Tech problems are a pain in the ass.
Let’s skip past every hoop I leapt through. Suffice to say a few band-aid fixes in, the crashes have subsided.
Hopefully.
Most of a growing mountain of work involves Adobe Photoshop, Affinity Publisher, or a combination of the two. Before the bandaids, all it took was to OPEN one of those two programs for my computer to crash. So far, since the last band-aid, they’re playing a lot more nicely with this computer, with each other, and with a simultaneously-open browser.
One welcome bit of flotsam: vacation days are approved for the 12th and 13th (from my “day” job), this week. It came down to a choice: take vacation time or keep pushing to collapse and take off last-minute sick time. Given how tight my team’s schedule is, I have a responsibility to plan as far in advance as possible. The past month has been a perfect storm of unplanned changes and it all fell into my lap. I don’t want to do that to somebody else.
Aaaaand… the collapse still happened. Took one day off Wednesday, had to hand the job off to one of our admins for the day. I knew I was reaching a critical point, just didn’t have the spoons to make it to the planned days.
Still taking the vacay next week though. The tentative itinerary is another photo run, possibly back to Mt. Lemmon near Tucson.
The Amazon tee-shirt plans fell through. Amazon denied my request to build a merch-on-demand store.
For some reason I’m not broken-hearted in the least.
I already have a print-book account. We’re adding a library of blank books to our store: journals, music staff pages, ledgers, etc. They’re easy to compile (at least for me) and if we have enough of them out there, we’re bound to sell a few. I put time into attractive covers, but the interiors are a snap with my publishing software. I just create a “master” page and tell it to add XX more pages of the same. Instant book – or close to it.
Premade templates for notebook interiors are for sale in a few spots. I bought some, if for nothing else because they’re cheap and give me an idea of layout. However, for our first two variations I built from scratch, because I wanted to personalize by inserting small images and my own quips. It was still ridiculously simple.
The first notebook is going live on Amazon probably within 48 hours or so. The proof turned out even better than I expected. First time the first-draft was a go! I still need to update the description, keywords, and all the marketing details, or it would probably be out within 24 hours or less.
The journal cover is at right for the first release. A sample of of the headers interspersed every few pages is shown left.
The floral cover background is compiled from one of my photos of wildflowers, so I don’t have to count copies to adhere to image rights. The copyright is all mine. The frame is a built-in Photoshop shape – so again, no copyright restriction. Ditto for the font: I paid (dearly) for that darned font and it’s licensed for commercial use without restriction.
The music book is nearly ready to fly too. I originally created a dark, rich royal blue background on the cover, with kind of a subliminal music print overlaid. Thanks to the joys of the printing process, it came out blue-black and the subtle design was invisible.
It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but was just… blah. I might as well gone with a solid color.
I did a redesign and lightened it a bit. Still didn’t work for me. So I went quite a bit lighter and opted for a starburst pattern. The final version is shown at left. The starburst extends to the back cover.
For anyone who’s an audiophile, I hope the title invokes the feel of an equalizer readout. (Click on the picture to enlarge.) Not sure how this will display – started out with the top color on the text more pink, and I shifted it toward neon orange-red to make it more like an equalizer readout. Unfortunately I think WordPress hung onto the pinkish variety and is determined to display that, despite my replacement.
I’m fine with not having an Amazon store for merchandise other than books. There are other tee shirt outlets that pay out more and offer less competition. The bigger question is if the extra line is worth the trouble.
I’m already invested in books. Adding notebooks, journals, ledgers, and so on is a natural progression. The learning curve, for me, is close to zero for this market. I need to brush up on keywords, mainly – otherwise I’m ready to fly.
Tee shirts and other print-on-demand may have to wait until I retire.
I like the first book cover a lot. Yes, please take me!
😉
Come on ovah! We have an SUV now. We’ll fit ya in for the photo run. And Mt. Lemmon will be cool at the top. In the low desert, we’re 11:49am on Saturday 07/09, currently sitting at 102ºF, on our way to a high of 109º this afternoon.
We did go out for an early morning shoot today, retracing last week’s steps. The light wasn’t as good and it was hotter, but I still think we got a few good frames in.
Ooh, if you don’t post them here, shoot me an email with ’em!
Er…and just a *tad* too blisteringly hot for me, thanks. I’ll put up with the nuclear waste pits and roving bands of underpriveleged youths in New Jersey. It’s worth it for the 78 degree midday temps, and cooling shade if even that’s too much 🙂
Sent a batch to you. Hey, you asked.
I like the first cover very much too. If I was a songwriter, I am sure I would be drawn to that cover as well. Good luck.
Thank you, Terri! I’m really happy with the way the first one turned out, all the way around. It’s been sent up for publishing, so now it’s just a waiting game.