09.07.07
Only The Beginning
Okay, folks, I promised you some news on Inconsequential, and now I’m finally ready to deliver. I have in my lap right now, the first “proof” copy of the actual, physical book.
That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. Inconsequential will be available, for purchase, before the year’s end.
Now, there are some catches. I’ve elected to publish Incon through self-publishing service Lulu, and this proof book was actually just an experiment to see if it would be feasible. I must admit, I am quite surprised at the quality of the book– it’s pretty durably constructed, and I’m happy with it. The proof used Lulu’s generic covers and is actually kind of bland, but the outside isn’t what I was worried about. It was the inside. Yeah, the inside needs a little bit of work. I’ll be on that in the next couple of weeks, and also scrounging together an idea for a cover.
But, the important thing is that I’ll have an actual, “you can buy it at a bookstore” book ready by the end of the year. (I’m saving up a few extra bucks here and there for the ISBN charge; otherwise, it doesn’t qualify to be on Amazon or the Books in Print list. To this end, I re-assigned the Rabbit savings to the ISBN savings pot, and I’m about halfway there.)
So, that’s only one of the bits of Big News. I has a books. I also has something else, but we’ll talk about that on Monday (Pez, this doesn’t count because the Circle already knows what it is).
(Also: New tag, for when I decide I need to pimp the book.)
Ismail Saeed said,
09.07.07 at 1:41 pm
Was I ever given a copy of the complete thing? I wasn’t, was I? I haven’t read it all…
Well, count me in for buying a copy, at least. I have a friend I’ll recommend try it out, also, but as you might expect I can only garauntee my own purchase.
Now, did Lulu do a number on the editing? Without naming names, I remember one self-publisher company that literally introduced errors… so you sent revisions, and those got revised but the typist or whatever made other errors, and you could never get your book to be free of ANY grammar errors no matter how many times you went through the proof… so you eventually just settled…
John said,
09.07.07 at 1:58 pm
Lulu does no editing whatsoever; one uploads a PDF, and that is exactly– to the very pixel– what you get. I was impatient and had not properly paginated the inside; also, the first proof is 8.5″ by 11″, which is great for an RPG sourcebook but not so good for a novel. I put in a revision this afternoon after figuring out how to force NeoOffice to resize the page; the other interesting thing about Lulu is that as long as I don’t order a physical copy of the book, I can revise until my face turns blue with no cost. (I can order copies ‘wholesale’, which turns out to be about 2/3rds of what I wanted the book’s cost to be. The proof ran me $10 for printing and priority-mail shipping.)
We’ll talk about the “buying” thing… I would hate to charge my friends for the dishonor of reading my crap. Just total strangers. :)
Ismail Saeed said,
09.07.07 at 2:42 pm
My friend, trust me. I’ll buy the book.
You have to get a ball rolling somewhere. I have another friend who self-published. :)
(This is the friend who I’d point to your book… though come to think of it… she HAS met you…)