Beating a retreat with a dog-eaten manuscript

Ah yes - 'tis nearly December and we are preparing for the annual pilgrimage to Mallorca.  This will be the 15th consecutive year that Dave will have worked at the International School - Queen's College in Genova near Palma.

It is also going to mark the 10th anniversary of the first draft of "the dog book", a manuscript that has been revised more times that I can remember without yet reaching publication.  It shall be accompanying us on the journey again and hopefully this time it will emerge as a beautiful butterfly.

Why is is that some books just don't seem to ever be finished?

It began as an autobiography but the character of "Sandy", the naughty Labrador Retriever, rather took over.  It evolved into episodes told by the canine protagonist where he is forever duping his humans in his eternal quest for food.  We paid for a professional edit way back in 2007 (I think) but the work needed just didn't appeal and so it lay in a dusty cupboard until 2011.

2011 saw a brief and hasty re-edit of early episodes in an attempt to release a canine ebook to tie in with the release of the music album and "Poo on your Shoe" video.  It even had photos of a neighbour's dog to stand in for Sandy (thanks to Lewis, Sue and the wonderful Hugo).  Dave was just not happy to send it out there so back to the cupboard it went.

In the course of its evolution, we have lent many people sample chapters and received favourable feedback.  One of these fans sadly will never read the final book as she passed away this year, still only in her twenties (stupid cancer!).  I feel it would be appropriate to dedicate it to her when it is completed.

Anyway, tally-ho to the retreat we go!

Indie children's books on Kindle

I have just added "The Jenie Jazzles" to my Listmania list of the Itinerant Poet's works available on Amazon for Kindle.  It is a re-working of a story the Itinerant Poet wrote back in the 1990s.  It was originally published in a single volume alongside "Leo's Magic Shoes" under the (sub)title "Another quarter pound of chocolate drops please".  It was extremely popular with children and many schools bought entire class reader sets.

Plot summary:  Leo loves to visit Mr Bowers' old-fashioned sweet shop every Saturday morning to spend his pocket money.  One day, he buys some different sweets from his normal favourites.  He hides in his secret den while he eats them all - rather too quickly - well, nearly all of them.  Strange things happen to his eyes and he realises the Jenie Jazzles have given him x-ray vision.  The following Saturday, he buys more but they do not have the same effect.  He doesn't tell anyone about the magic but discreet enquiries of Mr Bowers reveal he had sold the previous batch to Leo the previous week.  Leo fears his adventures have finished.  However, on accompanying his mother and sister to the hospital for her hearing test, he finds the last remaining two Jenie Jazzles in his pocket.  He overhears doctors talking about a boy whose life is in danger and realises he and his sister can save the boy's life by using the sweets' power.  Hailed as a hero, he is rewarded by going into business with Mr Bowers.  Scientists never manage to discover the secret of the Jenie Jazzles.

Original Cover

Illustrations and litho vs digital

The original versions of both "Leo's Magic Shoes" and "..Chocolate Drops..." had illustrations created in ink and paint by our artist friend, Kirsty Munro.  The books were litho printed back then and I did not hold digital copies of the files though I did keep the physical artwork.  The books were originally created in Word then saved to RTF (I think!) before being loaded into Pagemaker 5 by the printers for further processing by them.  Our minimum print run was 500 but 1000 was more usual so when digital printing came on the scene, it was an obvious route for us due to the possibilities of smaller print runs for our increasing list of titles.  However, we chose not to reprint the original combined book and so it just disappeared from our stock list.  It is still present in many of the schools who bought sets, though the copies are a little battered now - obviously much-used!  I often wonder if our digital print copies will last as long.

Converting ancient graphics files for modern use

Years later, I approached our former litho printer and asked them if they could dig out the old files and send me the manuscripts and pictures.  They duly did so but I put them away in a cupboard and largely forgot about them until I started to e-publish our books.  Initial attempts to load files from an ancient format into a modern graphics programme failed but I kept on trying different conversions until I finally succeeded with what turned out to be the most simple step of all - amending the file extension!  The original filenames were such as LeoGoingIntoShopTIFF with no file extension.  The final solution was to change the filename to LeoGoingIntoShop.tif and it loaded straight into Photoshop Elements 6.  I added layers and semi-transparent colours to the black and white originals before saving "for web" as JPEGs to reduce the file size and reduce download costs of the book.  I like colour and think it best to offer it to people who read on Kindle for tablets/computers with colour capacity even though I personally only have an original black and white Kindle.  Link here to free downloads of reading apps for computers/iPads etc and device purchases from Amazon.

Future plans for the book

Although digital printing is still a possibility for this title, we have so many now in print or in the process of production, that I wanted to make this available purely as a digital version.  If you do purchase a copy, please do me the huge favour of writing a review for the book on Amazon - a wonderful review, of course ;)

 You can buy "Leo's Magic Shoes" as an ebook too.

