new book beginnings ~ db

2013/03/302014/11/08 | kirsti

Some excitement!

My publisher delivered this to my door.

This is not quite the final, done book, but it’s pretty close. It’s a bound digital proof, so things like the cover varnish, and the endpapers aren’t quite as they’d be in their finished form, but it’s given me a really good idea of what the book will look like in the end.

I’m really happy with the colour, and the print quality, and I’ll share a few not-quite-real-book images herebwhile I eagerly await the arrival of the very real thing.

I’m actually a little scared to look it over too closely in case I find mistakes I made. It’s kind of a given that I’ll find more than a few I-would-have-done-that-differenties or why-did-I-do-thats, but that’s all good, and part of the process and I should worry if I don’t find things I know I can do better now.

(note: there’s a bit more contrast in these photographs than what you’d see in actual book).

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new book beginnings ~ db

2013/03/292014/11/08 | kirsti

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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new book beginnings ~ db

2013/02/012014/11/08 | kirsti

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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