Book progress: The Checkerbound Flag
Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2013 2:36 pm
I just completed the transmission of the final book files to the publisher (Hal Leonard Books). After a couple rounds of minor corrections, the redesign of the back cover, and the addition of "flaps" on the cover (that was a surprise to me), it is out of my hands. They tell me it will be off to the printer in a couple of weeks. They can't tell me what the press run will be just yet, as they have to consider pre-orders into the figure.
Last night I was "packaging" all the files with Tonya Limberg, my graphic artist who executed the cover and the time-line/family tree chart (which has been updated and included in the book!), and I was explaining that the model chapters were arranged chronologically and each chapter header shows the date span of the model. I'm showing her how one comes after the other, and then I notice that I had the wrong dates on the 4003S/8 chapter! There it was, in big 14 point type. I had "1982 - 1996" even though I KNEW it should have been 1986-2002. We were just about to package that chapter file when I noticed the error. That shows how easy it is to get something wrong in a big project (also how easy it is to fix). Anyway, done, and off to the publisher.
We loaded the 2-gig file onto Dropbox and it took better than 15 hours to transmit! I probably should have burned it onto a DVD and sent it overnight - it would have got there just as fast!
So, now we wait. July 9 is the release date. I don't know if I'll be getting advanced copies ahead of that. And don't come to me for copies; I won't be selling them myself – vendor license, sales tax, and all that will be the worry of the publisher, not me. The book should be available everywhere and on-line. I'm told there will be an electronic version, but don't know the details on that just yet.
Now I can rest.
Last night I was "packaging" all the files with Tonya Limberg, my graphic artist who executed the cover and the time-line/family tree chart (which has been updated and included in the book!), and I was explaining that the model chapters were arranged chronologically and each chapter header shows the date span of the model. I'm showing her how one comes after the other, and then I notice that I had the wrong dates on the 4003S/8 chapter! There it was, in big 14 point type. I had "1982 - 1996" even though I KNEW it should have been 1986-2002. We were just about to package that chapter file when I noticed the error. That shows how easy it is to get something wrong in a big project (also how easy it is to fix). Anyway, done, and off to the publisher.
We loaded the 2-gig file onto Dropbox and it took better than 15 hours to transmit! I probably should have burned it onto a DVD and sent it overnight - it would have got there just as fast!
So, now we wait. July 9 is the release date. I don't know if I'll be getting advanced copies ahead of that. And don't come to me for copies; I won't be selling them myself – vendor license, sales tax, and all that will be the worry of the publisher, not me. The book should be available everywhere and on-line. I'm told there will be an electronic version, but don't know the details on that just yet.
Now I can rest.
