Book Update 3/1/2010

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The latest update on the book:

  • I got a copy from Lulu.com.  I'm pretty impressed with the POD quality – it's pretty good overall.  Layout work, cover worked (except for some brightness/contrast on a photo which I miscaluclated).    Print quality is VERY nice.
  • I then proceeded to go through it with a highlighter and find anything that looked wrong and correct it.
  • I changed the font, it was too small – I had gone with ten point which looked horrible.  It's much better in 12 point, which makes the book bigger, but won't affect the final sales price when it goes commercial.
  • I also changed some page breaking and organization – it's amazing how you can forget things like "Chapters are best starting on odd pages".
  • The next copy is coming to me.  If all is well release will go on end of month if not earlier.

What I learned:

  • You need a copy of your book to truly appreciate it if there's a physical copy.
  • Twelve point, maybe even eleven point, but ten point is NOT a good idea for most books.
  • Underlines can look bad in books too.  I understand they're frowned on.
  • Converting to PDF's is quite an adventure.  This time I had to make sure my formats were right for large-scale distribution, which meant learning about embedded fonts.
  • Book layouts have TONS of subtleties that you have to learn either via study and practice or painfully experiencing it yourself.  I've learned from the latter.  Among my findings are: chapters should start on an odd page (right-hand).  Table of Contents also starts best on odd/right-handed page.  Changes in font size, even a small amount, change the acceptable amount of whitespace in formatting, and appendices somehow flow better when you have a simple "Appendices" labeled page to break them off from the main body.

So far, a lot more work than I thought.  Then again I learned a lot.  And, of course, this will be used in the next book – and there will be more to come . . .

– Steven Savage

Weekly Challenge: Your Hidden Army

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We all have people we can call on – friends, family, co-workers, fans, and more.  It's easy to forget it – especially when we're having a bad day – but there's a good chance you have people that you can call on when it's needed.

The problem is that we forget this – ad we don't know when to reach out and bring people together.  This week's exercise is about both of these factors.

Here are the two parts of the challenge:

  1. List all of the people – and organizations/fandoms/communities – you can call on when needed.  This may not be due to a crisis – this could be to achieve something – and of course different groups and people may have different abilities that can help.
  2. Ask how you'd bring these people together when needed.  Are you a leader already, a moral center, a manager of ideas, etc.  How do you bring people together.

Now knowing these things:

  1. Does anything surprise you?
  2. Do you see any gaps in your life you need to fix.

You probably have an entire army to call on in life.  You just may not realize it – or realize how you can do so.

– Steven Savage

Progreek Pride: Communication In The Geek Nation

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Halo action figures once made my job easier.

I had to get to know a team operating several servers on a project I worked on at a past employer – and being the Project Manager I had to get to know everyone.  This included people who I'd never met,  on a team I didn't know existed.  I needed to get to know them – and get some things moving project-wise.

Fortunately, someone had Halo action figures.  Sensing a fellow geek, I struck up a conversation with that team member, and had an instant in to the team.

Being an unrepentant geek helped my communications with others.

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