Help!!! I need opinions...

[Terry]

Morning Zondrae,
I have seen where you spoke about your books before somewhere but have forgotten the details, do you put together and print your own or have them done commercially?

Cheers Terry

[keats]

Kym, how many pages are you looking at for your book and are you having a centrefold?

[Kym]

Hi everyone,

Sorry I haven't been answering, I've been soooo busy. The daughter has gone all Griswald on us and is going berserko on the Xmas lights. I just hope she has the same enthusiasm when it comes time to take all that stuff down again. Anyway ...

Thanks for all the replies and encouragement. I think I'll mix them up and leave the prizes-won listings off. Placing in a comp doesn't make a poem any more worth reading than one that hasn't, huh?

Warooa - "about as serious as a room full of jockeys with helium balloons" bahahaaa, that's hysterical! I love it!

Keats - I'm aiming at 100+ pages of poems and illustrations, plus all the garbage pages that just have to be there. Now about your offer to be my centrefold. Thank you so much for sending through those photos. I must say that is a very unusual position - were you injured in a pushbike accident? Please excuse me while I go bash my head against the brick wall to remove those images from my memory. I'll also be sending the shrink's account as soon as I can. Thanks soooo much (not).

K.

[Zondrae]

G'day Terry,

I have a laser printer and I print them myself. I also have a lethal guillotine to trim those fanning pages and a long arm stapler.

As the thickest book I have done is 14 sheets of paper with a cardboard (80gr I think) cover. This was the anthology for the Illawarra Breakfast Poets. I also did another booklet for us called 'On The Wallaby Track' that sold over 70 copies.

However these were set up in Publisher and I can't make any more.

[Bob Pacey]

Ahh Kym how someone with such a great sense of humour can write serious poems about horses is beyond me. I near piddled myself reading your reply to Neil.

Great stuff

Cheers Bob

[keats]

Now now Kim, if you read my post properly, you would see that I wasn't offering to be the centerfold!! It was just that Glenny had offered! The pictures sent to you were photoshopped, putting my head on Manfred's body!

Now, a hundred pages is a fairly big endeavour, but not impossible or impractical. What you need to do, as this is not the size project to tackle as a self publisher, is to contact a couple of people who have produced something similar, such as Gary Fogarty, Jan facey, Marco Gliori or even Murray Hartin (God bless his soul). It can be pricey, but a writer such as yourself should have their works out in the public arena. It is what we write for. I have just produced another CD and although it was reasonably expensive, it is something that is very satisfying, not just in recording my works, but also to see others appreciate it and want to purchase it.

So shop around; Talk to others; Be sure of your format (as once printed, it's too expensive to have second thoughts about the layout or content).

Hope this helps a little, and please destroy the photos on Manfneil.

[Kym]

Hi Keats - I thought I'd get more of a bite out of you than that. No 100 pages isn't impossible, what's difficult is deciding what to leave out! The other two books had 100+ pages each too, so I'm making this one the same size so I can have a "matching set" like Zondrae. They are always B5 sized (bigger than A5 but smaller than A4) so the longer lines fit easily (I hate seeing the last few words of a line not fit). My problem is deciding how cheeky to get with the poems. I put rude ones in the first two books, but now I probably wish I hadn't. Perhaps I'm finally maturing?

The next problem is where to get them printed, cos my usual printer (the CQU publishing unit) has closed down. I do all the content typing and layout as well as the cover design (even set that up myself with appropriate runoff etc) and give the printers two pdf files, which prevents font incompatibility problems, so that keeps costs to a minumum. Just need to find another printer now ...

Hey Bob, that's dreadful news about Rita's results huh? Poor girl.

Warooa - I'd forgotten about the Trouser Snake one, oh dear, I'm never going to be a nice person, am I? When your comment reminded me about that poem, I thought "I'll never print rubbish like that", but guess what? I put that in my first book. Regrets, oh the regrets ...

See ya's,

Kymbo.

[keats]

Well I didn't know you already had two books out, I thought they were complimentary toilet paper, like Glenny's books. In that case, I think you have a fair idea where you are going with publication and hope that you finalise an outlay for the book soon. I though Chapter One - Award Winning Poems Chapter Two - Losers Chapter Three - Deviant Thoughts Chapter Four - Poems Dedicated To My Hero, Neil McArthur (The Largest Chapter) and then Chapter Five - Other Dribble. You should also have a Bibliography in the back for poems about Biblies.

Hope this helps, and Manfred has volunteered for the Centrefold.

Neil

[Zondrae]

Kym,

I owe you a big thank you!
Because you have been having this dialogue, I have removed the offending digit and tucked into my "Most Awarded". It is ready to print!

The reason I stick with A5 is that it prints 2 pages to the sheet of A4. Now I just have to decide on the cover and I'm away. I wanted it ready for Illawarra Folk Festival in January. I'm way ahead of my timetable. Now I have no excuse to use as to why I am not memorising new work for then. Oh well I have one new one almost off pat. It is a short one though. Better remove the other diget and get stuck into a longer piece.

[Terry]

Thanks for that Zondrae,
I was thinking of getting Publisher. Irene and Bill have also given me a few tips. At the moment I haven't got a laser printer but it does sound as though that's the way to go if you're going to do much printing. I'm not thinking of doing too many, just a few for family and friends as gifts.

Thanks once again for the info it's much appreciated.

Terry