A Bit of DIY by Ann Evans
Firstly
apologies for being absent last month. I don't know where the time
went to. One minute I'd got days to go before I had to write my blog,
next minute I'd missed it by two days. I'm hoping it's not an age
thing, more a really busy 'up to my eyes' kind of thing.
And
one of those things was to try and bring my children's book
Rampage back to life. It was published by Usborne back in 2007
as the third book in my Beast Trilogy – The Beast, The
Reawakening and
Rampage.
As publishers tend to do, they decide they are going to
let your book go out of print when you least expect it. In my case it
wasn't long after The Beast took top place in the 2013
Coventry Literary Book awards in the raring2read category; and
Usborne were offering me as a
prize in a schools' prize draw – win an author visit to
your school, at The Education
Show. So it came as a bit of an unwelcome surprise to get the dreaded
letter giving me the bad news so soon after all that.
Somehow
or other, I managed to acquire plenty of stock of The Beast
and The Reawakening,
but Rampage was
another story. I soon realised I'd got about two copies to my name.
And despite the publisher losing faith in the trilogy, I know from
experience how schools love these books, and as I do school visits
fairly regularly I needed stock of all three books to take with me.
With
copyright back with me for all three I was able to buy back the
licence to use the Rampage artwork
for 10 years for a certain fee. However, it didn't include the
text/title etc. So once again trusty friend and photographer Rob
Tysall did a great job in adding the necessary words onto the image.
He also did three new covers for when I put the trilogy out as ebooks
– which I'm determined to do soon!
But
meanwhile, getting the layout for Rampage via
CreateSpace was fiddly to say the least. But I got it done finally
and sent for a proof. Only then did I realise I'd sized it
incorrectly and Rampage
was bigger than the other two, the spacing was all wrong, and I
hadn't numbered the pages - so back to the drawing board. I think
I've got it right now, and I'm currently waiting for a second proof
to land on the doormat. I have my fingers and toes crossed.
I'm wondering whether other Authors Electric Indie writers find the
technical side of producing their books as paperbacks or ebooks easy
or not. How do you feel, is this the best bit after getting the
writing done and dusted? Or is it the bit you dread?
I'm
planning on updating my 'Become a Writer – A step by step
guide' soon, and guessing that
it will be a bit of a nightmare. Not for the printed version, as I'll
be saving that as a PDF before uploading it, but the ebook version,
as it has many chapters, sub chapters, bullet points, indents and so
on. A local publisher did all the layout previously, but now I'll be
re-issuing it under my own steam. Wish me luck!
Have
you read Kill or Die. Decisions can be murder.
Comments