New version available from Amazon for Kindle
(Look Inside available on Amazon page)

Leo's Magic Shoes available from Amazon for Kindle

(Look Inside available on Amazon page)

Publications that don't fit standard Genres

If your book does not fit into any of the marketing pigeonholes for age range and genre, you are even more likely to have your manuscript rejected by publishers.  The Itinerant Poet's latest creation will definitely fall in this gap so we are not even considering submission of the manuscript.

When a writer has a eureka moment and the muse is riding high, I don't believe it is possible to deny the creative urge: a book is begging to be born.  The decision needs to be made to commit hundreds of hours work to its production - it is not for the faint-hearted.  So, why should it matter that no one will publish it?

There has been much coverage in the media of the extent of mental illness in adolescents and adults.  Often the sufferers go undiagnosed and untreated because they feel the condition to be a social stigma.  There are obviously too many other related issues to consider in this post but the topic came up in conversation between the Itinerant Poet and myself about what we might be able to do to help children avoid sliding down the slippery slope.  What could we do to help children manage their lives so that they learned how to be happier and more content?  A book is born!

Further inspiration came in the form of a post by the Canadian blog Collective Evolution entitled Ten simple things that you can do today to make you happier backed by science.  The post was obviously aimed at adults but made us think that we could use it as a basis for a self-help publication for children, in the more palatable form of fiction, that could act to prevent the slide to begin with.  So we did.


The finished product needs one more edit and a few illustrations but it looks good.  I just can't decide which cover to go for.  However, there is only one way to offer it to the world...self-publishing!

The Big Warm Shed

Once again, the above book was created in the warm seclusion of Son Antem near Llucmajor in Mallorca.  Our annual pilgrimage extended to four weeks in November and December.  The lack of responsibilities and every day chores freed up the creative juices.  The first draft was completed on the final day.

Further editing has been done in the rather cooler climes of Cheshire.  For economic reasons, the Itinerant Poet does not switch the heating on when he keeps to his early morning rising as per the Central European Time Zone.  Hence he has been at the dining table from about 6am each chilly morning.  He definitely finds it more difficult writing back in the home environment.  In our new house, there is no studio to escape to so the small hours are the only quiet times of isolation when he can shut out the rest of the world...and the household.

Home Education and the Teenage Years

Home-educated or not, there is no doubt that the teenage years can be very challenging - both for the teenagers and their parents.  The children are emergent adults and wish to take more responsibility for themselves, it is just not always in the direction parents may wish.  At what point do you stop trying to guide them according to your experiences and let them make their own mistakes?  I don't believe there is any REAL text book for being a parent, you just have to fly by love, instinct and your own upbringing.

We continue to pursue IGCSE Geography and Physics with our two teenagers.  It is difficult sometimes when the desire to create worlds on Minecraft or trade horses on Howrse outweighs the appeal of text books.  These are the only computer games we allow access to and we try to strike a fair balance between the two.  However, it never happens without a bit of animated discussion!

Recently, I found some solace and re-balancing of my own approach when I stumbled across the video by Logan Laplante - a home-educated 13 year old boy in the U.S.A. - that has accumulated over 4 million views.  It is well worth watching and made me think again about what makes children happy versus what makes adults happy.  There are plenty of areas for consideration and discussion so take a look...

Breathing new life into old manuscripts

December is the most productive time in our year.  We take ourselves off to our retreat on the glorious island of Mallorca and work our socks off for a few weeks!  Only when we are away from the telephone and the mundanity of everyday jobs can our minds be free to create.  What we produce will be finalised following our return and published in appropriate formats.

This year, we have at least four projects to work on.  One of these may be submitted to publishers or agents for consideration which is something we have not bothered doing for years.  However, the idea is extremely sound and is worth a go...or so we think at the moment.

Of the other three, two involve the resurrection of long-dormant manuscripts.  "The Dog Book" will be the main focus.  It has nearly been published under different titles and guises for about ten years.  Each time, the Itinerant Poet has decided it just wasn't quite right.  We even came close on a publishing deal on one occasion but apparently "episodic fiction wasn't in".

The second project is actually one of my own little indulgences.  I am going to epublish the Itinerant Poet's first children's novel.

In the Shadow of J.K. Rowling

We self-published "Leo's Magic Shoes" way back in 1999, long before the advent of digital printing and seamless use of "save as PDF" in Microsoft Word.  Back then, the files were converted for Pagemaker 5 before the local printer scanned in the images for us, produced the cover design and created the plates for the litho run.  The minimum run was 1,000 copies too!  It was not cheap.

Publishers were not interested in the manuscript.  The industry was in a Harry Potter feeding frenzy and a cute little story with mere magic shoes was not enough to sate its hunger especially as it was submitted by someone without a suitable sponsor to encourage anyone to lift it out of their slush pile.  We sold out of the 1,000 copies that same year and printed more.  We have long since sold out of those.

