embarrassed as there are plenty of 162 contextual and grammatical mistakes in solidified as well. 163 164 I’m looking forward to revisiting the project in ten years! If you want to 165 attempt something like this for yourself and don’t know how to approach this 166 technically, drop me a line and I’ll be more than glad to help you out. 167 168 [12]webdesign [13]archiving 169 170 You Might Also Like... 171 172 • [14]Good Blogging Habits Yield a Book Each Year 07 Jul 2024 173 • [15]What Happens To My Digital Identity When I Die? 18 Sep 2022 174 • [16]How Bad Is Link Rot At Brain Baking? 22 Dec 2024 175 • [17]New Exhibits At The Brain Baking Museum 01 Jul 2024 176 • [18]The Backup And Sync Strategy, Revised 16 May 2024 177 • [19]We Should Build Our Own Wayback Machines (Reprise) 29 Mar 2023 178 • [20]Creating Journals That Last 18 Mar 2023 179 180 Bio and Support 181 182 [avatar2024] 183 184 I'm [21]Wouter Groeneveld, a Brain Baker, and I love the smell of freshly baked 185 thoughts (and bread) in the morning. I sometimes convince others to bake their 186 brain (and bread) too. 187 188 If you found this article amusing and/or helpful, you can support me via [22] 189 PayPal or [23]Ko-Fi. I also like to hear your feedback via [24]Mastodon or 190 email. Thanks! 191 192 JavaScript is disabled. I use it to obfuscate my e-mail, keeping spambots at 193 bay. 194 Reach me using: [firstname] at [this domain]. 195 196 ↑ [25]Top | [26]Archives | [27]RSS Feed | [28]© CC BY 4.0 License. [29] 197 [brainbakin] 198 199 200 References: 201 202 [1] https://brainbaking.com/post/2026/06/the-archivist-in-me-turned-this-blog-into-a-book/#top 203 [2] https://brainbaking.com/ 204 [3] https://brainbaking.com/archives/ 205 [4] https://brainbaking.com/works/ 206 [5] https://brainbaking.com/about 207 [6] https://brainbaking.com/more 208 [7] https://brainbaking.com/post/2022/09/what-happens-to-my-digital-identity-when-i-die/ 209 [8] https://brainbaking.com/post/2024/07/good-blogging-habits-yield-a-book-each-year/ 210 [9] https://brainbaking.com/post/2026/06/the-archivist-in-me-turned-this-blog-into-a-book/pages.jpg 211 [10] https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Baking-DX-Blog-Archives/dp/B0H271SK3K/ 212 [11] https://brainbaking.com/post/2026/06/the-archivist-in-me-turned-this-blog-into-a-book/books-stacked.jpg 213 [12] https://brainbaking.com/categories/webdesign 214 [13] https://brainbaking.com/tags/archiving 215 [14] https://brainbaking.com/post/2024/07/good-blogging-habits-yield-a-book-each-year/ 216 [15] https://brainbaking.com/post/2022/09/what-happens-to-my-digital-identity-when-i-die/ 217 [16] https://brainbaking.com/post/2024/12/how-bad-is-link-rot-at-brain-baking/ 218 [17] https://brainbaking.com/post/2024/07/new-exhibits-at-the-brain-baking-museum/ 219 [18] https://brainbaking.com/post/2024/05/the-backup-and-sync-strategy-revised/ 220 [19] https://brainbaking.com/post/2023/03/we-should-build-our-own-wayback-machines-reprise/ 221 [20] https://brainbaking.com/post/2023/03/creating-journals-that-last/ 222 [21] https://brainbaking.com/about 223 [22] https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=R2WTKY7G9V2KQ 224 [23] https://ko-fi.com/woutergroeneveld 225 [24] https://dosgame.club/@jefklak 226 [25] https://brainbaking.com/post/2026/06/the-archivist-in-me-turned-this-blog-into-a-book/#top 227 [26] https://brainbaking.com/archives 228 [27] https://brainbaking.com/index.xml 229 [28] https://brainbaking.com/copyright-and-tracking-policy 230 [29] https://brainbaking.com/links