What’s been taking up my time, and what’s going to be taking up my time
What have I been doing lately, while not posting on my blog?
Well… I’ve been doing this:
Yep. Now available in paperback. Real matter that you can hold in your actual hand.
I’ve been hearing that a reasonable number of people wished that there were a paperback version of The Steerswoman, so I finally knuckled down to get that going. I”ve used CreateSpace, a service which many people have spoken of highly. It seems pretty straightforward, even for people who are not tech-savvy — and for a nerdy former programmer like myself, it’s especially easy.
Conceptually, that is. Much dog-work is involved, and much careful focus on detail. But that’s what you get for being hands-on.
I actually enjoyed the process. The main downside was that I had to get it done in a compressed amount of time.
Because of what’s taking my time at the moment: The Eclipse!  I was leaving in just a couple of days…
Thus, The time-crunch. I thought I’d have plenty of time, but when I got my proof-copy, I discovered that I’d chosen a font size that was uncomfortably small — a fact not evident when previewing the layout online. Once I had it in my hand, then I could tell.  Also, I lost my right-margin justification.
And then time was getting short. So I pulled out all the stops, spent a couple of days working too many hours, guzzling too much coffee, while resizing the font, rechecking the formatting, re-proofreading everything, redoing the cover (because the spine was going to be wider).  And wrestling with the map.
And then waited for the new proof copy, so I could go through it all over again…
Never skip a chance to proof-read. Never, never. There’s always another typo. Trust me.
I had to take the new proof with me… I actually finished that part at 11:30 last night, by flashlight, at a picnic table, in the campground.
But it’s done! I gave it the official OKAY a few minutes ago in a coffee shop in Tennessee.
It’s already available in CreateSpace’s own online store.
It should be available on Amazon.com sometime next week.  I get a slightly better royalty from CreateSpace, but if Amazon is your go-to, I say go to! Next week.
In other news: hey, eclipse!
Here’s an especially neat video from NASA/Goddard with a detailed representation of the path of the moon’s shadow, with they guy whod did the data visualization talking about how he did it:
So, having published my paperback (hooray!), I am now going to be mostly unavailable, due to camping out near where the eclipse is happening.
You should try to catch it if you can. Read all the info on it for your area.
This is my third total eclipse, and I they are wonderful beyond description.
Must go now…
