So its been a while since I did a blog, mainly as life just gets in the way and other things that some how steal your time away and before you know it, the free time you thought you had has gone for ever.
So as you can see from the title of this blog its about this welsh writer Alastair Reynolds. Now I know that I have spoken about him before I know I have and well I have read all the novels that he has done in mass paperback or soft cover as the folks from over the sea put it.
I am currently reading his paperback book House of Suns, and I have a admit that I have not read very much of it, in fact so far I have read book 1. The story has got me interested and I do want to see how all the different viewpoints are going to come together I am sure that Alastair will not disappoint. I must state here that I am reading books for fun, entertainment and not to be a critic if I want that (which I don't) there are lots of places where you can get that sort of thing. Its for that reason that I do not tend to read the reviews on Amazon, as I have found that what some readers want from a book is not the same as what I am after and for some reason lots of the reviews are very negative, and I wonder if any of these so called reviews have them selves every tried to create something like a 400 page novel. I suspect that there views would change some what. Yes I know that there is a time and a place for reviews and that lots of folks find them very useful, I don't but then that's just me.
Showing posts with label hardback. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hardback. Show all posts
12 July, 2009
31 January, 2009
New book
I have a new book out on Lulu how cool is that?
I know it's great that I have some how or other finally got to publish a book that has sat on the old hard drive for far too long but the job is done and it's also a hardback.
This is what I have said on lulu about my book.
Having found the time and all that sort of stuff I have some how managed to release the latest book that I have written, which has been on my hard disk for a long time and some how or other got stuck there.
Although the new book's title is very close to my older books on chemical elements, it is a completly new book in its contents and its layout. In fact I think I might be pushed to name or even find another book that has a layout like my new book.
The reason that I can say this is that the book has been set up or layed out in such a way that we go from the elements first known to man all the way to thouse elements only found in the labs around the worl in the last few years.
I have never seen a book on chemical elemnts set out in such a way. Beacuse of this layout the book is in some seven or so parts reflecting the fact that the discovery of the various elements went to some extent hand in hand with new chemical and technology techniques, by this I mean that say without electricty some of the elemnts we know today would not have been found.
For me it has been a fun project and as I am not a chemist it was a great learning all this new stuff and I did enjoy myself.
This is what the back of the book says
Description:
This is an almost complete reference to all the currently known elements, set in an easy to read style and at an easy to understand level. Each element has information on when they were found, who found them, how they found them, what uses the elements are put to and what effects some of the elements can have on humans and their health. This book has been set up so that it starts from the earliest known elements to man, all the way to the elements only found a few years ago. The book is therefore in 7 parts reflecting the major eras that most of the chemical elements were found.
And finally this is the link to the book on Lulu
Hope this all works.
I know it's great that I have some how or other finally got to publish a book that has sat on the old hard drive for far too long but the job is done and it's also a hardback.
This is what I have said on lulu about my book.
Having found the time and all that sort of stuff I have some how managed to release the latest book that I have written, which has been on my hard disk for a long time and some how or other got stuck there.
Although the new book's title is very close to my older books on chemical elements, it is a completly new book in its contents and its layout. In fact I think I might be pushed to name or even find another book that has a layout like my new book.
The reason that I can say this is that the book has been set up or layed out in such a way that we go from the elements first known to man all the way to thouse elements only found in the labs around the worl in the last few years.
I have never seen a book on chemical elemnts set out in such a way. Beacuse of this layout the book is in some seven or so parts reflecting the fact that the discovery of the various elements went to some extent hand in hand with new chemical and technology techniques, by this I mean that say without electricty some of the elemnts we know today would not have been found.
For me it has been a fun project and as I am not a chemist it was a great learning all this new stuff and I did enjoy myself.
This is what the back of the book says
Description:
This is an almost complete reference to all the currently known elements, set in an easy to read style and at an easy to understand level. Each element has information on when they were found, who found them, how they found them, what uses the elements are put to and what effects some of the elements can have on humans and their health. This book has been set up so that it starts from the earliest known elements to man, all the way to the elements only found a few years ago. The book is therefore in 7 parts reflecting the major eras that most of the chemical elements were found.
And finally this is the link to the book on Lulu
Hope this all works.
14 March, 2008
Dirk Maggs Book Part 12
Did i say that all the book in draft is done except appendix 2? Well if I did not I have done now. I have yet to collect each chapter into the master document so I do not know just how did this book of the website is going to be.
I think it will have a page count lower than the second edition mainly due to the fact that the page size has been changed so that it can be printed in hardback, and so with luck it might last a bit longer, as the idea is to have a written record of what The Dirk Maggs website looks like I think hardback is the way forward.
I did have the Idea to present a copy of the book to Dirk, but thinking about it, I decided that it might weird him out seeing his life's work in a hardback book before him.
As I have said before the book is going to be a Private printing so it will not be for sale.
Saying that a few weeks ago something did go wrong with how the book is listed at LULU and you could see the book and buy it (the second edition that is) the cost? a cool 1999999.99 pounds so it was not a surprise that no one brought a copy, can't think why that is
I think it will have a page count lower than the second edition mainly due to the fact that the page size has been changed so that it can be printed in hardback, and so with luck it might last a bit longer, as the idea is to have a written record of what The Dirk Maggs website looks like I think hardback is the way forward.
I did have the Idea to present a copy of the book to Dirk, but thinking about it, I decided that it might weird him out seeing his life's work in a hardback book before him.
As I have said before the book is going to be a Private printing so it will not be for sale.
