The Accidental Publisher

Long time, no post . . .

I've neglected this blog for far too long. Time to begin some serious catching up.

For the moment, I'll mention that the memoir I alluded to months ago (last June, was it?) is now available. Although the publishing date is officially March 14, 2012, Amazon.com is already shipping it and I'll have a short run (16 cases) in hand next Wednesday, February 8, 2012. The book is I Can Dance: My Life with a Disability, by Laurie Hoirup.

Caution: Age 18 and up only. Laurie is very frank about several sensitive and personal subjects. This is not a book for kids.

This has been a long process, involving round after round of edit/proofing, and of course design and formatting, cover design (by Jeannie Reusch, willdesignforchocolate.com), and the various steps required for publishing.

For those in the Sacramento, CA, area, a signing is planned for 1 to 4 pm, Saturday, March 24, 2012, at The Marketplace, Folsom Blvd. at Mercantile Drive, Rancho Cordova.

BarnesAndNoble.com is offering pre-orders, but past experience suggests that on March 14th they will cancel pre-orders for the book. They did that with a previous book (my first via Lightning Source, about which -- both the book and LS -- more later.

Meanwhile:

Order Form for
I Can Dance: My Life with a Disability, by Laurie Hoirup

For a limited time, I Can Dance (list price $19.95, trade paperback) is available direct from the publisher with free shipping in the U.S. While supply lasts, the first copy in each order via this offer will include a custom-printed signature bookplate. I Can Dance may also be ordered through bookstores on the bookseller’s usual terms. ISBN: 978-1-937123-01-7

One copy, $19.95. Additional copies only $16.00 each from publisher for a limited time.

PLEASE PRINT CLEARLY

How many copies do you wish to order? ___ (limit 6 per order). Total enclosed: $_________

Name: ___________________________________________________________

Address: ______________________________________________________________

               ______________________________________________________________

City: _________________________________________________________________

State and ZIP Code: _____________________________________________________

Phone number or email address (in case of question about your order):

        __________________________________________________________________

Please enclose check or money order payable to Umbach Publishing, as follows:

For larger quantities, or for resale, please contact Umbach Publishing. Also available to bookstores via Ingram (after March 14, 2012).

__1 copy:   $19.95

__2 copies: $35.95

__3 copies: $51.95

__4 copies: $67.95

__5 copies: $83.95

__6 copies: $99.95

California residents please add 7.75 percent sales tax.

If you wish to place an order for a larger number of copies, please contact publisher Ken Umbach. Email ken@umbachconsulting.com or phone 916-812-9178.

Books will be mailed as soon as available. Publication date is March 14, 2012.

Mail completed form and check or money order to:

Umbach Consulting & Publishing
6966 Sunrise Blvd., #263
Citrus Heights, CA 95610

Here today, gone tomorrow . . .

More accurately, here yesterday, gone today. That is, the 45 percent discount on The Big Book of Ken's Corner With a Cat Named Boo at barnesandnoble.com has vanished, and the book is now priced at $15.99 there, as it is at Amazon.com.

Sadly, the change has no effect whatsoever on the tiny margin I make on each book sold through that channel. It just means that BN.com is keeping a lot more. Less sadly, I can sell the book locally at retail (plus sales tax, with the total rounded down to $17.00 for convenience) without feeling as though I am taking advantage of buyers.

Order fast!

Act fast, folks, if you want a copy of my forthcoming The Big Book of Ken's Corner With a Cat Named Boo. Heck, if I had any idea it would be so deeply discounted, I would have set a higher list price. (Maybe there is a lesson there.) B&N is now almost giving away my forthcoming book! Order all the copies you want NOW!

Following price data as of 6/12/11 at 8 a.m. PDT.

$8.69

$15.99 List Price

(Save 45%)

Buy from BN.com

Available for Pre-Order

This item will be available on Aug 15, 2011.

