Formatting–Print version–21 September–21 October
At the beginning of the process, before I thought of going the self-publishing route, I formatted the rough draft through InDesign and had a personal copy printed through Blurb, just as a test book. I think I did pretty well. I certainly learned a lot through the process, so I didn’t come into the formatting stage with a black slate.
Casey started the process off with a sample layout of a few chapters and we took off from there. So far, the process has been painfully slow from my perspective, with many days passing between each small editing request. I need to be patient, but it feels as if the project, which stated swiftly, is now losing momentum.
21 September–Sample layout received–reviewed and proposed changes.
23 September–I provided Images, captions and suggested layouts for image pages.
2 October–Second sample layout received–Reviewed and proposed changes.
8 October–1st full draft received - Some shuffling of pages and images needed.
15 October–2nd full draft received–One edit requested.
21 October–3rd and final draft format received.–Approved.
ISBN Numbers–8–15 October
Initially, I was going to go with the KDP provided ISBN number, but Casey recommended that I rather acquire my own. For an additional fee, he bought a set of numbers, one for each version of the book (e-book and paperback)
8 October–Information provided to Casey for the purchase of ISBN numbers
15 October - ISBN numbers added to draft.
Update Website
September–Spend a few weeks updating and redesigning my website to include a separate section on myself as an author, including sections on
· Published books (all 1 of them!)
· About the author (A more detailed page for people coming from outside my circle of family and friends)
· Writing and publishing blogs
· My bookshelf–my current and past book reads
I dusted off my newsletter and sent e-mails to all 7 of my subscribers! OMG, how will I ever build up the numbers needed to get the word out about this book, and should I even bother.
Acknowledgements – 15 October
15 October - I started putting this together but decided to leave this out. Don’t really have any insightful reason, just did.
Proofreading – 23 -27 October
I was going to leave proofreading off the contract, and get it done through Upwork, but decided to go with Casey’s advice and include it in the contract with Albatross Books co. I think this made more sense, as it is very much tied into the formatting process in that any final edits could affect the formatting and lay-out.
23 October–Notified of a slight delay in the proofreading, should be ready around 30 October.
27 October – Final edits received – 123 edits!!! Can’t believe it. Review and comment and return.
28 October-Receive final updated draft.
E-Book Formatting - July – 1 November
Right from the outset, I realized that the e-book would be the most important version of the book, due to cost and convenience for anyone wanting to purchase it. I experimented with e-book conversion through a number of free platforms and software like, Draft2Digital and Calibre. It turned out to be quite a challenge, as things don’t always work out as expected through the process of conversion. Eventually, I bought a powerful software called Vellum which has proved to be an excellent choice, providing many options to choose from in terms of the overall design elements.
Albatross Book Co, were much more focused on the print version through the book development process which was great in terms of creating a tangible quality product in the hand. The e-book formatting, they provided me was solid and had all the basic elements in place, although personally I would have liked to see some more creativity applied. This is not a criticism of them, it’s just not their area of focus. I might try to do a reformatting using Vellum at some stage, but for now, I think its fine.
21 July – Bought vellum software
1 August – Completed formatting and uploaded a trial version onto my Kindle.
29 October – Received e-book format from Albatross. – I reviewed and requested some edits.
30 October – Received the final e-book format.