I'm pleased to announce that I've completed my Indian Trip Report publishing. It is now available on amazon in paperback form, with the hardback option hopefully coming very soon.
The title refers to my very first tiger sighting and the realization that getting a picture of a tiger is much harder than any mammal I've tried to photograph before.
If you'd like to look at getting a copy, follow this link AMAZON
In my last post, I discussed the start of my efforts to re-size and re-factor my travel books into a smaller and more manageable format that would be both less expensive and more readily available on Amazon. In short, and just a couple of weeks later, this has proven to be easier than I anticipated. All nine books have been converted and everything seems to work out just fine.
I think I actually work in such a way that this is quite an easy project for me. When I make each new book, I simply collect possible images and draw them into the book as I go, often making them fit in with the written narrative. This means that I always have that selection of images available if I ever need them again. I also have the original Blurb-published master files and PDF copies available to reference and re-use as necessary.
It's also finally made me make real use of some of the Affinity software that I've ignored for years. Affinity Publisher is really very good - if a bit memory hungry when outputting PDF files. It has a few quirks, but I'm learning to deal with them and the interface and speed of use is pretty impressive. As mentioned in that prior post, however, I think I need another 32GB of memory for my system.
I've only managed to get a proof back from Amazon for the first volume that I tackled - Waiting for Water. Overall, I'm really delighted with the quality of the photographs and the overall format of the book. I've decided to wait until volume ten, as yet untitled, is ready and then I'm going to release them all in rapid sequence. Prices are likely to range from£30 to £40 on the Amazon UK store and relative world-wide.
If you take a look at the link above to PHOTO BOOKS then you can see details of the nine travel books that I have done over the years - one for each of my trips to Africa. I love them, mostly because there is something very special about having a hefty 13" x 11" hardback to hold and enjoy.
The biggest downside of them, however, has always been the considerable cost of buying a copy. Obviously, I can get them at cost, but to retail them through Blurb.com results in a cost that is sometimes in excess of £100 per book. If you just want a copy for yourself, then this is quite a considerable outlay and one that I didn't ever expect anyone to make. I have, however, managed to sell a few copies of some of them over the years and this is delightful.
However, I've often wanted to do something about it and now I'm trying to. I have started making my first conversion of one of these books to a smaller and more cost-conscious format. I'm so happy with Amazon's printing of my recent small mammal books that I'm going to convert these larger books down. The first one is nearly ready now and I've settled on an 8" x 10" page size for this series. I'm not tackling them in any particular order, but the first one happens to be the biggest one - Waiting for Water.
Having to change the shape and size of the pages is a challenge. Each subsequent volume is becoming a little easier. I have a routine and system now that makes it about as easy as possible, but it is not a quick process. I'm going to concentrate on getting the conversions made and then go for a staggered publishing sequence once I return from trip ten. It also looks like I will have to get some more RAM for the new desktop computer. I thought 32GB was plenty, but Affinity Publisher is a hungry beast and I'm finding I'm getting low on resources when working with a 200+ page book.
The images show the same pair of pages in both formats, old above and new below at more-or-less the same sizes.
I guess I need to apologise. Firstly to my readers and secondly to myself. I just forget to do things in the right order sometimes.
This time I managed to publish a whole set of books on Amazon without actually properly posting here about them. I even created the page on this site to showcase them and promptly forgot to make a post about that as well.
So, take a look at the link to Shorts above and see what I've been up to. I'm loving this 8.5-inch square format for Amazon, but I do wish that they would do slightly bigger, even when I can understand the limitations that they are working to. The full-colour printing is really very nice and the price is basically impossible to match anywhere. I've a few more ideas for shorts like these, so I'll try and keep them coming. I'm only making them available as paperbacks for now. The photo-heavy nature of them doesn't really suit kindle.
In other news, I've finally completed my latest novel. This one has taken a long time to get there, but I am reasonably happy with it. It is a sequel of sorts to Hard-wired for Love and follows on about 300 years after that novel finishes. At very nearly 82,000 words, Another Horizon is the longest thing I have ever written by far and it might suffer a little for this, but if you get to enjoy the first novel, then maybe give this a try as well.
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Take a look at the Novels page above to find out more and link to availability on Amazon. Kindle edition is always first, followed by paperback and hardback once I've checked a printer's proof copy.
I seem to have the bug again - it must be something to do with the time off over Christmas and New Year. The third novel in this sequence has already been started and I'm feeling good to keep up the momentum!