* Pub. Date: August 2011

* Publisher: Umbach Consulting & Publishing

* Format: Paperback , 416pp

* ISBN-13: 9781937123000

* ISBN: 1937123006

Here is the summary:

The Big Book of Ken's Corner With a Cat Named Boo encompasses two and a half years of Ken Umbach's "Ken's Corner" columns from Senior Spectrum (Sacramento, California), on topics as diverse as life in the neighborhood, cats, zombies, "bad banks," sewer construction, and peculiar events in news of today and yesterday. This is "slice of life" with a humorous slant and an occasional nostalgic recollection. The book also includes the author's notorious satire on the hard times in California's mythical "Velcro fields," plus the story-behind-the-story, and a view of haiku from the perspective of a technical communicator.

It is a steal at BN.com's pre-order price. Tell your friends.

--Ken

"The Big Book of Ken's Corner" ready for pre-order at BarnesAndNoble.com

The Big Book of Ken's Corner With a Cat Named Boo showed up available for preorder (August 15, 2011 publication date) even before I had approved the final proof (which I have since done). BN.com even has it at a 32 percent discount from the list price of $15.99 (achievable because I set it up with full trade discount, which involves my taking only a sliver of the selling price).

Naturally, I already found a typo in the text. C'est la vie. I approved the proof anyway, as it was not worth the cost or trouble to fix. There are probably others, and I probably should have edited the text down some. But you know, life ain't long enough for perfect. Sometimes "pretty good!" just has to suffice.

Be that as it may, you can go here to pre-order the book. Please do, by the way! Order several copies, as it will make a dandy gift.

More progress . . .

The new interior and exterior apparently passed muster with LS, and a new proof copy is being generated. Meanwhile, barnesandnoble.com already shows The Big Book of Ken's Corner With a Cat Named Boo as available for pre-order (August 15th publication date) -- and at a nice discount. My percentage of the list price on those sales is tiny, but I set the list price as low as I could manage by design.

Work still in progress . . . and a learning experience

The Big Book of Ken's Corner With a Cat Named Boo is still a work in progress.

When my proof copy arrived, I immediately noticed that a comma was missing on the back cover. When fixing that, I also made a few small edits to the back cover text. (Should have adjusted some spacing, too, but I'll let that pass. Only the most critical will notice, and the most critical are not my audience.)

The interior needed some fixups, too, as hyphenation of some words was bonkers. So . . . today I uploaded revised interior and exterior. I must always remember to create the PDF by way of printing to the Adobe PDF generator, not "save as" Adobe PDF, as the former neglects to embed all of the fonts. At least now I know to double-check that point.

As for the "learning experience" part -- I upgraded today to IE 9. It does NOT work with Typepad, apparently (will not allow publishing or even saving as draft a new post) unless "compatibility mode" is turned on. So I lost part of the above post, and did not want to re-create that part.

Second time the charm . . .

The file is fixed -- had to correct settings in Adobe Acrobat Distiller/Acrobat X in order to be sure the fonts were embedded (thought I had done so, but nope) -- and proof copies on their way. I'll say this: Lightning Source seems very efficient, and the my customer service rep. very pleasant.

Another project in process . . .

Next year, probably, on this:

 

Cover is a work in progress . . . but I like to have a picture in mind when I write. Should be a fun book, but the research and writing take time and involve a lot of tedium.

 

And interior file bounced . . .

Drats. I'd have sworn that fonts were embedded. Nope. Another go-round on the interior, with another fee. But the defaults should be right for the next time.

One step at a time . . . and one fee at a time.

One more step . . . proof ordered

I made some last-minute edits of The Big Book of Ken's Corner, and then jumped through the hoops at Lightning Source to set up the title and upload the files and order proof copy (two copies, in fact -- one to mark up and one for archive). LS did not complain about my files, so I'll see how it goes from here. This is more nerve-wracking than Lulu. Nice book, in its own way, but a relatively safe first project, as it is my own book. I want to be sure I have the mechanics down before proceding to another author's book. Two of those are in progress, albeit without publishing agreements yet completed or signed.

I also hopped over to Bowker and entered the essential information for Books in Print. I am perplexed by the discovery and SEO page, though, and am going to have to let that pass for now. I do not know how to provide what it is asking for.