SoFoBoMo 09 - Getting Ready

I decided as part of this year Solo Photo Book Month that I needed to get past the issues that tripped me up last year. Specifically, producing the pdf book. I had the images produced, all I needed was to design? a cover and add the images.

First off, I wanted to look at Scribus, which is a open source page layout program. I figured that if I learned that, I could produce the file on any of the computers I use. Being that the main computer is my Mac laptop, I downloaded the Aqua version of Scribus and tried to start it up. The operative word is tried. After about 5 minutes of waiting for the thing to start up and being unable to do anything with it, I deleted it. I'm sure it works better on Linux and Windows, but I wasn't in the mood to try.

Since I had the Mac page layout software, called appropriately enough "Pages", I ended up using that. I did have to stop at the local Apple store for some help with what I consider a basic question, but I couldn't find the answer on the support site.

Once I got my question answered, producing the pdf file was easier than I thought. I agonized over the cover for a bit, I knew what image I wanted to use, but the title and font was another story. Since this was a test book, I went simple. In another hour or so I ended up with my book. A title page, a copyright page and 36 images.

My original plans for the book last year was to do some notes within the book. That went out the window, since I didn't document what I wanted to say.

I now have a 12 meg. pdf file and nowhere to put it. The next step is to figure out where to upload it so people can see it. Luckily I believe this year that the plan is to host books on the sofobomo.org site. I also plan on trying out a few of the print on demand publishers to see what I can get.

For the moment, if anyone wants a copy, leave me a comment with an address or send me an email. Be warned the file is 12 meg., so hopefully your ISP will allow that. Addresses in comments should be in the form of somename at domain dot com. Hopefully that will forstall spam address harvesters.

Addendum: Since at one time I had created a Issuu account, I published the book there. It's probably an easier way to view it than requesting a copy. See it here. I'm still making copies available if requested.