Exciting Order
I’d initially planned on personally binding my third collection poetry, just as I had with my first two. The first collection; Doing Time..., was soft-cover bound using an interesting spine clip. The book was quite handsome, though I still felt there was room for improvement. The second collection; it’s about no longer being a bastard, was hard-cover bound. I practically ripped apart some hard-cover novels I owned, researched book making, and came up with my own design which I maintain looks phenomenal. The only downside is that each book takes nearly 3 hours to complete.
Some months ago, I began prepping myself for my third collection; The Zen of Shaving One’s Balls. I was prepared to do a very limited print-run of hard-covers… but then everything started getting extremely busy in my life. My wife and I moved our family to a new city and as anyone who has moved knows, that is a lot of work.
The Zen of Shaving One’s Balls had to take a backseat to more pressing matters, like selling our old house, finding a new one, procuring a job, etc.
Now that things have settled, I’ve decided to get to work on publishing the collection… however I’ve decided that I simply do not have the time to devote to three hours per book. And so I chose a reputable online publisher and have setup an account with them to publish the book. I’ve seen books published by them (from other authors) and they always look fantastic, so I’ve quite a bit of faith in them… though not enough to start selling The Zen of Shaving One’s Balls without first buying myself a copy and checking it out.
Which I’ve just done.
I finished the process this morning, and uploaded all of my content (manuscript and custom covers). I don’t know how long shipping will take to get here, as I chose the least expensive delivery (no sense paying a small fortune just to get it a couple days faster).
Once I receive the copy and give it the once over, I will open up the collection so that anyone can purchase a copy.
I have also begun preparing my second collection for reprinting at the same online service. I still have a digital copy of the book (unlike the first one, which I only own a paper copy of), and so printing it’s about no longer being a bastard will be quite easy and will allow others who’d not gotten a hard-cover copy to enjoy it. This should happen shortly, at which point I will post about that book as well.
The only downside to all of this is that Doing Time... will never see a reprint… as I do not think I will ever take the time to retype the entire manuscript.
Still, I am excited for the other two collections. I sincerely hope others are as well.
