Publishing, for me, does not end when a book is formatted and uploaded to a store.
As the catalogue grows, I increasingly build technical infrastructure around the books: dedicated websites, open-source publishing tools, language protocols, translators, learning resources and software that helps the texts remain accessible and useful outside the format of a conventional book.
In other words, some books gradually turn into systems.
Book Landings
For the main publishing series, I usually create dedicated landing sites rather than relying only on Amazon or a catalogue page.
To make this easier, I built Book Landings, an open-source project published on GitHub. It provides a reusable foundation for creating visually rich websites for books and publishing series: cover compositions, individual book sections, articles, supporting materials, links to editions and other editorial content.
The idea is simple. A publishing series deserves a home of its own.
A store page is designed to sell one edition. A publishing landing can explain the larger project: why the series exists, how the books are connected, what is already available and what is planned next.
Protocols behind the books
Some publishing projects require more than a website.
This is particularly true for constructed and visual languages.
For example, there are several ways to use sitelen pona, the logographic writing system associated with Toki Pona. When I started working seriously with it in publishing, I needed consistency across books, translations and digital tools. So I documented the particular conventions I use as a protocol.
The purpose is not to claim that there is only one correct version of sitelen pona. It is to make my own publishing system reproducible: the same words, glyph choices and conventions should behave consistently across a book, a website and a software tool.
I take a similar approach with other experimental writing systems.
I have also developed my own visual communication system, Pictiq, with its own specification, GitHub repository, website and composer. It is intended as a visual language that can communicate basic meaning without requiring two people to share a spoken language.
As these systems become part of books, they also need technical infrastructure around them.
A Toki Pona ecosystem
Toki Pona has probably produced the largest publishing ecosystem around my books so far.
Alongside the books themselves, I have built an online translator inspired by the simplicity of Google Translate. It uses OpenAI models to translate from ordinary languages into Toki Pona and can also represent the result through systems such as sitelen pona and emoji-based writing.
There are separate learning resources and free materials for people who want to start reading and using Toki Pona before buying a book.
I have also experimented with protocols for systems such as sitelen emoji, where the language can be represented through a controlled visual vocabulary rather than conventional text.
And the infrastructure extends to the web itself.
I have built tools and plugins that allow websites to provide Toki Pona versions of their content and, depending on the project, render that content as Toki Pona, sitelen pona or emoji pona.
Similar experiments exist for Pictiq, allowing ordinary website content to be transformed into a visual-language representation.
The interesting part for me is that these are no longer simply book-production tools. They start forming an independent language and publishing infrastructure.
Books that create software
Traditionally, publishing infrastructure means editing software, typesetting, distribution and perhaps an ecommerce system.
I see it more broadly.
If a book uses an unusual language, perhaps the reader also needs a translator.
If it uses a writing system with several conventions, perhaps it needs a documented protocol.
If several books form a coherent series, perhaps they need their own website.
If the material can help someone learn, perhaps there should be a free companion resource.
If the language can exist on the web, perhaps browsers and websites should be able to render it.
So as BWA Express develops, I am also developing the tools around it.
Some of them begin as internal publishing utilities and later become open-source projects. Some become independent systems. Others remain small pieces of infrastructure serving one very specific series.
There is still a lot that could be built.
That is precisely the point.
For me, publishing is increasingly not just the production of books. It is the construction of an environment in which those books, languages and ideas can continue to live, connect and evolve.