This month I’ve been juggling jobs. Like, more than just for my own projects; I’ve been helping my sister start up her new business, which has been consuming a fair bit of my time I had hoped to dedicate to making more game models and learning Unity. Still, she needed the help desperately, and I was available to even if I had to drop some of my own projects to do it.
You can view the barebones of the site I have started making for her at www.dreamieinabottle.com, which I hope will grow into a successful business for her.
So, anything new here?
You’ll probably notice a few things have changed on the site; pages have been cleaned up, new separators have been added where needed, a few animations to pictures, headers of topics are now confined in blocks like in this update post, plus there’s been a revamping of the site menu. Those who have been particularly inquisitive, or follow me on Twitter, will have also seen a new article that has popped up; there will be more of these articles coming over the rest of the year.
Service or scam? Articles about various Self-Publishing Sites.
I’ve been using print on demand sites for just over 4 years now; sites like LuLu, Amazon, and recently Blurb, and I have had so many issues using them all and wasted so much money printing samples to make sure the book you, the reader, receives looks how I envisioned.
To be frank, I’ve gotten fed up with how some of these sites are made and the lack of care put into both their services and final product, so much so that I have decided to write out how each of these 3 sites operates and, most important of all, reviewing how accurate their online proofs are to the final print.
I’ve written this piece in the hopes that it will help you avoid the same complications I experienced.
You can read this article by clicking HERE.
A future article I am currently researching for will cover the “Author Packages” sites I have been seeing a surge in popularity around, and why they’re dangerous for inexperienced self publishers, and paving the way for a new breed of scam.
An Update on Book Progress
The samples from LuLu for the Hardbacks have arrived, and I am giving them the go-ahead for distribution (Wrath of the Lancer will not be available until the end of June when it officially launches.)
A few minor tweaks need to be done to the Edris Compendium hardback, but that too should be available at the end of May like part 1 of Specimen G-13. The hardback of Specimen G-13 comes with Origins, the prequel, already inside. The Amazon paperback and ebook editions do not.
The writing process for part 3, and the final entry in the Specimen G-13 trilogy, is going slowly right now whilst I work on getting the hardbacks sorted for the existing books. I had originally planned on getting it published by June 2022, but with how big this book is starting to become and the amount of editing I’ll have to do, it looks like I will end up going over that deadline by a few months.
Right now, I will assume the book will be publish-ready by October 2022 at the earliest, and June 2023 at the latest.
When all of Specimen G-13 is finished, I will indeed be bundling it all into one massive book that will be available in paperback, hardback, and ebook (providing Amazon are OK with that).
The other written project, “The Maxwell Report” for Subject 218, is in super early draft and has been shelved whilst I tackle getting the hardbacks sorted out. Once that story is published (possibly 2023), I will pick up where I left off doing the comics, and hopefully by then whatever is causing me grief in my wrists will have been corrected, so I can draw comfortably enough to work on a comic again.
RAWR! It’s Donisaur! will be getting a new book in November, for the Dinovember event, rather than me doing tons of new artwork for Redbubble like I’ve done in the past. I apologise for the gaps between each dino book, but drawing and painting has become very uncomfortable to do with the state of my wrists right now. I really hope this can be remedied soon.
Final Thoughts
I have been suffering from physical health issues for the past few months that have now accumulated to a point that’s impacting my ability to draw and paint, and whilst I have been working on my books smoothly I have been struggling with the printing-side of the process needlessly. I could have spent the past month just fixing the problem, and I have been, but I wanted to help ensure nobody else makes the same mistakes I did in believing digital proofs before hitting that order button.
If you’re thinking of going into self-publishing, I strongly advise you take a look at the comparison pictures in my article before deciding upon which site to use for making your book, and maybe give the article a read if you want to learn more about how the sites work, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and what your final product might look like using them.
Thomas