A Promotional Video

Here's a link QuickTime Movie that I created from the Preface of 

Volume One, Book One
Promotional Sample of the e-Storybook

I'm still working on the settings, but the video speaks for itself.

https://youtu.be/tfSsJKwANw8

IMS Publishing

Here's the latest post on

IMS Publishing

regarding the status of releasing the books

and the design process.

AG

e-Storybook and Published Books

You will find this flyer further down in a post with an order form,
if you are interested in buying books or contact me via email;
  ✉ image.of.the.mind.studios@gmail.com

Yesterday, I finished the book layout
and saved the pages as DOCX, PSD, PDF, and JPG files.
The journey of refining the material,
making corrections to the graphics and the text
has been nothing short of a nightmare for various reasons.
I go into that in other posts,
but now I have finally saved the files in all the formats that I use
for both the e-Storybook and the hard copy published editions.

Now, I must also state that the entire collection is not finished,
 we still need more illustrations
but at least the final layout is completed !
done... done. Yahoo !

 I'm still setting up the e-storybook, the audio book and the printer files,
but the hard work of locking in the layout is finished.
Whew!
 Also we still need to create and install
quite a bit of artwork and illustrations.

As it stands now,
I'd say that that five out of the seven books in the collection
are illustrated,
but only three books are complete enough to sell.

The Book Four needs less than 15 illustrations,
while Book Five is a collection short stories
derived from
  The Gnomic Tales
and has not been illustrations at all because of that.

When last we worked on the artwork,
the mission was to illustrate
Zach & Zebby's Grand Adventure
and so, when Volume Two, Act Two, Scene Ten became Book Five,
it was composed entirely of brief stories,
which are the foundation of
The Gnomic Tales
and those tales were not illustrated.

So, right in the middle of the collection, there are no illustrations.
 Books Six and Seven are largely illustrated,
but some of those illustrations need to be replaced
 to avoid redundancy.

It has been the plan to replace still life illustrations with animated scenes
or brief snippets in the form of GIFs or .MOV files.
 One aspect of that plan is to create the entire series as
an animated film
and to do so scene by scene,
presenting those clips as part of the e-Storybook,
accessible via a subscription page.
How this plan will work out is yet to be seen,
since the subscription page, the shopping cart for sales,
and the remaining illustrations for the entire collection
are not yet finished.

But... the layout is done,
leaving me free to concentrate on other aspects of production,
such as working with Jency and other artists to finish the illustrations,
working in the shop to set up the scene shop, sound stage,
production line, inventory and shipping,
working on the gallery, showroom and sales office.

I'm enthused to have more freedom to work on
the animatronic puppetry and the parade float.

So now I need to decide how to proceed and create cash flow
from the work that is complete.
There is a dilemma with whether or not to release any of the books
 before the entire collection is complete.
I can release Volume One, because that is
 "An Introduction to The Gnomes of New Hope"
and stands on it's own, but the rest of the collection
is tied directly to the Stage Musical
and is broken into Scenes that match that show.

Volume Two consists of Act One, Scenes 1-9,
with three scenes in each of the three books
Books Two, Three and Four.
 Volume Three consists of Scenes 10-20,
with Scene 10 (The Gnomic Tales) being in Book Five,
Scenes 11-14 being in Book Six
and Scenes 15-20 being in Book Seven.
So that is the makeup of the collection.

I do expect to release the entire collection on the subscription page,
figuring that for those members,
the pages without artwork will still be available to read.

On that subject, in the current layout,
pages without artwork are fully designed
and match those pages with finished artwork.
The only difference is that instead of artwork
 are description panels defining the artwork
that will be placed in the allotted space.

My thinking is that via the subscription page,
members can watch as we create the art
and replace the panels with the finished illustration,
 but also, as we proceed,
 illustrations will be replace with animations.

This approach cannot be done with the printed books,
so it is a different product.
Ultimately,
"Gnomes in a Gnutshell"
will be a product containing all the materials,
including the feature film
(and possibly the Libretto and Score as well)
 that a personcan put on their shelf
to view at anytime,
without needing to go on the subscription page.

That's all for now. ⌚ AG