Editing, Editing, Editing . . .

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Well the next test print copy of Focused Fandom: Fanart, Fanartists, and Careers is queued up.  I found a few errors that I wanted to fix, but not many.  A few cover issues, a few internal formatting issues, and some diddly stuff.  My editor, Ellen, did a pretty damn good job I have to say.

I almost forgot what this is like, editing a print copy, and now I remember why it was such a pain.  When you’re down to asking yourself about 1/8 inch in a margin or how to space a line break for a bullet point, the fun somehow goes right out the window and falls to its death.

It’s a 346+ page MONSTER right now, and will probably retail for $24.95 or so.  This thing is freaking huge.

Oh, and really?  Good gift material, just sayin’ . . .

Next up, looking over the test print copy of Focused Fandom: Cosplay, Costuming, and Careers!

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

 

 

Dead Space In Your Face: Gaming and Rent-Seeking

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Well, that was quick.

Last week I was discussing how monetization was going to be an issue in your gaming career – since there were many options that would obviously affect how you get paid.  Or if you get paid.  Or if you have any hope in hell of success.  Well, now I’m still talking about it – along with my current obsession of analyzing game careers, of course.

One of my inspirations for that post, by the way, was the weird news in Dead Space 3 about how one could purchase quicker collection of crafting materials.  Yes, a big console game that just happens to let you act like you’re in a typical free-to-play game, in a way that seemed kinda obvious.

EA was appropriately and mercilessly skewered by Penny Arcade, as was appropriate.  However they were also skewered by resource collecting bugs that made the micro transaction thing a null issue.

I’m wondering if they’ll patch it or not.

Here we see another risk to gaming – and a factor to take into any gaming career you may want to have.

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Editing Print Books

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Well I got the beta print copies of Focused Fandom: Cosplay, Costuming and Careers, and Focused Fandom: Fanart, Fanartists, and Careers.

One of the things I love about eBooks is what you see is what you get.  Print books, not so much.  Here’s just a few things I found:

  • The cover may not quite print as you expected – and any colors, graphics, etc. may not be what you expect in a solid version.
  • You can forget things on the cover period.  I’ll have to adjust one of the covers, in fact.
  • There’s breaks.  A paragraph you don’t have to break up in an eBook format may be damned hard to break properly in print.
  • Chapter formatting.  I love chapters that are on odd pages, so you have to get that right.
  • A lot of book elements like Table of Contents, Credits, etc. just seem “different” in print – and you have to make sure the breaking and formatting is right.
  • A re-scan of the print copy may help you find issues.

So I’ve got  . . .  about 600 print pages to scan.  I think I’m gonna be busy for a week or two on this.

Now as much as I complained here, I think you should consider print versions of your eBooks, if only for the sheer experience of doing one and discovering you don’t want to.  It’s pretty educational all around.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.