We re-released the book with some revisions, new illustrations and a new title to try to appeal to American publishers but alas to no avail.  We still managed to sell all of those 1,500 copies too.  The book has always been popular with children even though the adults selecting what they should be offered did not think it would be.

Digitally re-mastered

What has inspired me to bring it back?  The Itinerant Poet recently visited one of the first schools at which he worked in the late 90s, in the local village where we lived at the time.  The school bought five copies of the book.  In 2013, they were all still in regular use albeit looking a little dog-eared.  The children at the school today have no idea that the characters within were based upon my two eldest children who used to attend the school (they are now 23 and 21) and yet the appeal of the book endures.  Three of the books were "retired" as the spines had disintegrated but the other two live on...for the moment.  Their eventual demise is what moved me to consider creating a digital version for the digital age (hmm...that sounds a bit corny).  I don't want to see the book die out.

I may produce colour images for the inside pages.  This will involve doctoring the originals that were created in black ink by the artist Kirsty Munro.  I also have to hope that the original scanned TIFF files have not become corrupted or I will have to dig the hand-drawn copies out of the depths of the loft.

I may offer the finished article as a complete freebie on Kindle...

Chocolate Temptations

The original book contained a second, shorter story entitled "Another Quarter Pound of Chocolate Drops, please!"  The temptation to produce this as an additional publication may just prove too much for me!

Epublishing a backlist

The job of epublishing the backlist of poetry books in printed format, has been calling to me for some time from my to-do list.  I had put it on the back burner because of the headache over the inclusion of images.  I really want the children's poetry books to retain their images in digital format as I took a lot of time and trouble to create them.

So... how long did it take me to tweak and epublish a book with no internal images?  Any guesses?  And... how long did it take me to epublish a shorter book with images?  Well, it took me about 25 minutes to do the poetry book with no images and about 25 hours to do the one with the images.  However,  the good news is that I then went on to process three more books with images and I have improved on the 25 hours.  This is also partly due to updates to the Kindle Direct Publishing software since my last attempt way back in October 2012 that have made file conversion work properly.

The main problem is that the Kindle software shrinks the images.  It specifies that the maximum size that can be displayed on a Kindle is 600 x 800 pixels (presumably this is for the basic Kindle like mine).  I duly went through the entire book, deleting all the pictures.  I re-processed the originals using Photoshop Elements 6.0 and re-sized them to 600 x 800 before painstakingly re-inserting them into the Word document.  The result was exactly the same (give or take) as the first attempt at conversion BEFORE mucking about with sizes.  Either way, a picture that should have filled a Kindle screen was shrunk.  As a consequence, I gave up re-sizing for the subsequent books and there is no apparent difference except perhaps in the file size but it's not big enough to create a huge financial hole.

The other problem with the images is that they don't always behave properly.  You think they are in one position on a page but they appear somewhere else instead, like at the top of the next page and obliterating half of the poem on it.  I think I have sussed this now - you need to check that the little anchor marker for the pic is definitely above the page break line.  I found switching to Web Layout View in Word was the best way to check this.

I am still not totally satisfied with the way they appear on the screen but I can't see how to improve them so that is how they will stay.  I only have one further book to convert but I can see it is going to be the most challenging.  They are all listed on a Listmania list on Amazon.

Home Front or Foreign Shores?

We are now at the planning stage of our June tour.  In previous years, we have journeyed around western Europe in the mighty Burstner but this year, we may opt for the UK.  The cost of fuel is one factor but also is the fact that we have never been up to Scotland in the van with the crew.  I have fond memories of a wonderful holiday in the far north-east of Scotland 31 years ago when I saw the Northern Lights in the distant summer sky.
 I have wanted to return ever since.

However, I also REALLY love going to France and Spain.  France is my favourite - such diversity of geography within a single country - and the Dordogne in particular!

We will almost certainly go there in September this year so I am more tempted to to the UK trip.  This would mean that some amazing museums in the north of England could be visited en route - Beamish Museum for a start.  The idea is to find loads of cycle trails too.  I love this sort of research so can't wait to make the final decision and get started.

When we do the long trips, we often see if there is a school or other educational establishment where we may be able to find a day's work and to offer it at a discount.  This way, some of the mileage counts as business mileage and helps to offset a proportion of the costs on the motorhome in our annual accounts.

Last year, we linked up with a bilingual group to the south of Poitiers.  We investigated an international school near Toulouse but the proximity to the end of term is an issue so I have contacted a small village school near Crieff.  They contacted me to see if we could help out with a last-minute booking for World Book Day in March but the Itinerant Poet had been fully-booked for many months.  The head teacher sounded really nice and I promised to call her if we were travelling north of the border in the motorhome.  I was really happy when I called her yesterday and she remembered me making the offer.  Plans are now underway...

Now that the IGCSE English exams have been sat (and hopefully passed) we are looking ahead to next year's selection.  Current favourites are geography and physics.  Wherever we go, the diverse landscapes and map-reading can be incorporated into the geography study and the pressure/weather patterns into both.