Saturday, October 29, 2016

Thank you DHL

Well, it turned out that the quality of the scanned illustrations was not the best quality, so I had to send the hard copies by courier to the US. Fortunately, I was able to send them via DHL on Thursday and was told that they would arrive on Monday, October 31st. Turns out that it was actually 48 hours from Shanghai to Washington State. I'm also relieved to know that they arrived okay, as these are my original hand-made drawings! It wasn't cheap, but considering the time it saves us, and the personal value of the illustrations, it was worth it. So, the project continues! I don't think I also mentioned that in addition to a paperback edition, there will also be an Ezelweizer e-book. This is all the more reason why the quality of the illustrations is imperative, since the colorful pictures will be the main feature of the book. The two women helping me with the technical side of things are working on a proof copy of my book now, looking at the InDesign layout of the book. The first draft of the book has already been put together. It is a dream come true!

Saturday, October 22, 2016

3-week deadline

I've got two other people helping me get my book self-published using Amazon.com's Create Space program. One is currently living in Ireland, the other one is in the US. They brought it to my attention that in order to meet my goal of publishing before Christmas, things need to be completed in 3 weeks. 3 weeks! That's not much time left! So what this meant was getting my hand-drawn illustrations scanned and sent to the lady in the US ASAP. She gave me a list of settings, half of which I was able to figure out with the scanner at work. So on Friday I scanned the drawings and today I emailed them to her. Fingers crossed that the quality will be good enough that I don't have to snail mail her the illustrations! Also the size of the book has been confirmed to be 9 x 7 inches (10 x 7 is my second choice). Stay tuned!

Saturday, September 17, 2016

She's Baaaaack!

She's baaaaaack! It sadly has been way too long since I last posted, like 4 years, almost as long as I have been living in China. I had considered closing my blog, and teaching full time in Shanghai has taken up a lot of my free time. However, I have decided to re-commit myself to my writing and my blog is a part of it. Besides, my latest project is getting a book self-published through Amazon's "Create Space". This book has already been printed here in Shanghai and is called "An Ezelweizer Story", based on stories that my father and grandfather told at bedtime in my childhood. Stay tuned for more updates, coming soon!