As I travel around the book blogosphere, I see a trend this week: It seems many of us are reading lighter fare, summer lit or chick lit - whatever you may call it. Certainly, these books provide a nice break from all the breaking news, eh?
Author John Scalzi had a terrific, albeit sobering, article on the subject of why new novelists are, well, old. Or at least, older. He outlines the process of how long it takes to write any novel, much less a publishable one, and also does a fine job outlining a typical publishing process timeline. I especially liked this sentiment from his article:"Most people’s first novels well and truly suck. Oh my, yes they do. Which again is perfectly fine. Writing anything over 60,000 words that still recognizably tells one single story is a hell of an achievement in itself. Asking that it also be good is just being mean to the author, and the novel. It’s like watching someone run their first full-length marathon, ever, and criticizing them for not finishing in the top ten. "
I was looking at an old photo album of my Dad and was struck by how many pictures, like these shown here, have his father's shadow in the image as well. "Everything is biographical, Lucian Freud says. What we make, why it is made, how we draw a dog, who it is we are drawn to, why we cannot forget. Everything is genetics. There is the hidden presence of others in us, even those we have known briefly. We contain them for the rest of our lives, at every border we cross." p. 16
"...the past was a strange inheritance that fell upside down into one's life like an image through a camera obscura." - p. 104
First, you have to format the book in a PDF to the exact dimensions CreateSpace requires. Then, you can select a one of their two dozen or so covers to wrap your proof. Next, you have the option of uploading your own author photo and book jacket summary. After all of this is uploaded and approved by CreateSpace, Voila! You get a proof copy in the mail a short time later. They even assign an ISBN for your book. If, after you've proofed your copy and like it, you can make it available for sale on Amazon.com.
Had I not received the free proof from NaNoWriMo, I could have paid about $11 to get my own proof. I think this is a valuable service that I would have paid for on my own. Why? When I was reading and editing the galley proof for my Janeology, I realized there's something about editing a book in this format that gives you a distance and more objectivity about the editing. It truly puts you in the reader's seat. Plus, I think this proof copy will be a valuable tool to give to some of my unsuspecting friends and relatives to solicit much needed feedback on the story.
About this proof:
Hello, my name is Karen and I'm a bookaholic.
distracted by an intoxicating young widow who knows her way around a kitchen...Livia Pertini is creating feasts that stun the senses with their succulence—ruby-colored San Marzana tomatoes, glistening anchovies, and delectable new potatoes encrusted with the black volcanic earth of of Campania—and James is about to learn that his heart may rank higher than his orders. For romance can be born of the sweet and spicy passions of food and love—and time spent in the kitchen can be as joyful and exciting as the banquet of life itself!
From the publisher: Jon Fasman's dizzyingly plotted intellectual thriller suggests a marriage between Dan Brown and Donna Tartt. When reporter Paul Tomm is assigned to investigate the mysterious death of a reclusive academic, he finds himself pursuing leads that date back to the twelfth century and the theft of alchemical instruments from the geographer of the Sicilian court. Now someone is trying to retrieve them. Interspersed with the present action are the stories of the men and women who came to possess those charmed-and sometimes cursed-artifacts, which have powers that go well beyond the transmutation of lead into gold. Deftly combining history, magic, suspense, and romance-and as handsomely illustrated as an ancient incunabulum-The Geographer's Library is irresistible.
