fanart

Cosplay And Fanart Books In Print!

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Focused Fandom: Cosplay, Costuming, and Careers and Focused Fandom: Fanart, Fanartists, and Careers are now in print!  Physical print.  The kind of print that  . . . well makes gift giving easier (which was one of the motivations).

You can get them here:

You’ll notice this isn’t on Lulu.  I wanted to give CreateSpace a try for these two.  I don’t like putting all of my eggs in one basket, but I figured I should give it a shot – and CreateSpace and Lulu share a lot of similar technologies and styles.

First of all, the files used are pretty much the same – a PDF.  My files were mostly compatible, and in fact the CreateSpace tool caught potential printing errors that Lulu doesn’t.  CreateSpace also provides a vastly superior preview function that simulates the physical book, both inside and outside – an impressive bit of technology.

Making a cover is less friendly – the easiest way is to simply do your own graphics and upload them – but that means measuring and setting up the entire cover if you want to do it yourself.  The other options aren’t as deep as Lulu’s.  This is one area of needed improvement.  Fortunately I could use my existing covers with a bit of scaling – but having to design the spine in to make a “wraparound” PDF took some work – you’re not going to do it without being at least basically experienced in making graphics.

The proofs came fast and were cheap, and were good quality, though twice I’ve gotten books via CreateSpace that seemed a bit beaten up.  Not sure if it was delivery or not.  I’ll keep an eye on that.

Now I have to consider if I want to split my time between the two or pick one.

But as for now – enjoy the books!

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Editing, Editing, Editing . . .

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Well the next test print copy of Focused Fandom: Fanart, Fanartists, and Careers is queued up.  I found a few errors that I wanted to fix, but not many.  A few cover issues, a few internal formatting issues, and some diddly stuff.  My editor, Ellen, did a pretty damn good job I have to say.

I almost forgot what this is like, editing a print copy, and now I remember why it was such a pain.  When you’re down to asking yourself about 1/8 inch in a margin or how to space a line break for a bullet point, the fun somehow goes right out the window and falls to its death.

It’s a 346+ page MONSTER right now, and will probably retail for $24.95 or so.  This thing is freaking huge.

Oh, and really?  Good gift material, just sayin’ . . .

Next up, looking over the test print copy of Focused Fandom: Cosplay, Costuming, and Careers!

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

 

 

One More Stop To Print!

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Well as noted I’ve been working on print copies of Focused Fandom: Cosplay, Costuming, and Careers and Focused Fandom: Fanart, Fanartists, and Careers.  The good news is my prototype print copies are in the mail, and I should get to look them over next week!

It wasn’t as easy as I thought – since I haven’t queued up a print book in about a year.  But frankly, I think I should have earlier.

As much as eBooks are a big thing, books like these are also gifts – and giving eBooks really isn’t quite the same.  I have to remember an audience is bigger than . . . the audience.

Also books that are physical leave a legacy.  It’s something people can keep, treasure, and remember.

Hang in there, if the review goes well then I just have one more test print to confirm it’s good, and we’re there . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.