Here it is, 08/08/08! I hope everyone is having an agreeable day. I went to the library and borrowed “Brokeback Mountain” to get me through the next two cycling sessions. (I never sit and watch a DVD anymore, I watch everything while I’m cycling now.) At last I’ll get to see it! Poor Heath…
Here is what “scattered showers” look like:
Kind of looks like the entire Northeast is growing mold, doesn’t it? That’s what it feels like! My dad’s band concert was rained out last night again, for the fifth time. They’ve been rained out as many times as they’ve played! Everything is wet, all the time. I can’t mow the lawns because I have an electric lawn mower and the grass is too wet. It’s August 8th and I’m wearing a sweatshirt because I’m cold. This is one summer for the books, and not in a good way! The above radar shot has been typical day after day after day. A couple of hours ago–I kid you not–it was pouring rain, the sun was shining, and there were two close lightning strikes with big booms of thunder–all at the same time!
I’ve had a busy week, though. I finished the dust jacket for the hardcover edition of Mortal Touch, assigned an ISBN to that edition, entered it into Bowker/Books in Print, and uploaded it to Lightning Source (the printer). The proof is on the way. I made all the little corrections I wanted to make to the text–all very minor things, they didn’t affect the typesetting or anything, but I wanted to fix them. The proof copy from Lulu with the color adjustments to the front cover came back, and it’s just the way I wanted it. So, I’ve uploaded “revisions” to the cover and book block of the paperback edition at Lightning Source and that proof is on the way. If it’s okay, I’ll be ordering another short run, because I’m down to the last carton of the first print run and I am hoping to hand-sell a significant number of books between now and the end of the year. I formatted a PDF e-book edition, with “bookmarks” so the PDF has a clickable table of contents, and I’ve assigned an ISBN number to that. I’m still pondering how to distribute the e-book edition, though. The last edition I need to set up is the audiobook.
Part of this is setting up the protocols and procedures for all future titles, because from now on, everything I publish will be released in all these editions simultaneously, except possibly the audiobook editions, because they take longer to produce.
I do have a minor quandary, though. I “went live” on CreateSpace because someone posted to the SPAN e-group that the last day for Amazon’s “free setup” on CreateSpace Pro was July 31st. No sooner did I punch through Mortal Touch on CreateSpace, than Amazon extended the “free setup” to December 31st! And then, something else happened. After a month with no Amazon sales, suddenly I got a whole batch of them, all at once. Whether this had anything to do with my switching to CreateSpace or not, I don’t know. I was wondering if Amazon subtly ramped up the promotion on its own books, by dropping them into their “also bought” combinations on other book pages, and so on. But maybe the flurry of sales was just a coincidence (it was both the print and the Kindle edition). I can’t complain about sales, and I earn 2-1/2 times as much per book on the CreateSpace edition as I do with Lightning Source, because of the deep discount I give to the wholesalers. But here’s my quandary: I want to upload the adjusted cover and corrected book block to CreateSpace. If I do that, the book will be taken offline until I approve the new proof. I hate to do that if my sales are picking up! So, I’m chewing that over. I need to correct the Kindle edition, too, but that’s instantaneous.
It’s the first week of the month, so I’ve had meetings. On Monday night was church Parish committee meeting. On Tuesday was the IPNE Member Call-in at 4:00 p.m. and the IPBE Board conference call at 7:00 p.m., which went until 8:30 because we spent so much time talking about the “publishing university” event we’re hosting in November. This Saturday evening is the monthly online meeting, in IRC, of a vampiric community group I’m in.
Wednesday was solar Lughnasadh–the day when the Sun was at the literal midpoint, 15 degrees of Leo, between Solstice and Equinox. I got up about a half hour early to get my ritual done. In the afternoon I did the Tarot reading for the octave, which was perfectly ghastly. It started with The Tower and ended with Death, and nothing in between was much of an improvement. I just don’t think I can read the Tarot for myself, *sigh*.
My sister and her family are arriving tomorrow night for a week, so I’ll be spending some time with them. I talked to my dad last night but forgot to ask whether he got the power boat working. My sister wants to take the kids water skiing a lot of the time they’re here–but that will depend on the weather, too. No water skiing in thunderstorms!