Books arrived today - all 4400 of them. As usual, it was really hard for the delivery guy to bring the books to the house (truck was too big to negotiate the residential streets) so Ben had a fun hour or two schlepping boxes.
We’ll be shipping them out and selling in the New Year….
Proof back from Hignell’s today. It looks good, apart from two page numbers on one page, and a couple of minor things that aren’t worth changing.
Pretty fast turnaround - 5 days from when we couriered it from Vancouver to Winnipeg.
So, I no longer have to go to Kinko’s to print colour pages thanks to a smart investment in a colour printer. But I do need to print out hard copies of the cover, which needs a printer that’s bigger than the 8.5 X 14 max on my home printer.
So, off to Kinko’s I go. On Remembrance Day. Having first checked that they were open.
Kinko’s was indeed open. But (get this) does not have any Macs. It’s a PC-only world out there in Kinko-land, which I find unbelievable. Much stomping of feet did not miraculously produce a mac, so, being that the files I wanted to print were pdf, I went to the nearest PC. But it couldn’t read my zip/flash drive. I hate PCs. And now I hate Kinko’s.
But, as Ben says, the book is now off to the printers. (Hignell in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada - they’re fantastic!). On to the Rioja!
WOW we raced ahead and got the book off to the printers today! Done! Just like that! Boom. Off to the printers. Hopefully the printers will be able to read the files and we can sit back and wait for the book to be printed and delivered some time in Dec/Jan.
A great relief and now we can enjoy a glass of rioja or two.
We now have the final proof printed off and are checking it for errors. We may even have the whole thing finished today ready to go to the printers. Finally. So things look like they are all on course for a January release. Yeah we have almost done it.
We discovered a file which had a list of things we would do differently from the second to the third edition which we wrote just after finishing the 2nd ed. It said “make sure leave enough time to do index takes longer then you think. I didn’t know if i should have laughed or started crying when I read that. Duh. If only we had listened to ourselves. Anyway it is done now and it only took 3 days. Still lots more to do but we are getting through our list fast. Maybe it will be at the printers by mid nov?
Checking the index is the most tedious thing I have done in ages. Can’t wait to finish but I am still only at C. It is going to be a long day.
So we have passed it off to Lucy so now we have a few small things to do while she goes over it. A few facts still to check and some production issues. The end is nearer.
Had a lovely time with Lucy in the park discussing our book and life. What a difference a sunny October day makes.
First round of proofing is done and now we need to tidy the book up before giving it to our main editor Lucy. Getting closer! Maybe it will be ready to got the printers by the end of the month.
so the first round of proofing is almost done. Need to take in the changes then do it all again. The end is closer but it still feels a long way off. Even though we have given ourselves more time it still feels a bit of a rush.
I am beginning to get more conservative in my numbers for the print run. Global credit crunch and airlines going bust making it more expensive to travel. Need to sit down with a bottle of Rioja and chew this one over, maybe Navarra to save a few euros.
This is bound to encourage some kind of curse, but we seem to be ready to print out the book for the first proof. After a few days of binary eps file warnings, flattening, and converting to curves, things seem to be printing OK. Only a couple of days behind schedule. Maybe not a publishing first, but certainly a Pili Pala one!
Daphne called this afternoon to say she has left hot spain for cold vancouver. Welcome home Daphne. We have lots of things for here but first we have to solve a tech hitch. Our images are not printing in the text. Hopefully we can solve it soon so she can start proofing. Need to get cracking so we can get the book of to the printers
After a week of looking I found the missing notes in a pile of folders in our office. Thank goodness we have not lost them. Oh the joy. If you listen carefully you can hear our screams of joy. Yeah Yeah Yeah! Must have moved them when we laid the new floor! Made my day!
My eyes are squinting from adding in lots and lots more tiny little
places in Galicia that now boast an albergue, a hotel or a café. It
sometimes seems as if there’s somewhere to stay or eat every kilometre
of the camino in Galicia. Part of me (the squinting part) is cursing
these entrepreneurial Galicians.
But the more reasonable part
of me is glad that the people who live in some of these tiny hamlets
are maybe able to make a living in their place of birth. It certainly
makes a change from the later decades of the twentieth century, where
rural Galicians migrated to cities, or even overseas to South America,
and farmers and fishers gave up their traditional livelihoods in the
face of globalized competition.
I wish we had a little button we could press when we lost something and it would flash where you put it. I have spent half of today looking for a pile of notes which for the life of me I have no idea where they are. I know they have never left our office or at least I believe they have not left the office. Maybe I freaked out and threw it in the recycling? An unknown unknown no less.
So we have done a first go through of the text and inserted most of Daphne del Camino’s updates. We have left out a few to be added to our website because they will mess up the layout and we are pushed for room. We don’t want to add more pages and make the book heavier.
Tonight we are going to sit down and once more go over the distances. I have lost count the times we have tried to work out distances already. Seems everytime we do a book or map we have to go over the distances again. I wonder if anyone can figure this out for good. We took a GPS with us last time and still we are wrong at times. Maybe we need to walk the camino with one of those wheel thingies.
Trying to follow Daphne’s notes can be easy or hard I think it really depends on her level of interest of that stage. I know it does with mine. I have to keep remembering not to second guess her and just follow what she says. Hard when I know the route so well.
Had a known unknown today Barbara a american woman and her husband Dwight emailed me after last seeing them struggling up the Alto de Padon almost 4 years ago. Funny how people catch up with you. I wonder if she did any paintings like she said she was going to do? She wanted some books for a group she is taking back to the camino. It was a pleasure to help her out. Maybe our paths will cross again? Sometimes I wish I had a crystal ball so I could see what all the people we met on the camino are up to now. Where is German Frank? or the strange man from Italy who said he was going to walk home then walk back along the camino and do that for ever with no money. He had already been walking the camino for 6 months by the time we met him?
Maybe I am beginning to lose it but it would be a fun idea to try and stop at every bar and church on the camino. It would take for ever.
Two days in and still going strong. I really sometimes find it hard to believe how many new albergues there are on the route. In galicia it is getting so crazy. Soon the whole route will be lined with them like billboards on a highway. At least it should help with the over crowding.
Taking the cover images off to get scanned in today. More progress!
Daphne is going to hate me as I have been blitzing her with questions while she is still in Spain. Need to get stuff done ASAP if we have a hope of getting the new edition out in time. It was great to have the break for 6 weeks and now that summer is fading it is easier to spend a day in front of the computer. We have about 3 weeks before we start proofing and I have just got to Triacastela so have to hammer to get things done.
Things never go to plan so need to get moving before our computer decides to blow up or the boat to catch on fire or someother such misshap. Rememeber to back up.
Have been looking at the other camino guides too recently. There seems to be a new one ever time I look. Not sure yet what this means for a small publisher like ourselves. Just have to hope that people still like our book and that it continues to do well. Need to dig out the printing quotes and figure out how many to print. Another thing for the very long list I have.