Sizing Up

Oh the joys of being an author, or to be more precise the author who doesn't want to share any of her profit with an agent and a publisher who will still want her to do most of the work herself any way.

I am now in the final stages of publishing my book.  The Independent Publisher Network has provided me with the ISBNs (check them out, they do a really good deal and they have a list of all the titles they have published on their website).  The editor has given me one last tweak to do and the blurb has been written.  I did the front cover art months back so the only thing left to do is the cover design.  On advise I am having that done by a specialist and that means I need to accurately report the page size and count.  That of course means that I need to shrink down the pages to book size and that is where I've run full tilt into another load of work.

For those that don't know, when you write your first two... three... four... five versions of your manuscript you type it at least 1.5 line spacing with the chapters placed half way down the pages and huge margins.  And of course you print it off on A4 paper to send it off to you editor.

Hopefully, all things being equal, you get the go ahead to publish your novel so you start the page sizing and immediately you have to change the line spacing to 1 line spacing, change the gap before the chapter headings, decrease the margin size and generally double check everything all over again.  And if you are doing a hardback edition at the same time that means you have two whole files to check over and space properly and generally it is a lot of time consuming fiddle work.

However, it is another step closer to finally being published so I guess we will have to endure it.  Roll eyes.  I said I'd endure it, not that I would like it.

Hopefully I'll have it all done before the end of February.  Sigh.