Life of Publisher and other thoughts

Life of a Publisher (or AARRRGH!)

Okay, so The Fatal Gift of Beauty and Other Plays by Christopher E. Ellis (which I name and attribute in full each time to increase search engine hits or something, I think) went to the printer. They sent a proof of the book last week Thursday, overnight. Due to it being sent overnight (and I having among the wonkiest schedules on the planet) I finally got my overnight package today---Wednesday. Only a week.

So today, I open the package and I have to say the cover looks great. I'm really really pleased with it. The colors work, the typeface works, the potentially cheesy fade of a color works. In fact, you can find the cover by searching for the book on bn.com.

But I digress. This is a tale of woe, or at least a tale of AARRRGH!

I turn to the title page. The picture that is supposed to be there isn't. In fact the wrong picture is there. And the type for the title has shifted so that the "and other plays" got cut off.

And just flipping through randomly, I've already found two other places where the type has shifted, creating other problems.

I probably didn't put enough R's in my AARRRGH!

This means I have to really go over this with a fine tooth comb. And try to figure out why this happened with the printer.

Now, I've used this printer a couple of times before and I've had nothing but positive experiences with them, so I'm hoping fixing these problems will become positive.

But tonight, at 1:00am, it begins to feel like this is the book that would not be published.

But it will. It will. One way or another.

Other thoughts

Last post, I tried changing font size between headers and paragraphs, as I'm doing this time. For some reason, a lot of the text ended up really big throughout. I tried several times to edit the size and it kept publishing at the really big size. I hope this post does better. I didn't really like the way it looked. Maybe I'm just having a bad summer for publishing.

The workshops I started last month is going pretty well, and there's been enough interest generated to suggest that it behooves me to continue. Pending agreement with the owners of the space, I'll do just that in September. Stay tuned.

I'm putting out feelers for other types of workshops, as well. I guess I'm in my workshop building phase of growing neoNuma Arts. The publishing is moving along (sort of), so I guess this is the next logical step. Who's up for a weekend creativity retreat? That's probably a goal for 2008.

Oh, yes, I'm planning/coordinating/facilitating what will be a one-day Houston author festival at Barnes and Noble, 5000 Westheimer, Houston. If you're a Houston author with a book or two published--or know one--email me (neo at neonuma dot com) for details as they develop. It's going to be on Saturday, November 17. There will be readings and signings and such goings on. It'll be a good time. Plan on it. If you're near Houston, anyway.

Fieldwork begins in September, too. September 26, in fact. I'll be facilitating that series, too. Email me for more info on that, as well.

This past Sunday, during the offering, I had the honor of singing a hymn composed by Patricia Blaze Clark and Kathleen Thomerson. Pat is a classmate of mine from my seminary days, and it was a delight to sing her words. She's been making a name for herself in hymn writing circles. Her biggest gig was probably having a couple of hymns included in a recent Episcopal hymnal supplement--I forget the name of it, unfortunately. But Pat has a couple of books out herself. One is strictly hymn texts, with meter noted so you can match it to a tune out of your own hymnal. It is called The Still Small Voice and is published by Selah Publishing Co. (catalog number 125-441).

The other book, from which I selected our offertory hymn (which is called "Long Before Creation's Dawning"), is called A Taste of Heaven's Joys. It is published by MorningStar Music Publishers (isbn: 0-944529-39-9). This book is all original hymns by Pat and Kathleen. Kathleen, of course, is quite prominent in modern hymn writing circles, her most popular hymn being "I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light."

Of course, I recommend both books, if you're the sort to buy hymn books.

And I've gone on longer than I meant already, so I'll end for now. Except to note that this year's peaches have been especially good. Has anyone else noticed? Sometimes, I eat one and am amazed at what a gift it is to eat something that is so good and not be bad for me. This is capital G Grace.