Thursday, December 26, 2013

Bread and Puppet Theater

Since writing, cooking/baking, and theater are art; Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theater deserves a view. An amazing man and his art...

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Greetings and Salutations on the Eve of The Winter Solstice

The winter solstice is tomorrow (it's the 20th here now), December 21, 2013 @ 11:17 GMT.
May the coming year find you and yours well.

Editing...

Argh! The editing, it never ends. And the rewrites! My editor is an absolute gem; a taskmaster, but a gem. Meticulous to a fault, which makes her gold.
After this experience, I'll likely go back and re-write my first book. Heaven only knows, I would like a bit less colloquialisms in it and some of the narrative could use a new look and edit (and that's an understatement).
I hope you budding authors out there appreciate my candor and frank-speak regarding my processes.
Writing, editing, printing, publishing, and marketing are the hallmarks of a self publishing author. Know your strengths and, more importantly, your weaknesses, before charging off into the bookosphere.
Knowing one's weakness becomes a strength and can carry you far.
I would conclude with this; get yourself an editor (even if you have to pay for one). If they're truly knowledgeable, he/she will be worth every dollar/baht.
Cheers.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Phra Jan Will be an A4, Hardcover, Coffee Table Book...

Almost there; many edits by three different people and many revisions. I'm being especially diligent and detail oriented; far more than with When Elephants Walked Backwards.

It cannot be over emphasized how important editing is, and choosing carefully who is to be that editor. I am very fortunate that my wife is an English language scholar, whose knowledge of grammar is vast.

Publishing/marketing is my personal weak point (I couldn't sell air in a vacuum), so that's the next challenge. My wife was able to market 99% of my first book's printing, some of which were bought by tourists at museums.

I will have Phra Jan printed in A4, hardback, for the 1st edition. There are 18 A4 size, full color illustrations and cover in the Himmapan Forest style by the artist, Rewat Yutto (nick name Aek). As most know, coffee table quality is expensive, even here. While half the cost of having it done stateside, it's still an expensive investment.

Since everything is in place, it appears I'll print the first 500 copies in 2014, possibly January. Five hundred is not an arbitrary number. I wanted fewer, but the costs go up steeply with any less. The net difference would only amount to a few hundred dollars (about 15%). Which translates to 300 more copies.