I've heard from Shy at Victoria Bookbinding/First Choice Books. Quote is the same as it was in March - $9.28 a book for 100 books. I called to give them my credit card number to start the process and spoke to Joanna - she's the graphic designer who will be working on my book. Ohhhhh.....I feel like a teenybopper about to see David Cassidy. I feel like squealing! Not really....but it is exciting to have a graphic designer working on my book......whatever that means. She said they may have a proof ready to ship to me by the end of this week.

Now I get to find out what the service at First Choice Books is like. I'll try and be fair about evaluating them. Let's hope this isn't $1,000 being spent for "vanity's" sake. Maybe I will see some of the money back.....maybe some of the copies will sell.

I should really delve deep and take a hard look at why I'm publishing this book. Is it for the possibility of money? Is it for the possibility of recognition? Is it for the possibility of becoming someday, a legitimately published author? Is it for the possibility of wanting to share what I have written with a larger audience? OR ALL OF THE ABOVE?

It's done!!

April 23 - I sent the manuscript and book cover to Shy today at Victoria Bookbinding/First Choice Books. I'm waiting to hear back with an estimate on costs. I have a feeling it's going to cost me way more than $10 per book which means I'll have to make the cover price $19.99. The cost will end up being cheaper than Wordclay and other POD printers because of the U.S. dollar exchange rate. First Choice seems to offer several of the same options that Wordclay offers i.e. links to Amazon, etc.

Do you love the cover? I do -- especially since it was designed, photographed, laid out, etc. by my son Jordan (a very talented artist!).

Here's a little secret - the photograph of the person on the front cover is my daughter Kate -- so I guess you could say the production of this book has been a family affair. My other daughter Roxanne was one of my final proofreaders...

Now we wait....

Being anal is taking up too much time!!

I'm very nervous because I am about to send off my first manuscript/book to a printing company for PUBLISHING. I am going nuts reading, re-reading, scanning for typos, checking for grammar, spacing, and generally driving myself silly.

I've had Jordan do four more versions of the cover.....I think he's getting sick of my changes.

But hey, what to expect of someone who's primary job for so many years was PROOFREADING, PROOFREADING and more PROOFREADING? I will be devastated if I find one minor mistake in the book.

On the other hand, this could be my way of avoiding the inevitable.....getting the book published! So here we go. Stay tuned for updates!

Too much to do and too little time

It's Friday - one of my favourite days of the week. Friday's are the day that I get excited and worked up with anticipation of the weekend. Why? Because on the weekend's, my time is (usually) my own and that's when I get to write. Today, I'm not so excited because there are lots of activities this weekend that will get in the way of my writing...... Not that I want to sound selfish, but last weekend was Easter and we had four days off. Did I do any writing? A little, on Monday, after my houseful of guests left. So this weekend was going to be my catch up time.

But, no writing this weekend because other important things are happening, namely, fun activities with my grandson. He has two big milestones this weekend -- his first swimming lessons and his third birthday. So Nana won't be doing any writing, but she'll be shopping for his birthday gifts and sneaking into the recreation complex to watch him at his swim lessons.

The weekend after -- watch out! I plan on getting at least 20 pages done in Kate Monahan's latest adventures!

My first blog?

I'm up and at it. They say having a blog is a must for self-published authors. Not that I'm self-published yet, but this is a first step.