For those keeping tabs on the progress of Cluck, you may have noticed that it keeps slipping. Well, there's a story there, and I'm a writer, so:
I am publishing Cluck through booksurge, an amazon company. They've been great, and fairly responsive. The good thing about them is that they will take a print-ready proof (pdf file) and use it directly, allowing you to maintain absolute control over the look and feel of your book. This is especially good if you're a pseudo designer (like me) who has professional designer friends to help you out.
The waiting up until now has been due to me: I've been writing, proofing, editing, re-writing, formating, etc. Once the file was sent to Booksurge, it took approximately 2 weeks for me to receive an author proof.
I got my proof last night. It looks amazing, and I'm not just saying that because I wrote it. My first book, Out of Place Out of Time was published through iUniverse, and it looks terrible in comparison (of course, the only way to see for yourself is to buy a copy of both and compare ^__^ ). However, there's been a glitch. The system that 'ingests' the file for production screwed up a bunch of text formatting, making the book very difficult to read. Two points to make here:
- BookSurge has been a champion to me during this process. I emailed my account rep last night at about 1am, and I got a response this morning at 7:47am. They have found the error, re-ingested the file, and the pre press group thinks it is fixed. They are printing a new proof, which my rep will look over personally before overnighting the new proof to me. Wow - that is what you call excellent customer service.
- I have to point out that "ingest" is their term, not mine. I think it's hilarious, especially in the context of a novel about zombie chickens.
That said, I have doubts if things are really fixed. I found a glitch with the primary font that I used, which repeatedly re-created the exact same errors no matter how many times I re-flighted the file. (re-flight is my own word for redoing an Acrobat pre-flight operation, which checks files for errors, saves compatibility layers, etc.) There are two options:
- They know more about Acrobat than I do, or have different/better tools than I do
- The errors are still there
- Both of the above
Option 3 is a distinct possibility. So I'm re-designing the entire book (yes, the ENTIRE book) to use a different font, which doesn't seem to produce the same errors. That way, if I get my new proof and it's still screwed up, I'll be able to send off the new file right away to speed up the process as much as possible.
I have to reiterate that this isn't my fault, but it also isn't really BookSurge's fault - it's just "one of those things" that can happen when dealing with anything related to acrobat files (for those who don't work with acrobat for print, do a google on pdf version compatibility problems). They've been great - so great in fact that I feel compelled to embark on a quest. When researching POD companies, I found a lot of old posts around the internet complaining about booksurge. They were old, prior to booksurge's acquisition by amazon.com, but they did sway my opinion - almost enough so to change my mind (but obviously not quite). Anyway, I'll wait until the entire process is over, giving them their fair chance to screw up as a company, but if the service remains as stellar as it has been so far, I am going to hunt down all of those posts and reply to them all with this story.
Stay tuned for further updates on Cluck, the process of creating and designing it, and when it finally becomes available.
at amazon. Check out 
As promised, here's a collection of sample illustrations, from 
Trade Paperback340 Pages 