Earlier this week Ray at y42k publishing sent me the penultimate draft of the book to look over. There is always one final pass of correcting before you send the book off to print. Stuff slips through. There was a list. Wanna see it? Wanna see a list of corrections that are basically meaningless out of context? Ok.
[ ] Pg 14. Capital T in The Simpsons. And no apostrophe
[ ] Pg. 16 period after first before "
[ ] Pg. 21 next to THE Demarcus...
[ ] Pg. 21 "what a teacher could BE" not do
[ ] Pg. 25 This is one of those stories, then paragraph break.
[ ] Pg. 42 capital And in And Not Freaking Out
[ ] Pg. 48 obviously then comma. Last paragraph
[ ] Pg. 50 "it's logical end" should be its
[ ] Pg. 51 after the list "teachers'" apostrophe placement
[ ] Pg 56 "impressed my principal so MUCH that..."
[ ] Pg. 64 "If need to..." Should be "If I need to..." Last full paragraph
[ ] Pg. 64 end of same sentence, "heart to heart with the child ask..." There should be AND between child and ask
[ ] Pg 76 2nd paragraph "they get to argue with me ABOUT how..."
[ ] Pg. 86 last full paragraph delete MYSELF "...a section I think of at the end of every quarter."
[ ] Pg. 146 comma after "In fact", first full paragraph
[ ] Pg 146 italics I, Robot, second full paragraph
[ ] Pg. 159 second to last word should be KINDS not kind
[ ] Pg. 178 first full paragraph "opportunities" instead of opportunity
[ ] Pg. 183 I'd like there to be a page break between "Thus endeth the chapter" and the next line. Possible?
[ ] Pg 191 middle paragraph second to last sentence. "parent's" should be "parents'"
[ ] Pg. 235 end of middle paragraph. "You just stand THERE" not then
[ ] Pg. 254 top paragraph, right after the strikethrough, delete "a"
[ ] Pg. 263 second to last paragraph first sentence, delete "that I"
[ ] Pg. 265 "For fun he...rides HIS motorcycle..."
There. Happy? So those things slipped though and I managed to finish the list in a few days. I just sent it to Ray so now I wait again. I wait as he goes through and makes those final changes. Then he'll let me know what I need to do with the cover, because the size we made it probably isn't totally correct. Luckily, that's easy fix for Dorothy.
All this means we creep closer and closer to an actual release. Very exciting, ladies and gentlemen.
Showing posts with label y42k. Show all posts
Showing posts with label y42k. Show all posts
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Out Of My Hands (for now)
I've turned in the book to Y42K publishing. He has his fee and all the text and information he required to start his end of the process. So now I wait. Should be a week or two, and then he comes back to me with more questions and a dummy copy that I can check over for mistakes. Dorothy and I will probably have to fiddle with the cover size a little once we know for such what the page count in the paperback will be (no Word doc page count does not equal actual page count). I approve the dummy copy, we finish setting up the Smashwords and amazon pages, then away it goes and I make millions of dollars becoming a world wide sensation ending up on The Daily Show while Jon Stewart laughs at my stories. Or I sell enough to break even. Or only my friends buy it. But even if that happens, at least I wrote a book I'm proud of and got it out into the world.
Ok, more as it develops! Thanks for reading.
Doug
Monday, July 29, 2013
Start the Process
7/28
2:00pm PST
Started the publishing process today. Well, last night. My last reader finished the book over the week so I went in, made the last few corrections that she found, and saved it again. I'm publishing through y42k.com so I visited Ray's page and sent him an email letting him know who I am and what I want to do. We've been emailing back and forth and will talk at 4pm today to discuss particulars. From there there's a bunch of steps but none of them are all that hard. Really, the only things left for me to do are create a cover, write the back of the book blurb, and write the sales blurb that will go up on amazon, Kindle, and wherever else it'll be sold.
I'm also trying to think ahead about spreading the word and twitter games that I can play to get people to retweet the links. On Twitter proper I've been going on an education people follow spreed, and as soon as I feel it's ready to go out I'll email some ed bloggers a copy so they can review it. Spread the word!
More after I talk to Ray.
7:29
3:47pm PST
So what I meant to type was, "More in just over 24 hours because things happen and I forget to get back to the blog I started."
Ray and I had a very productive phone call last night and I feel quite confident I'm making the right choice by going with him as my independent publisher. For a very reasonable price he's going to do all the leg work and get the book, He's the Weird Teacher (coming soon please buy it) out into the world quicker and easier than I would ever be able to.
