focused fandom

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/.

Update on Print Versions of Focused Fandom Books

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I got the draft copy of Focused Fandom: Fanart, Fanartists, and Careers and plan to look it over in the next few days.  I also am queuing up Focused Fandom: Cosplay, Costuming, and Careers, but may need to figure out a thing or two about distribution.

So far I have to say that Create Space is actually working really well.  There’s one or two things that are inconvenient, but mostly it works very smooth and the quality is good.  I’ll write up my experiences at some point.

Also, I’ve come to realize that doing them JUST as e-Books was honestly a mistake.  These are the kind of books that people will give as gifts, mark up with sticky notes, etc.

Some books, simply, aren’t suited as eBooks, or only as eBooks because of reasons of practicality, culture, and indeed, personal intereaction.

In fact, in an age of eBooks, we really have to ask what a book MEANS to us – and to others – and if we’re really speaking the same language when it comes to, well, books.  That’s a fascinating subject and one I need to explore more . . .

– 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/.

Create Space . . . Wow

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Well as I continue my quest to move my Focused Fandom books to print, I’m trying out Create Space.  I just got the draft of “Cosplay, Costuming, and Careers.”  Ahem – WOW.

It’s pretty much as good as any other POD I’ve seen, which is pretty much Lulu.  Paper quality may be slightly higher.  I’ll go through it with a fine-toothed mind later this weekend, but on the surface I’m at least pretty impressed.

It’s not so much easier as it is more powerful.  The cover maker is distinctly less advanced (though theres a 3D visualizer that helps), whereas the internal inspection tool where you can see what the book would look like, which includes formatting warnings, is fantastic.  You are more likely to get a book done right the first time, overall, if you use the tools right.

So if all looks well, time to move a few other books over . . .