Saturday, October 20, 2007

Lifehack revision at 100%!!! Kind of.

I finished my read/revision that I've been counting off percentile from.. But there's more work to be done...

Right now the pagecount is down to 255. (8 bits! whoo!) This is from the first edition's 293 pages due to:
  1. Deletion of the 25-ish page extras section, (It was kinda unprofessional feeling)
  2. Bumping the font down one notch, (It was a tad biggish)
  3. Refining paragraph formatting to include less white space
And there were many other format standardizations that I either followed form the industry, or at least made consistent through the book. One good thing about the lower page count is that the cost will go down. The cost will also go down since I won't be setting the sticker price to include a lot of things like retail store costs, or an ISBN. (I don't need no stinkin ISBN)

Of course, the hardcover version will be more than the trade paperback version, but I'm not ready to quote prices just yet.

Just to note- I won't be ordering a mass of stock like I did with the first edition. I'm not marketing much beyond my area, and just about everyone who'd buy a copy already has, so I'm not going to be ramming the 2nd edition down people's throats. When the time comes, I'll take specific orders from people, plus a SMALL handful for my own stock, and what will be my exclusive retail outlet, Heron's Books. It will NOT be available online via Lulu or Amazon, etc.

This is to minimize the impact of being self-published should I wish to attack bigger publishers with the book, and the 2 others that take place in the same world. "Yes, Mr pubisher, I self-published the book, but unless you're really super worried about the Pitt Meadows market, I don't think it's an issue."

Anyway, back to the work left to be done:
  1. Add a couple small scenes and references,
  2. Inform the reader WHERE the book takes place in the world,
  3. Re-vamp the chapter headers
  4. New foreword
  5. 'Finalize' the trade paperback cover
  6. Order ONE book for sending around to my new highlighter-equipped editing force (this will be a slow step, as I'm going to send it though as many people as possible)
  7. While this is underway, finalize the hardcover cover, and continue writing another project (either Watching Yute, or 'wasn't worth the parking space')
  8. When the editing copy gets back to me, go over it, correcting the master manuscript,
  9. Take orders, and order the books!
Then, I can finally put Lifehack to bed.

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