BAMBOO HORSES

Section 160 Entry 0001. Date: 2005 August 15 Monday.

(diary) (previous) (top) (bottom) (next) (topics) (contents)

I chose to take the print on demand route for my new fantasy novel BAMBOO HORSES because it's doable. It allows me to sidestep the vetoes of publishers and booksellers and to put my product on the market, meaning that I have some work out there in the world which I can advertize on the market.

The steps were pretty basic. First, write the novel. I produced a plain text draft because my favorite text editor uses a plain text format. Next step, convert the text to a Word document. This was a bit fiddly because I am not a sophisticated Word user and I was unsure about fonts and margins and so forth.

For my font, I ended up settling on Garamond at 12 point, and for my margins I ended up with a one-inch margin all round, but, even after uploading the novel and looking at the PDF version which the lulu.com site produced, I still couldn't really visualize how this would work out.

The other hassle was making a cover, something I did with Microsoft Photo Premium 10, one of a range of possible software tools. I explain this process in the file

Making Cover Art

Oh, and of course, I had to proofread my Word document, a process which took days.

I purchased ISBN distribution service for my book plus a copy of the book itself (a requirement - lulu.com requires that you check a copy of the printed book before you approve it for release) and shipping for the copy, for a grand total of US $199.48, which I paid, of course, by credit card.

I uploaded the book on the 6th of August 2005, New Zealand time, which was the 5th of August in America.

This morning, at about 10.30 a.m., my mother was sitting at the dining room table when she said "What's that Fed Ex thing?" and I realized it must be my book arriving by Federal Express from America, and so it was. I went outside and signed for the package, and, yes, it was my copy of "Bamboo Horses" for me to check before approving the book for publication. So I uploaded the computer file on the 6th and received the printed book here in New Zealand on the 15th, just nine days later, which is not too bad.

I had some anxieties about the book. Would the 12 point type look too grossly large? (The lulu.com template that I downloaded and worked with originally had the font set to 11 point.) Well, I'm happy to say that the font looks okay to me.

Also, there's enough white space round the edges.

One thing that I didn't expect was that the ISBN is actually printed on a white rectangle on the back cover, overlapping the back cover design. I had somehow gotten the idea that the ISBN would be printed inside the book. That doesn't matter in this case, because the back cover is a design, but for my upcoming CANCER PATIENT book I've made a cover featuring some poetry which takes up the whole of the back cover, and I think I'll now have to go back and redo the cover.

Anyway, I'm pleased with the printed book, and, in particular, with the clarity and the intensity of the colors on the front.

What I'm pushing ahead with now is, first, my cancer memoir, CANCER PATIENT, which has essentially been written, and is in the editing process, and with a fantasy novel, TO FIND AND WAKE THE DREAMER, the first novel in the projected TALES OF OOLONG MORBLOCK series.

As far as the BAMBOO HORSES novel is concerned, my next step is going to be to log on to lulu.com and approve the novel for distribution. I've checked the printed copy and it's printed out okay.

(diary) (previous) (top) (bottom) (next) (topics) (contents)