Saying that a few weeks ago something did go wrong with how the book is listed at LULU and you could see the book and buy it (the second edition that is) the cost? a cool 1999999.99 pounds so it was not a surprise that no one brought a copy, can't think why that is
18 February, 2008
Plans that go wrong
So I had this great plan, I would convert an exsisting manuscript to 8.5*11 so that it the right size to be printed in hardback.
Step one, the converting was in the end okay as it only took a few hours and it looked good at the end of it all.
Step two, now thats when things started to go off the rails in a real big way. The upload to LULU was okay and that worked. The next step converting the document into a printable PDF did not go right, in fact it failed. Now the big problem is that I don't know why the conversion failed as LULU don't say why the document failed, they just say that it failed, yeh I know so useful.
So I am at a loss what to do...
I think I shall have another look at the Dirk Maggs book the drafts that I have done so far....
I last thjought I did have was to try a differant wp programme to se if that is the problem. I normally use word 2003 nice and old and it mostly works and so should be without any major problems.
Step one, the converting was in the end okay as it only took a few hours and it looked good at the end of it all.
Step two, now thats when things started to go off the rails in a real big way. The upload to LULU was okay and that worked. The next step converting the document into a printable PDF did not go right, in fact it failed. Now the big problem is that I don't know why the conversion failed as LULU don't say why the document failed, they just say that it failed, yeh I know so useful.
So I am at a loss what to do...
I think I shall have another look at the Dirk Maggs book the drafts that I have done so far....
I last thjought I did have was to try a differant wp programme to se if that is the problem. I normally use word 2003 nice and old and it mostly works and so should be without any major problems.
17 February, 2008
Hardback Books and all of that
Do you know that the actual writing of a book at this moment in time to me looks easier than working out correct paper sizes and what template to use when you want to have your book published as a hardback book?
Why?
I hope that with a little bit more work I will have the answers that I have been looking for. So far the answers are not there yet.
As an expirment I updated and resized the manuscripts for one of my eriler books, what I thought would only take at most an hour soon got out of control and before I knew it I had spent some 3 hours on it, but I think the time has been well spent as I now have edtion 5 of the book in a hardback format at a size of 8.5*11 which is the size I want of so I think at this moment in time.
I am going to upload it to LULU and see what I get. I think that it will be a good test as I think the Dirk Maggs book will be of the same sort of size, that is about 500 odd pages, one thing with this test book that did surprise me was that the table of content runs to 30 pages! I know what? when you see the book it's easy to understand, I don't think the Dirk book will have that size of contents page, but you never know.
Now the index or indexes are another matter, and no I have not got any furthur on what to do or how many indexes I might need.
Why?
I hope that with a little bit more work I will have the answers that I have been looking for. So far the answers are not there yet.
As an expirment I updated and resized the manuscripts for one of my eriler books, what I thought would only take at most an hour soon got out of control and before I knew it I had spent some 3 hours on it, but I think the time has been well spent as I now have edtion 5 of the book in a hardback format at a size of 8.5*11 which is the size I want of so I think at this moment in time.
I am going to upload it to LULU and see what I get. I think that it will be a good test as I think the Dirk Maggs book will be of the same sort of size, that is about 500 odd pages, one thing with this test book that did surprise me was that the table of content runs to 30 pages! I know what? when you see the book it's easy to understand, I don't think the Dirk book will have that size of contents page, but you never know.
Now the index or indexes are another matter, and no I have not got any furthur on what to do or how many indexes I might need.
16 February, 2008
Dirk Maggs Book Part 10
Things have gone a bit slow on the draft front, mainly as I have been looking at hardback or paperback and also the problem of indexes, the index problem is one that I have yet to fully work out which way to go. If I go for more than one index then the work in doing such a thing is a lot, the rewards of having a good index can not be under estimated that much I am sure of. The only question is how many and what type of indexes do I want or does the book need?
On the hardback front I have decided that hardback is the way to go, the only problem now is what size of hardback?
At this time I do not have an answer to that question yet, if I have too small a book in page size the number of pages will go up and the other problem, which I have not yet looked at is how the content on each page will be effected. With the first problem as far as I can see as the page count goes up so does the cost of the final book.
A wild thought that I did have was, well why not have each years work as a volume in it's own right? but a quick look at this idea has already told me that if I stay in A4 size pages then some of the volumes will be very thin on the otherhand if the page size is smaller than A4 then the page count goes up, so all in all at this time I do not know what to to muli volume or one large volume.
I suppose the answer will only become clear once I have done all the drafts and put the book together in its first draft layout.
On the hardback front I have decided that hardback is the way to go, the only problem now is what size of hardback?
At this time I do not have an answer to that question yet, if I have too small a book in page size the number of pages will go up and the other problem, which I have not yet looked at is how the content on each page will be effected. With the first problem as far as I can see as the page count goes up so does the cost of the final book.
A wild thought that I did have was, well why not have each years work as a volume in it's own right? but a quick look at this idea has already told me that if I stay in A4 size pages then some of the volumes will be very thin on the otherhand if the page size is smaller than A4 then the page count goes up, so all in all at this time I do not know what to to muli volume or one large volume.
I suppose the answer will only become clear once I have done all the drafts and put the book together in its first draft layout.
15 February, 2008
Dirk Maggs Book Part 9
Today I had the great idea that my Dirk Maggs book would look good as a hardback book, on the grounds that it might last longer, I know that it will cost more to have printed but I think the extra cost will pay for it's self in that it will be around longer.
The only thing is that I have yet to find any word templates that will allow me to size my work correctly so that it will go from A4 size to what ever size a standard harddback book is.
Ho hum I think is what I said...
The only thing is that I have yet to find any word templates that will allow me to size my work correctly so that it will go from A4 size to what ever size a standard harddback book is.
Ho hum I think is what I said...
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