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Holiday Closing Alert! Memorial Day, 2021
As amazing as it is, this year, for the first time ever, we're going to be closed for Memorial Day!
That means we're going to be closed, Saturday-Monday May 29th-31st, 2021.
I know what you're thinking--what??? The whole country's just opening up! Whaddya mean, you're taking off? Well, we haven't been closed during The Plague. We've been here working harder than ever, due to a wildly increased demand for our services, so honestly, the Crew and I desperately need these days away. No telephone calls or emails will be answered. The admin office needs a break. We'll be back, everything to the ready, the morning of Tuesday, June 1st, to get cracking. Thank you for your support and understanding. And please, don't forget why we honor Memorial Day. We should never--never--forget The Fallen.
For those of you already in production, the production crew is running full steam; Judith (QA--Quality assurance, our Princess of Perfection) and Hakima in QA, and Jay (Our Doyenne of Customer Delight) will be here and working, checking books and sending them out, so please, don't worry. It's just we lazybones in the admin office that need a break!
An issue that seems to be cropping up,repeatedly these days, is the incident of self-publishers who decide to do a print version of the book and don't realize that they need a cover for that print book that is different than the eBook cover. An eBook cover is one thing--it's the front. The glamorous part, right? The pretty part. The part where you get to sit and think about how great it's going to look. The images, the ideas, the fonts...all that great stuff. Right?
But here's the thing. There's no mystical cover maker, for a print book, where you just pop-in your front cover, and VOILA!, your print cover is magically made. You, Publisher, are the person responsible for ensuring that the cover--called a wraparound--gets made.
That doesn't mean that you can present a book producer, or Createspace or IngramSpark, etc., with three pieces of a cover, and think that they're going to make the cover for you. They won't. Nor will anyone else.
I've lost track of the number of times we've had a client get to what we think is the end of their time with us--we've given them their eBooks and their print interior--and suddenly, an email arrives, telling us that their "cover" is being rejected at Kindle Print Beta or Createspace or some other place, because the cover that they're trying to upload is their eBook cover. Or, they put a cover together, somehow, and it's completely the wrong size or shape or some other problem. And there have been any number of times that this same publisher scheduled a book launch, or a pre-sale, or some other promotional event--and there's no time for the cover to be made.
Don't let this be you. If you're going to do a print book, you have to have a wraparound cover. This is a cover with a front, back and spine--all in a single piece. Not in multiple pieces. (That question seems to come up a lot!) What are the parts that make up a wraparound cover?
Front, back and spine, all in a single piece, in PDF format, and--this is important--with BLEED. I know, "bleed" is confusing, but what that means is that there's a small extra margin for error, all around the outer edges of the image or PDF. This allows the printer and trimmer to have some forgiveness, when the covers are printed and trimmed, for addition (binding and gluing) onto the paperback.
Really, that's all there is to it--the three parts that you're already used to looking at--the front, rear, and spine of a printed book--all in a single piece. Although I used colored boxes to segregate the parts, in this sample image, the wraparound cover is always given to the printer or POD company in a single PDF file--all three pieces merged seamlessly. You can see examples without my boxes drawn on them in the example gallery below.
I borrowed a few mocked-up covers from our friend, Derek Murphy, of Creativindie.com and its sister site, DIYBookCovers.com, (which we highly recommend for publishers on a tight budget!) for the purposes of demonstrating the difference. It's not really complex, but do you want to be the author caught out, with a ready-to-go print interior and an eBook cover, only? No, of course not. So, what's the difference?
Examples below--click any thumbnail to bring up the full image.
So: now you know what to expect. If you've only done an eBook before this moment in time, and you've decided to take that leap of faith, into print, make sure that you invest the time needed to figure out what you're going to do, about getting a full-sized wraparound cover for your print edition.
Saturday, September 2nd through Tuesday morning, September 5th.
Yes, it's true. We're going to be closed for 2 whole days. I know, you're all accustomed to the idea that we're here, 24/7/365--even if that's not quite true--and it's shocking, but even the wicked need to regenerate from time to time, and as our labors are largely Herculean, well, what better time to do that than the Labor Day weekend?
That means that the ADMIN offices are closed. No phones, no email, no nuttin'!
Lastly: if you haven't yet donated to help the people and pets of Hurricane Harvey, please do so. Every penny does count. I know, everyone says that all the time, but...it really does.
Yes, it's true. We're going to be closed for 10 days, if you're reading this before 12/23/16, or we already are, if you're stumbling onto our front steps, after noon on December 23rd, 2016. Every year, for the last three months of the year, we endure horribly long working days, rush book after rush book, and just all-round craziness. So, come the Christmas holiday, we take a break, intended to be about 10 days. We call this the Midwinter Downtime. That means that the ADMIN offices are closed. No phones, no email, no nuttin'!
If you have a book in production with us, fear not. We have a couple of fellows who needed some extra shekels this year, who asked to pick up some hours during the Downtime. They'll be working on your books, while the rest of us are off recharging our batteries.
Please note: as whacky as this sounds, the phone company tells us that our voicemail is NOT working. If you don't reach someone, when you call, please, just send us an email instead. I promise that I will cheerfully call you when we get back. And we won't chase you around, either; you don't have to worry that if you change your mind, or go with someone else, that we'll be calling you and calling you. We're just not built that way. We don't harass people.It's not who we are. You can call or email and leave your contact information in perfect confidence that we'll treat you, as we wish to be treated. No excuses, no whining, no kidding.
So, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwanzaa, happy holidays to All, and to All, a Good Night!
Yes, it's true. We're going to be closed for 2 whole days. Every year, we get together, shut the office, pop the popcorn, get plenty of sleep on Friday night, because come Saturday morning...it's the 24 Hours of Le Mans, arguably the greatest sportscar endurance test in all of racing. We stay awake for every minute--all 24 hours of it--and we drag ourselves in, come Monday morning.
That means that the ADMIN offices are closed. No phones, no email, no nuttin'!
If you have a book in production with us, fear not. Many of the bookmakers have zero interest in the race (inconceivable!). They'll be working on your books, while the rest of us are off rooting for our favorite teams and drivers.
If you call while we're off, please, just send us an email instead. I promise that I will cheerfully call you when we get back. And we won't chase you around, either; you don't have to worry that if you change your mind, or go with someone else, that we'll be calling you and calling you. We're just not built that way. We don't harass people.It's not who we are. You can call or email and leave your contact information in perfect confidence that we'll treat you, as we wish to be treated. No excuses, no whining, no kidding.
