Self-Publishing Part 8: While Still Preparing the Book, a Seedling Platform Aims for a Star
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness
With the Star designation, iUniverse commits further resources to the book, effectively completing an entirely new, author-controlled onramp to the Traditional Publishing Path.
First, the cover gets reassessed. Not only has this book met industry standards in writing quality and shown a market exists for it, but the book has reached the market and demonstrated an actual demand exists for it. The book has proven it can sell. To make sure the book looks like the seller it is, the cover gets a second Cover Copy Polish. This would include, if necessary a professional editing of the back cover copy and author bio, possibly adding blurbs from reviews it might have gotten, as well as another turn through design, including, at the very least, a new ISBN and a new colophon:
The logo changes color, again dependent upon the book’s actual cover, and transforms into a star; the swoop up remains; the matching color dot returns atop the i, and as the book and its author are no longer merely rising, the single word Star appears below iUniverse. Read More
Self-Publishing Part 8: While Still Preparing the Book, Finding a Major Mistake on the Cover
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness
Sure, the cover looked great. The designers followed my instructions and did a bang up job: Only with the wrong central image.
The problem was that for months I’d been using cover1 to mean a particular image. It was labeled cover1 on FaceBook, labeled cover1 on my desktop. I’d gotten used to cover1 meaning my favorite cover. Period.
But the designers changed my favorite cover’s name to coveralt1 and using cover1 for a different image, so when I directed them to use cover 1 (what had been my and most other people’s favorite), I had inadvertently directed them to use the wrong cover image.
ACK! Read More
Self-Publishing Part 8: While Still Preparing the Book, Growing a Seedling Platform with 25 Pages of Errata
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness
One of the things mentioned by the person delivering the Quality Edit was that after the book was typeset, I should have it proofread in its final form: things can happen when the conversion is made from MS Word to the typesetting software, and further things might simply come across differently when typeset.
Yeah. (Note the slight frown caught in the corners of the mouth.) Read More
Self-Publishing Part 8: While Still Preparing the Book, a Seedling Platform Sprouts Speakers
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness
A Perfect Blindness is drenched in music: not only do two musician friends end one band and start another, they go to clubs and dance, and listen to music on the radio, on vinyl and CDs as well; very many other songs find their way into the text of the book: some as the inspiration for the songs of White Heat and Mercurial Visions, two of their bands, play; other times some lyrics are quoted; and many times, songs were in the back of my mind as I wrote a particular sentence, so slivers of them can be extracted from the text, while the outlines of others can be discerned in some turns of phrase. In fact, the book has a soundtrack. Read More
Self-Publishing Part 8: While Still Preparing the Book, a Seedling Platform Sprouts Speakers
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness A Perfect Blindness is drenched in music: not only do two musician friends end one band and start another, they go to clubs and dance, and listen to music on the radio, on vinyl and CDs as well; very many other songs find their way into […]
Self-Publishing Part 8: while still preparing the book, a genere at long last
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of Perfect Blindness
In answer to my own question: yes, I would keep finding mistakes, so many that I started a Word doc to collect all the errata for me to fix. As I worked on engaging the FB group with updates, which hadn’t yet very many members, did finally gather enough votes to make a final decision on the cover: A blend. The one I liked the most and had sent as a mock-up originally was the clear favorite in the polls, more than doubling the votes for all three other covers combined, and for both men and women. Still, I liked some of the elements from other covers, so instructed the creation of a hybrid version based on the most people’s favorite cover. Read More
Self-Publishing Part 8: while still preparing the book: polls and new issues
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness
While waiting for the designs to arrive, I continued to working on the blog One Candle in the Darkness, which cohabitates with APerfectBlindness.com on wlancehunt.com: all united so that any success on one will help the others. Ideas continued presenting themselves and my list of things to do and explore grew to spread over three notepads, multiple pages in Evernote, plus various scraps of paper, notes, and emails to myself, some seeping into Mac Reminders in an effort to prioritize the ever longer lists. Read More
Self-Publishing Part 8: STILL preparing the book for publication
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness
When I first submitted my manuscript, I had no idea this would take so long, nor be so involved. This is hard work, and not for the doubtful, nor the impatient. It’s begun to feel like dragging a slab of stone across a field, and the closer I get to the finish line, the heavier it grows until it’s infinitely heavy. Read More
Self-Publishing Part 8: Finishing Preparing for Publication
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness
It’s now, at the level of Rising Star, that real institutional help kicks in. Which makes sense: the publisher finally knows it might actually make money selling the book, so they put more of their own money and time behind the book. Read More