Yesterday we talked book size, by page number, word count, and the dimensions of the paperback copy. He suggested 5 1/2 x 8 1/2, which looks like standard trade size. That makes the page count and printing costs reasonable. Some of you might think, "The page count?" and then figure it out after thinking about it for a second, but basically smaller pages mean more pages because less text per page and visa versa. Too small and the book gets thicker than it needs, too big and it's super thin and awkward to hold.
There is only one picture in the book, so that's easy and won't cost any extra dough. The word count stands at around 75.5k, which is standard for this type of book. We discussed cover options, which include my making it myself from a boring template, my paying him to make it, or my having someone else make it for me. We are going with a mix of a and c. I've got a friend coming out soon to take the pictures I'll be using for the covers, and Ray sent me the files I need to build it. Wife is good with computers, so we'll probably work together to get that done.
The only things left for me to write, aside from a check, are the back of book blurb and the sales blurb that will go on amazon and B&N and anywhere else it ends up. The wife is doing a sprint finish to try and get through her reading of the book to catch any last grammar/formatting problems and then it's off to Ray and he starts doing his magic. I want to get the text to him by the end of this week, and after that I don't think the process will take too long.
I'll be asking a ton of favors when the book comes out because the only way it's going to sell is if people talk it up. There will be Twitter and Facebook games, and I'll shamelessly beg you all to go on amazon and leave reviews. The only way books move up lists on their sales and suggestions pages are with high-star reviews, so that's going to be key for spreading the word. I'm also following a ton of ed bloggers on the twitters, so I'll probably send a few free digital copies out to them in hopes of a review.
Speaking of the twitters, I'm on there @TheWeirdTeacher so follow me why don't you for up-to-the-when-I-get-to-it news and updates about the book.
Thanks for reading!
2:00pm PST
Started the publishing process today. Well, last night. My last reader finished the book over the week so I went in, made the last few corrections that she found, and saved it again. I'm publishing through y42k.com so I visited Ray's page and sent him an email letting him know who I am and what I want to do. We've been emailing back and forth and will talk at 4pm today to discuss particulars. From there there's a bunch of steps but none of them are all that hard. Really, the only things left for me to do are create a cover, write the back of the book blurb, and write the sales blurb that will go up on amazon, Kindle, and wherever else it'll be sold.
I'm also trying to think ahead about spreading the word and twitter games that I can play to get people to retweet the links. On Twitter proper I've been going on an education people follow spreed, and as soon as I feel it's ready to go out I'll email some ed bloggers a copy so they can review it. Spread the word!
More after I talk to Ray.
7:29
3:47pm PST
So what I meant to type was, "More in just over 24 hours because things happen and I forget to get back to the blog I started."
Ray and I had a very productive phone call last night and I feel quite confident I'm making the right choice by going with him as my independent publisher. For a very reasonable price he's going to do all the leg work and get the book, He's the Weird Teacher (coming soon please buy it) out into the world quicker and easier than I would ever be able to.
Yesterday we talked book size, by page number, word count, and the dimensions of the paperback copy. He suggested 5 1/2 x 8 1/2, which looks like standard trade size. That makes the page count and printing costs reasonable. Some of you might think, "The page count?" and then figure it out after thinking about it for a second, but basically smaller pages mean more pages because less text per page and visa versa. Too small and the book gets thicker than it needs, too big and it's super thin and awkward to hold.
There is only one picture in the book, so that's easy and won't cost any extra dough. The word count stands at around 75.5k, which is standard for this type of book. We discussed cover options, which include my making it myself from a boring template, my paying him to make it, or my having someone else make it for me. We are going with a mix of a and c. I've got a friend coming out soon to take the pictures I'll be using for the covers, and Ray sent me the files I need to build it. Wife is good with computers, so we'll probably work together to get that done.
The only things left for me to write, aside from a check, are the back of book blurb and the sales blurb that will go on amazon and B&N and anywhere else it ends up. The wife is doing a sprint finish to try and get through her reading of the book to catch any last grammar/formatting problems and then it's off to Ray and he starts doing his magic. I want to get the text to him by the end of this week, and after that I don't think the process will take too long.
I'll be asking a ton of favors when the book comes out because the only way it's going to sell is if people talk it up. There will be Twitter and Facebook games, and I'll shamelessly beg you all to go on amazon and leave reviews. The only way books move up lists on their sales and suggestions pages are with high-star reviews, so that's going to be key for spreading the word. I'm also following a ton of ed bloggers on the twitters, so I'll probably send a few free digital copies out to them in hopes of a review.
Speaking of the twitters, I'm on there @TheWeirdTeacher so follow me why don't you for up-to-the-when-I-get-to-it news and updates about the book.
Thanks for reading!
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