Latest Cover Draft

From my latest conversation with Pen Press, publication may be as soon as within 2 weeks!

Above is the latest cover design!

Attila the Stockbroker

Attila has written a short foreword for the book, and for free too! What a nice man! The best thing is that he has never met me or heard of me, but he responded to an unsolicited letter via his favourite pub (pubmail....hmmmm!) almost straight away, and then abided by my ridiculous timescale of needing something "tomorrow if possible".

You can find out more about this anarchic political musician/poet/comedian at his website:
http://www.attilathestockbroker.com
and then on myspace you can hear some of his songs for free:
http://www.myspace.com/attilastockbroker

Just don't call him a celebrity!

Pen Press

I am now considering an alternative to the printer I was looking at (who seem to call themselves cpi rather than Antony Rowe). I was looking at printing Lithographically (translation: proper printing rather than digital) with them and printing 2000 books for about £1800, which seemed a rather good deal.

However I am now looking at Pen Press, who are a local Brighton publisher. They are the kind of publisher where you have to pay up from (£1950-ish) for the book to be set up, but after that they act as a proper publisher. The point of this is that the author takes the risk that the book will fail, not the publisher, however the royalty payments you receive are higher than mainstream publishers, so if the book is a success then you should soon re-coup this money, and potentially it will be a better deal in the long run.

Well after meeting the manager and the technical people I was very impressed. They seem skilled and enthusiastic, and prepared to adjust their position to fit the author/book, rather than a 'one size fits all' approach. They were also very professional in their approach and attitude. As a local Brighton publisher they offer advantages to a local author, especially (like in my case) when you are publishing a book with a local focus.

Anyway, my decision is not yet made, but I am definately leaning toward the Pen Press route.....

Update on Progress 2

I am currently finalising the book - I've reformatted the whole thing over the last week and jazzed up the presentation a bit more. I'm also going to improve the photo quality and I might improve The Clubs section (which will improve the appeal of the book to the 18-25 age bracket).

I have also done a lot of work on the cover with a graphic designer friend and it now looks really professional - you will be truly amazed! I am! I'll try to get a page uploaded, but currently the file is over 20 meg!

Finally, I am also going places with the printer, and have an alternative in the shape of a publisher in Kemptown called Pen Press. I have to meet with these to see what they can deliver for me. At the moment it seems like the printer option is faster, cheaper & I have more control, but the publisher option would probably remove a lot of the administration of sales, plus, being in Brighton they may have more ability to get the book into retailers without me having to go around with a backpack full of books and talk to lots of people....

I'm also trying to finalise the outstanding possible advertisers. If they don't make their minds up soon I will go ahead without them. Time is wasting!

Talking to Printers

Hmm....they don't talk entirely in English.

The problem is that I am basically acting as my own publisher, but with no knowledge of how publishers work. There is a certain amount that is obvious, a certain amount that is easy to learn (using the web), but some of it is just hard.

Paper types. Book sizes. Embedding fonts & greyscale images. All require some effort to comprehend.

I fear the other things that I do not know.

Then there is money.

And I would never have started my book in Word if I knew what I know now. Microsoft Publisher maybe, but not Word.