Author: kirsti

new book beginnings ~ db

| kirsti

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Further Proof

A few weeks ago I reviewed the second round of proofs for Dream Boats, including the fold and gather (pictured above).

Printed proofs are so, so, so very important. It’s written in my contracts that I am to receive, review and sign off on proofs before the book goes to print, but the crazy thing is this is only the third book where I’ve actually received a full set of proofs to review. Sometimes I’ve recieved a page, other times nothing. Proofing is costly in time and money, so every so often it gets ‘forgotten’ with sometimes disastrous results.

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submitting to publishing – with Dan Bar-el

| kirsti

Funny guy and Dream Boats author, Dan Bar-el, talks first books, handling rejection, favourite publishing moments, and banging his head against the wall in Taking The Publishing Plunge on the CWILL BC blog.

If you’re interested in more stories (and invaluable information) about how kids books authors and illustrators got their start in publishing and what they’ve learned along the way, there is a whole Publishing Plunge series created by the (also very funny) Tanya Kyi, that focuses on the publishing experiences of other CWILL BC members.

new book beginnings ~ db

| kirsti

Dream Boats - ozalid proofs

Ozalid proofs

Caggages and Ozalids

I have to admit, there is something pretty terrifying about print. Make a mistake, and it’s permanent. You can look something over, and over, and over on screen, or on crummy black and white print-outs, and still you’ll find more mistakes in the colour proofs.

When I was 4, I was delighted to find a spelling mistake in one of my picture books had been carefully pasted over with a correction printed on a small rectangle of paper. Of course I had to unstick one side to see what was underneath (caggage). This little mistake gave me a sudden glimpse into the mysterious process of how books come to be – it was proof of human hands, human process. It was a huge realisation to me and I loved it. I wanted to know more about the poor soul who had to carefully cut and paste those little rectangles correctly spelling the word ‘cabbage’. Sadly, the rest of the glue holding that little piece of paper perished over time and the correction has slipped out of the book and become lost.

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