It is looking more and more as if the book The Cabins of Wilsonia will be here in October rather than in September.
The printer’s delay means 2 more weeks of a deal for you. The special pre-order price of $70 (including tax and mailing) is now extended until September 15.
All along I have said this book is a look at cabin life and the cabin community as it is today. I’m beginning to change my mind – there are new cabins, remodeled and rebuilt cabins, and suddenly, my book shows a look at cabin life as it was in 2011-2013, not as it is today. That makes it a history book.
Guess that means we will have a collector’s item on our hands!
I got to visit Wilsonia again. In spite of the book being finished on my end, there are some more cabins to draw. In fact, there are enough cabins that I could make another book.
Forget it.
There are 4-5 cabin folks who said they’d like me to draw their cabins. One chose the size and put down a 50% deposit. The others did not.
I took the photos anyway. In the olden days of film, I didn’t take photos until I had that deposit. Otherwise, it was just conversation.
Guess I’ve dropped my guard or my standards or my business-like demeanor. Maybe I’m more trusting. Maybe it just doesn’t matter if they change their minds.
These are cabins that only appear in the book as a detail or two. That is because they were too hard to photograph. With 200+ cabins to draw, it wasn’t necessary to do the really difficult ones.
Looks as if I might get to do some of the really difficult ones after all.
That’s fine. I love to draw. Have I mentioned that yet?
It’s an unbound copy of the book (The Cabins of Wilsonia) on paper. The pictures and type are the correct size but it is on oversized paper with trim lines.
I asked what I am looking for, since I provided camera ready copy. The answer was this:
“In the proofs, you should be looking to see if all elements at printing per your expectations. Are the running heads aligning correctly? Are the margins correct? Are the images in place correctly? Watch for font issues. Sometimes they do weird things and throw a symbol or wrong font in there. Otherwise, just make sure it looks good and meets your expectations. If you’re not sure of something be sure to ask. Once it’s printed it will be expensive to fix.”
Teeheehee – “Once it’s printed it will be expensive to fix.” (And did you notice the typo in the quote from the printer?)
No kidding! I’d have to pay to have it reprinted!
I found one little thing – there were 2 spaces between a couple of words. I thought about leaving it and then having a contest to see if anyone could find it. I changed my mind. It is now fixed.
I also noticed that the type is sort of biggish-looking. Since I know more folks who use reading glasses than those who do not, this is fine. It was intentional, but I didn’t know it would be sort of like an easy-reader look. Still, this is fine.
I thought it was going to be here by the end of September. Now I am not sure.
The Cabins of Wilsonia is not yet printed but it is for sale. If you buy it before September 15, the price is $70, which includes tax and shipping. Actually, the price via Paypal is $69.99 because no matter how I manipulate the numbers, I cannot get it to be $70 even! Or, I could if I changed the shipping to $5.01. . . .
Nah. I’m tired of messing with the computer stuff. I think my Adobe InDesign experiences will have me feeling jumpy about computers for quite awhile yet.
So, if you’d like to pre-order your copy, you may do so here using this Paypal button:
It took awhile to decide on the picture for the front of the book. Nope, not telling!
Then, I had to design the cover in my head. That wasn’t too hard – title, drawing, my name.
Then, this is where it gets hairy. Adobe InDesign is not an easy thing to use, and the world of covers is not a place where I have a map.
The printing company sent a diagram for the cover design with confusing dimensions and terms like “cloth size” and “board size” and all sorts of fractions that didn’t translate into clean decimals.
Then I saw that it was for a vertical book. Oops. My book is horizontal.
I requested and received a new diagram, which was just lines and measurements. Still no clarification on “cloth size” versus “board size”, and don’t even get me started on the whole issue of the spine dimensions!
It took the better part of an afternoon with InDesign, Googling for instructions, sending out an SOS to Carol in Seattle who was on a ferry returning from the San Juan Islands, which is where I want to live when I grow up, more googling, experimenting, and gritting my teeth with the effort of not screaming or slamming the laptop shut and picking up some nice soothing knitting.
I thought I got it. I sent it off. Then, the design department at the printing company sent me an email with a real template to use with InDesign so I redid it.
The person in the design department is named Jana. Why does that matter? Because I may be temporarily insane from the frustration of InDesign, which means everything takes on a new significance.
Perhaps it is time for a break. How about a nice cuppa?
So worked up here I forgot to mention the title of the book, The Cabins of Wilsonia, in case Google is listening.
While in Wilsonia, a cabin owner asked me if I could fix or change things on the original cabin drawings. I said a very confident and certain, “It depends”.
It depends on what it is, where it happens in the drawing, and if the drawing has been spray fixed so that it won’t erase or smear.
She told me I made a mistake on her cabin.
Really? I work from photos, so I think she meant that I didn’t portray her cabin as she sees it. I drew it as it appeared in the photos, and other than making me look fatter and more wrinkled than I already am, we know that cameras don’t lie.
See the white thing? It is an out-of-place shutter. It isn’t covering a window, because you can’t see a window from this angle. It is just there. It was in the photo and it is in the drawing. Did I make a mistake??
You can see a bit of a window on that back section of cabin in this photo without any visible shutters. It doesn’t show in the angle I drew for The Cabins of Wilsonia, an upcoming book of drawings of Wilsonia Cabins. (Thank you, Captain Obvious.)
