Book Update 2/8/2010

And now an update on the Fan To Pro book.  I spent a lot of the weekend working on it, so here's the latest:

Status:

  • The book is actually formatted and uploaded at Lulu.com.  This actually took awhile due to PDF conversion issues.
  • I am now working on the cover, which seems to work well as a simple cover for now – though people are still dropping ideas on me left and right.  I think next time I may "fansource" cover design more and hands-off it.
  • I hope to get the cover finished in a week or so and approve the final version in March.
  • Release to Lulu will be earlier than release to Amazon and other stores as it takes a few weeks for a new book to go through the system.  I'm still aiming for March.

What I learned:

  • Typesetting and laying out a book is a very unappreciated skill that you will NOT appreciate until you actually do it knowing a book you set up will be available to the public.
  • PDF conversion is also a massive crapshoot.  Lulu.com's PDF conversion beat the one I had on my Mac Word.  I ended up using Mac Word to get my book PDF, but had to cope with some annoying margin issues.
  • The first time you do set up a book for publishing, take a whole day to do it.  Trust me on this.
  • Examine other books to get ideas for layouts, numbering, and more.  That helped a lot.
  • Don't forget title, copyright, dedication, and other pages.

So the book is all but ready to go.  It needs a cover, a print check, and some tweaking.  But late March is looking awfully good . . .

 . . . and yes when it's done I'll write up my experience with Lulu.com!

– Steven Savage