On and on it goes... Well, my most recent efforts have been to finish the book covers for both the Gnome-Sized and Big People Books. That involved getting the IBSNs and the pricing schedule right for the whole series, setting up the copyright page, the back cover synopses and the inner back page. You would think that was not too hard to do, you would be wrong. There are dozens of elements that needed to be cross-referenced between the four pages of 10 books. Since they are the covers, they needed to be right. It's amazing how, once the overall design was laid out, a flow of small tweeks gradually had to be made, in terms of size, color, style and positioning. It's frustrating to continually think I'm done, only to find other adjustment that need to be made. One example is that the components in the whole collection of covers cannot be stored in one file, that sounds like a simple matter if duplicating the file, it's not. Along the way, I discovered that elements in the files diverge from one another. Dimensions are slightly different or alignments change between files. Possibly that is a result of making alterations to the layout, in an attempt to gain consistency. What that means is that, ultimately, after all the design elements are matched, a new file containing only the finished flattened layers needs to be made in order to match the scales and dimensions of all the covers. But that means working with multiple files to derive the final components across the full collection. In other words, the design of Act One, Scene One thru Three needs to remain the same in all instances where those words are referenced. Multiply that by more than twenty and you see, it can get confusing.
Well, the covers are almost done. One thing that did occur in laying out the covers is that the bleed on the hard copy layout changed. There was an error in the centering of the entire layout. Now I will have to go back and assure that all 700+ of the inner pages match the bleed and centering of the covers. Part of the reason that happened is that the first generation (of Rev 245) covers we're laid out using the inner page overlay. That is the twine frame (which you can see from samples posted below). I was so wrapped up in getting the whole of the e-Storybook done that I didn't realize that the cover backdrop of the hard copy books was different and also that the positioning of the covers was different as well, because of the outer wrap and thickness of the hard copy books. I was working from the perspective of the e-Storybook which is a very different technical design.
So basically, it's all very complicated and it has taken two decades to get to this point !
This morning I was thinking that I just want to be done with this. I really want to put sales, promotion and everything into the hands of someone else. I'm just very tired of working on this. It's almost done and that's only the books! You can read about the other stuff below.
So if any professionals who engage in Post-Production activities want a good opportunity, let me know. It's really time to stop cutting bait and start fishing.
AG