What has been sent? The Cabins of Wilsonia has been sent to the printer! A big fat check has been sent too. (They don’t work for free, unlike some artist I could name here. . .)
The cover is designed in my head, but no matter how skilled the printing company is, it cannot see into my head. Dexter, Michigan is kind of far from Three Rivers, California, not that physical presence would make my head more transparent.
So, cover design is next. If it ain’t one thing, it’s anuthuh.
I also need to design a post card to mail out so that everyone has a chance to buy the book at the pre-sale price. That way I will be able to pay the ransom to get the books, The Cabins of Wilsonia shipped to me.
Mid to late September, expect your copy of The Cabins of Wilsonia, if you pre-ordered one.
Until September 15, 2014, the total price of the upcoming book The Cabins of Wilsonia will be $70, including tax and shipping.
On September 16, 2014, the price will become $86, including tax and shipping.
If I were you, I’d order before September 15, 2014, because $16 is Sixteen Dollars, which I consider measurable money.
But, it’s up to you.
There are two ways to order:
1. Use this button and pay with Paypal.
The offer ended 9/15/14.
2. Mail a check made out for $86 to CABINART to my P.O. Box in Three Rivers, which I will send you if you email me using the Contact Button/Tab/Word/Menu Item/Whatever it is called above. That is if my email is fixed. I waited 80 minutes for AT&T to answer and finally decided their phone system is broken. Okay, never mind about using the Contact Button – P.O. Box 311, zip is 93271.
I wrote it all in that convoluted manner because there is something wrong with my email and now I am paranoid. So, real people with working brains can get my address out of that paragraph above, but whatever is causing my email to break won’t be able to.
Does it feel as if we are having a conversation using a shoe instead of a phone??
Life was simpler before the internet came along. Cabin life wasn’t that much different from real life. Cabin life is a simpler life, and that’s part of the story portrayed in The Cabins of Wilsonia.
Did you think from that title that I am waiting for the upcoming book The Cabins of Wilsonia to be printed?
I’m waiting for my email to get fixed so I can send it. I’m waiting for the sales rep from the printer to call me back so I can cement a few details. I’m waiting for someone at AT&T to actually answer my call. “All customer representatives are busy taking other calls. Please hold, and your call will be answered in the order it was received.” Been hearing this over some very irritating cheesey music for 29 minutes now.
Waiting.
Maybe I should proofread the file once more.
Waiting.
AT&T has cost me so much time and money in the past 3 weeks. Hours on the phone with Paypal, hours on the phone with AT&T, hours on the phone with Apple, hours on the phone with AT&T again.
Waiting.
When I began this project, I didn’t picture this sort of scene at the end of the project. Maybe I should go make a batch of yogurt or knit a bit on a sweater.
Waiting for someone to pick up the phone for 31 minutes now. I really really need my email to work.
Waiting.
Last week I spent hours deleting over 60,000 old emails. They used to be on the AT&T email site, but AT&T made “improvements”, which they didn’t bother to tell their customers about. Email quit working, and after a couple of hours on the phone with some very nice person with a very useless script in India, I was told I could pay for more “help”.
Never mind. I called Apple. I’d rather pay them than pay AT&T. That was about 3 phone calls, each one well over an hour. It took 4 days for all the emails to actually load so I could then spend days deleting them.
Thanks, AT&T.
Waiting 36 minutes now.
I sure hope the email at the printing company isn’t AT&T.
Waiting.
P.S. Update on Waiting: I held on AT&T for 80 minutes before finally giving up. Mechanical Man Voice kept reassuring me that my call would be answered in the order it was received. I think he is a liar. I called back and got someone, and it took 99 minutes of messing around before she admitted that I needed to call Apple again. Apple took about 45 minutes the next day, and I wasn’t on hold at all because I emailed my new best friend there who called me within minutes. He fixed another problem that AT&T caused. I love Apple. Bet you can guess how I feel about AT&T.
I spent a weekend in Wilsonia, pre-selling the book, selling the original drawings, showing the place to my husband, getting reacquainted with cabin folks, and explaining the project and answering questions. (Usually I’m the one asking the questions, so this was a fun switcharoo.)
Chuck and Penny were the successful bidders on this original pencil drawing (with color in the foxgloves) at the annual Wilsonia silent auction.
One of the main questions was, “When will the book be ready?”
It will be ready mid to late September. The printer/binder has said to expect it to take 6 weeks, so I figure it will be 8.
Meanwhile, I wanted to proof yet again.
This is what I found to fix:
1. A fern needed to be moved. Really! It is important to have your ferns properly placed.
2. There were 2 places with an extra space between words.
3. Two sentences got readjusted to look more balanced.
4. I added the word “Inc.” to the printer’s name on the copyright page.
Honestly, I want this book to be PERFECT. It might not be possible, but I will give it my best shot. Next, my husband will proof it for me. After 29 years of marriage, he has caught the Typo-Psycho disease from me.
Meanwhile, the pre-sale price of $70, including sales tax and shipping is good through the months of July and August. If you click the button below, it will take you to Paypal where you can choose your quantity. If you don’t use Paypal, you can click on the Contact button above and I’ll send you my mailing address so you can buy your book with a check.
