Sample pages from the new book — which is all in color.
All my kids have AT LEAST one book dedicated to them. This might, however, be Teischan’s THIRD!
She deserved to have this book dedicated to her. She insisted that I do a PROPER guide to the ‘Bold Coast‘ in color. She did not consider the photo book that I published in October 2022 a proper guide.
I lucked out getting it by Christmas. I only managed to publish it on December 20, 2022. But, it worked out. Getting it to her for Christmas was always the goal.
She like two others also has a book with her name on the title.
All 3 of these books available on Amazon (worldwide).
Sample pages from the new book — which is all in color.
I was hoping against hope that I would be able to get this book done by Christmas. I had had enough! It was TOO MUCH. My fault. 4 books, on the same subject, in 1 year is too much for I. I get BORED. {SMILE}
Yes, this was my 4th book of 2022 — & all were about the Bold Coast. But, it is DONE & I am glad. Now I have to do some books on other topics — Antipopes, comets & Buddhism. So, you have been warned.
In October, after I had finished ‘Cut to the Chase‘ I planned to have this book, i.e., the SOUVENIR in COLOR, done by early November — ready for those that might be interested in getting it as a Christmas present. I soon realized that this was going to be impossible to achieve. So, instead, I dashed off the 54-page photo-book: ‘In Color‘.
Then I went back to work on this Color Souvenir. As it happens it is the longest of my 5 Bold Coast books! It came in 28-pages over ‘budget’! What can I say? In the end I decided that ‘screw the end price‘ (which is totally contingent on page count) & decided to make it has ‘good’ as possible. So, 148-pages. It was a lot of work. Doing books in color requires additional work.
Well it is done. I can now take a break — maybe for 2 or 3 days! SMILE.
Click to ENLARGE. See the damage on the left hand side. Unusable. Cost nearly $16! Click to ENLARGE. From the side to see the extent of the damage. Click to ENLARGE.
Diabolical. Bunch of idiot clowns. They claim they know photo books. Like hell.
DO NOT order photo books from Snapfish.
The two pictures above tell you ALL that you need to know — alas.
I paid $12.99 (for the 20 page book), 99 cent SHIPPING SURCHARGE & $9.08 SHIPPING.
$10 in shipping & this is what I get?
No wonder I love Amazon & KDP paperback publishing. I have got HUNDREDS of books from Amazon. On average I get a couple of books A WEEK. I have never had a damaged one.
Bloody Snapfish. I regret having used them. WILL NEVER USE THEM AGAIN.
1/ Never start off by using this workaround because it is GOOD to make sure that your margins are within limits & noting will get cut-off. Got that?
You should ONLY use this ‘trick’ if you are 120% certain that there is nothing wrong with your margins (& gutter) that NOTHING, BUT NOTHING will get inadvertently trimmed off during production. Got that?
2/ The KDP Paperback Previewer is getting more crochety in its old age — or, to be kinder, as it gets more mature. It, literally, cuts you no slack. If you have anything that barely touches the trim lines, it flags the book as being unprintable!
This is where you need to use your experience, expertise & judgement. Check the pages. Are you well & truly outside the trim lines. IF so, you really should fix it. But, is it just the case that you have text & maybe some graphics that are JUST on the line. Not over it. Just on the line.
In cricket, the line ALWAYS belongs to the umpire.
Well, KDP doesn’t have any LIVE umpires you can appeal to for some mercy. It is binary. You have to fix the margins BEFORE you can go ahead.
3/ This overzealous Previewer really only starts to show its unpleasant side when you are dealing with BIG books, with THICK spines, i.e., books with over (say) 500 pages.
4/ Well I stumbled upon a workaround. ONCE I have triple ascertained that nothing is really outside the trim lines, I set the BLEED SETTING to BLEED! Smile. You work it out. That is all I am saying. Just trying to help. SMILE.
P.S., You can ONLY use BLEED with manuscripts submitted in PDF form. OK?
Click image to access his Website with a huge portfolio of extremely beautiful photos.
This is quite the photobook. Amazing, riveting photos of people, cityscapes (Minneapolis suburbs), nigh scenes coupled with some profound text (some of which reads like poetry). Only 24 pages, but the photos & production quality are of the highest standard. The book, alas, isn’t currently available online — but you can contact ‘TeeGee’ (as he is called) through his well-worth visiting Website & get one through him. I think it will be available online, maybe even on Amazon, soon.
I met TeeGee, online, a longtime ago. I have yet to meet him in person. We keep in touch over Facebook. This is his public Facebook page.
