As the year draws rapidly to a close you find us working furiously to complete the upload of the NARC books to CreateSpace, which puts them on the road to Amazon. They won't land there till February or March, for reasons of time (other work to do, folks: work never stops) and investment (when you're publishing a loooong backlist from Aus, getting to Amazon ain't cheap; every proof copy sets you back about fifty bucks, and you're doing how many of these little fellas?).
Slowly but surely, though, we're getting there. Right now, we're watching the mailbox for the proof copy of THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE, and when the paperback makes its appearance in the Amazon engine -- we'll have a book launch!
Right now, we're going over the NARC covers, giving them the nips and tweaks they need to meet the requirements of a different printshop. Fortunately, DreamCraft never ditches old data. The files for the Lulu versions of the covers still exist, so we're able to open them up and rearrange things. With a minimum of fuss (most of it created by the fact some fonts have gone missing, and the Amazon paperback has to have a dead zone to accommodate a barcode), we're getting through quite rapidly.
Scrounging around for fonts is an experience in itself. The long-familiar font which was used for the NARC title logo, has upped and vanished. It was a font called Lynx, and the old version is utterly unusable with Adobe, and even the latest Service pack of Windows. So ...
A quick sprint over to Google and a search on "download font lynx" turned up this: http://simplythebest.net/fonts/ ... and there was the font we wanted: http://simplythebest.net/fonts/fonts/lynx.html. Cheers to the "Simply the Best" website: they made it easy, and the font works like magic. Fixed our problem in three minutes flat.
Working with the old NARC files brought me closer to the DTP software -- DreamCraft is still sailing along on PagePlus 10, even though version X3 (thirteen, one supposes ... they switched to the 'X' numbers after 10) just came out.
Good gods ... have a look at their splash/demo pages:
- http://www.serif.com/pageplus/pageplusx3/examples/
- http://www.serif.com/pageplus/pageplusx3/whats-new/
- http://www.serif.com/pageplus/pageplusx3/overview/professional/
- http://www.serif.com/pageplus/pageplusx3/overview/creative/
I have no doubt DreamCraft will be trading up, but the fact is, version 10 was already so powerful, for anything you see on or in the Keegan paperbacks or webpages, you don't need to look further.
If you're interested in the new one, though, a word to the wise: DO NOT get it via the Serif homepage!!! They have the price set at about 80 pounds, sterling -- which is A$200!! You can get it for US$50 (about A$80) online. Check this out:
More and more often these days, you have to shop around and take care. Phenomenal deals are out there, but you have to hunt for them. (Incidentally ... yes, those are affiliate links. If I'm going to be talking about software or cameras or smartphones or something, I might as well paste in the link and be specific about what I'm blathering about. Saves you the trouble of hunting it down -- and there's a fair chance I'll earn a few bucks on the side, right? And there's no harm in keeping the bills paid.)
So this is where you find me as we slither into New Year. I don't have any specific plans for the night. A good dinner will feature in there somewhere, and fireworks -- either the local ones or the telecast from Sydney. Locally, you can take a quick sprint over to Brighton, walk out on the jetty, and watch the show from there at midnight ... a couple of hundred people do. Keegan is sometimes one of them.
And now -- back to work.
Cheers,
MK
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