Honestly, I wanted to see how many "p" sounds I could put into that title. I've been having discussions with some fellow writers lately, and the TV commercial for Blackhat (the movie) drew our attention with a piece of a dialogue where a character boasted: "He's a blackhat hacker named Hathaway." How many takes did the actor need to get THAT right?
I write a lot of dialogue for video games and there are awkward moments when I'm in a recording session and an actor is reading a line for the first time and get's tripped up with a typo I overlooked, and I realize maybe I SHOULDN'T have called the character "Pepperdine's Pappy, Sir Pimp-Dog Pumpernickel from Paris."
You get the point.
It's been a while since I've posted, so I thought I'd reach out with the progress.
This week I spoke with my publishing company and began the preproduction process they take all their authors through. Most of it was fairly simple because I've already commissioned to have the cover done (thanks to the talents of Matt Schiel) and also already have my website going. Then there's all the forms to fill out and paperwork to go through and the incredibly boring but super important stuff to bring it home.
One thing I never considered in writing my 126,000 word epic was exactly how many pages that would entail and the cost of printing, etc. I guess that's why traditional publishers encourage new writers to write shorter books - to cut down cost on an already risky process. But since I'M publishing it, I get to make that call. Looks like I'm leaning toward a 6x9 book - still thinking paperback and the early estimated page count would probably be around 450. That's seems par for the course with a lot of what I'm seeing out there.
Then, of course, there are the separate electronic versions to prep for. My Kickstarter experimented with the ePub format, which is supposed to be fairly universal, but I learned quickly that Kindle's don't like that. A very smart young lady named Toni Gutierrez was kind enough to point this out to me and quickly devised a conversion solution - thanks Toni!
It's all been a learning process that will culminate in about 10 weeks when the book finally goes live in the marketplace. I'm excited - and tired - and nervous - and elated that we're almost there.
As the weeks go on, I'll be posting more, cranking out some more preview chapters, and prepping some interviews. In fact, I will have my first radio / podcast interview about The God Thought toward the end of this month! Details to follow.
Thanks again for all your support and interest.
--DC