You should definitely check out this book & TeeGee’s other work. You will be glad you did.
YouTube video with SOME of the photos from this book.
Not much I need to say or add. In this case all the pictures can & should do all the talking.
It a 54-page, full-color photo-book.
The PRIMARY objective was to create an AFFORDABLE, full-color paperback to complement my other 3 Bold Coast paperbacks — which are all in black-&-white. Just for completeness, consistency & to keep Amazon happy I also created an eBook version — though my Bold Coast ebooks, of course, are in color. But, this book has many, many photos I have not published before. Check out the YouTube video {above}.
Please check it out. At Amazon you have a totally FREE, no-obligation ‘Look-Inside‘ feature. Give it a spin.
I remember when ‘Lulu‘ came to be {& I just checked to make sure that in was indeed in 2002}. I signed up quite quickly & was initially a huge fan. I did some small projects, including a ‘British Cathedrals calendar’ (below), which I TRIED to sell on their online store. I never tried to publish a book with Lulu. Those were the days when I still used outside publishers. When I got around to publishing my first book, ON MY OWN, I did NOT use Lulu! I don’t remember why. I used ‘AuthorHouse‘ — & that was a profound mistake. Eventually, by the time of my 3rd self-published book I had discovered ‘CreateSpace‘ (which eventually MERGED with KDP) & have never looked back since. ‘CreateSpace’ was GREAT & after about 18-months of teething-problems KDP Paperback Publishing has become as good.
Click to ENLARGE.
Well, after a 20-year hiatus I went back to Lulu yesterday. I am not THRILLED with the print quality, from KDP, of my 1sr PHOTO-BOOK, i.e., ‘Bold Coast, Maine — In Color‘. The paper is not glossy & heavy enough. So, after looking around I eventually went with Lulu. Compared to others, they were the least ONEROUS. I was, however, quite frustrated. Lulu wants HUGE margins to prevent the cover & inside pages getting accidently TRIMMED during production. So, I had to slightly condense all my pages. That did not make me very happy.
The print costs were much higher than KDP, but I opted for the highest quality paper etc. So, I can’t bitch about that. Print turnaround & delivery are ABSURD. 6-days to print a BOOK! 6-days. Then a week or more to get it to me. We will see. But, I hope the print quality makes it all worthwhile.
I discovered this, to my cost & horror, earlier today. I was rushing ahead to get a new paperback published. I had been working on the cover, heads down, all day, & now that it was done I wanted it submitted for publishing BEFORE the weekend. So, I was rushing, even more than I normally do when I get close to having a book ready.
This book, my 38th, was a FIRST for I. My first photo book. Yep, a photo book with a very few words! Who would have thought. It also happened to be the FIRST paperback I have published where the whole book (bar the cover) was in just ONE MS Word document.
All of my other paperbacks are split across MULTIPLE Word documents. These days I have, at a minimum, this set of Word documents per paperback book: front matter, TOC, Preface, Notes, body I, body II …, backmatter, Index, last_pages. I create a PDF from each & then use the PDF merge function to create the final book image PDF. {By the way, for the last 10-months — & as such last 3 books — I use, with great success ‘Foxit PDF Editor Pro‘.
In this case, with this short, i.e., 53-page, page I had all 53 pages in one Word file.
That was ‘the mistake’. In my hurry I forgot to create a PDF! YES. I forgot to make a PDF. I am still in disbelief & SHOCK. I, Anura Guruge, FORGOT to MAKE A PDF! Has to be dotage. I might have to stop this writing/publishing lark soon IF I continue to make mistakes like this.
KDP {happily} let me submit the Word file without a demur — or a warning saying “Are you sure you don’t have a PDF?”
My first intimation that something was different was when I launched the mandatory ‘Book Previewer’. WOW! It was quick. Like near instantaneous. I should have realized that something was wrong then. I didn’t. Old age.
Then to my horror the book was a MESS. Margins were off & that screwed up the pagination. The book was 59 pages long as opposed to my 53. SO, here is another strange thing. Though we are only talking FRACTIONS my cover size should have been wrong. KDP should have flagged me. I was beyond distressed.
Like a crazy person I started editing my Word file to resubmit WHEN it hit me. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? You don’t submit Word files to KDP, you submit PDFs.
It was a HUGE RELIEF to discover that the fix was simple. Just create a new PDF & submit that. That is exactly what I did.
The Preview process took much, much longer. But, my book looked like what it should. It was also at 53-pages.
So, I am doing this post as a HEADS-UP for you. Just make sure you submit the RIGHT file type to KDP. KDP is NOT going to flag you. {I think they should}
