A Real Book!

While my friend edited and I struggled with software there were other considerations.  Ellen is ultimately a story about the after effects of humans trashing the planet so it seemed right and proper to try and keep the trashing at the minimum in her launch.  The search was on for an ethical printer.  Now there are many, they are not hard to find but they do not all offer the same.  Ethics are tricky things with many considerations.  Recycled, workers’ conditions, carbon footprints, mileage, inks, paper and so the list goes on.  With the ultimate question at the end: which one could I afford?

Cost was a pressing problem I thought about a lot as I engaged in other activities.  Obviously the larger the print run the better, but huge print runs were out of the question as how many copies realistically was a first time author, a self-publishing one at that, going to be able to shift?  There was no room in the garage for spare books, besides there were mice out there in the winter, couldn’t I just see their delight at a couple of boxes of pristine paper to keep them cosy!

I decided on one that was local, within thirty miles, with a lot of ‘green’ credentials and a chap at the other end of the phone, whose voice I fell for.  He was very helpful and gave me a lot of advice, for which I am forever grateful. 

I was also at this time beginning to research what was needed to be done after the book was printed, how to market Ellen.  I know, I know, completely the wrong way round! Reading all about strategies, I began to plan one for Ellen.  I couldn’t afford to pay up front for the first run but what if I collected pre-orders?  Some kind of flyer was needed.  Did I know enough people though who liked me enough to buy a book I had written?  I wrote a list.  Friends, groups to which I belonged, well known acquaintances, the list of names grew.  I thought I maybe could manage to shift a few books. 

So now the DTP was engaged in designing a flyer /order form.  It was to be a limited edition (how many I didn’t know until I had the orders) signed and with a discount.  The flyers were handed out with a certain amount of trepidation, after all I had no track record at all to offer.  I have very nice friends and acquaintances and the number of orders grew greater and greater.  My original few grew to many.  More than enough to cover the cost of the printing.  Enough now to add a basic package from the printers, they would, for a small fee, supply an ISBN (the cost of buying ten of these had been bothering me for a while, starting at my age was I ever going to write ten books!), stock the book and deal with future orders and the invoicing.  My skills with business are even poorer than my skills at editing.  It was a relief to be able to avail myself of this.

My friend sent me the corrected book and then I ran through it again to check I had it all in the correct places.  Checked the page numbers ran the way I wanted.  Checked the copyright and dedication pages.

I e-mailed Ellen’s Tale and the cover for a proof copy and waited.  This was when I found that files change as they progress from one computer to another.  Pages had slipped, page numbers had vanished.  It would help they said, it really would help, if I could PDF the files (they had asked before but I had had no way of doing this).  I could see though that I would have to do something.  I learnt about page breaks, they helped keep the pages where I wanted them.  I learnt what a ‘pilcrow' was, and could check spacings, but I needed to find some way of PDFing.  I had spent too many long nights trying to fix these problems, reading the entire book word by word and checking the changed spacing. I was being pipped at this last post.

Luck, my magical friend came up trumps again in the wee small hours, as I drifted around the web trying to find what I wanted,presenting me with a six week free trial of a well known PDF package. Obviously not the whole package that enables one to run a whole business but certainly enough for me to transform 250 pages of doc. into the correct file to send to the printers.  All I had to do was work out how to do it.  Another long silent night as I checked and rechecked, lips moving as I swore and despaired.  I had a deadline.  How long would my nice friends wait for their books having already paid, and Christmas was looming ever nearer. 

I did it! and  at 3.30 a.m off sped Ellen intact at last to the printers.

One of the most exciting moments in life is opening a box full of brand spanking new fresh smelling books all bearing that title and your own name.  A real book, not a screen full of words, not a bundle of papers with squiggles and crossings out, no a book.  A book like all those hundreds one has read, a book like all those authors before have written.  It is a moment of heart stopping awesomeness.  A moment when one wishes to run down the street showing everyone, instead one thanks the fates that technology has produced the mobile phone and texting!  Tell the world according to oneself in a matter of moments, lovely!

Book covers and pesky software

It seemed an enormous step and, after the first few hours of research, I was almost ready to give up.  Where to start was the most difficult.  How to find, with no recommendations, someone to help print Ellen’s Tale.  I had heard all the dread stories of the vanity press and in theory knew what they were.  However they do not put a sign up or an animated arrow pointing at themselves declaring ‘Me, me, I’m vanity’.

I spent days surfing, bookmarking various sites, reading, sometimes printing, reams of information from various POD firms.  So many differences but all had one thing in common: they cost more than I had.  My budget, on a small pension, was miniscule and even the cheapest was more than I could justify on a gamble, and I have never been a gambler.

So what to do?  I wasn’t giving up my dream.  Always if I’m told I can’t I become more determined that I can.  Fortunately I have always enjoyed reading for information and more recently surfing around.  I was in the middle of convalescing from major surgery so had plenty of time to spare.  Comparing prices and packets I knew I would have to do everything, bar the actual printing, myself.

What did I have to do?  Well, edit the book.  Not me, I am famous for my lack of spelling ability and my punctuation skills make the grown amongst us shudder.  I had a secret weapon though.  A ‘bestest’ friend of 50+ years to whom grammar and the correct use of the English language is a joy.  We were to have many a tussle in the months ahead!

Okay editing was sorted.  What else?  A cover.  The cost of hiring anyone to do this was way beyond my means but how did one design a book cover?  Look at those in the bookshops, I was advised.  I did, endlessly, and found no real inspiration, mainly of course because I still didn’t know what kind of book Ellen was.  I spent hours looking at royalty free photos, maybe something would trigger an eureka moment.  Nothing like a flash occurred but a steady thought that with all the thousand of photographs already in the house surely I could find something amongst them.  So now the hours were spent sorting through mine.  I was slowly building up a theme I wanted but how to do it I still didn’t know.  Well, some kind of photo software would be a start. A friend showed me how to do such clever things on hers, however it never seemed to work when I tried, but maybe it just needed practise! Or maybe desktop publishing software.  I am a firm believer in luck and it was just then I received an e-mail with special offers on some software, fairly basic but it was a start.  All that was left was to learn how to use it and to have a clear idea on what design I wanted!  Easy!  No.

DTP was a term I had a lot about in the years of computer owning but it was never anything I had tried.  I realise that many reading this will have not only mastered the skills almost before they were weaned and others had switched on and instantly got to grips with their programes.  Like many things in life DTP stared blackly back at me and refused to co-operate in any logical way, as far as I could see.  I would stare back as blackly and many a ‘wee small hour hours of mornings’ were to see me muttering incoherently in my hot milk ‘why won’t it do it? I don’t understand’.  I would emerge red-eyed in the morning determined to try again. 

Slowly it began to make sense, slowly a design began to emerge, slowly I began to see a book cover emerge.  I had my theme: each book (because by then I had written the first draft of a sequel and had another in my head!!) would indicate some aspect of climate change.  Each cover would be anything but pastel, the seeming fashion of the time, I liked colour.  I found the picture for the cover of Ellen’s Tale in a petal of a poppy, a photograph I had taken years before and almost discarded.