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Saturday, November 10, 2012

Eight Years Young! And New Printer/Scanner Experimenting for Book Publishing



 Some of you know and some of you don't that these kids, my grand kids born to my daughter eight years ago, were born preemies. Grand daughter weighed in at 3 lbs, and Grand son weighed in at 2.5 lbs. They were so tiny they fit in the palm of my hand. It was a scary time, but modern medicine helped and they have grown into normal sized bodies and very bright minds; kids who both love to play on soccer teams, both draw well, do well in school and are just all around fun to be with kids!

I just scanned that new photo on my new HP Officejet Pro 8600 Plus printer/scanner.
I'm happy to see how brilliantly colorful the photo it is on my monitor screen.

I also ripped out a little painting from my art journal that I am not especially proud of, but wanted to see it scanned laying flat in the scanner with the top down. I had been scanning art still in the art journal and they are not coming out so sharp.


I'm not sure if the colors will be bright enough to look good once transferred. And I am not sure what is the best place for transferring.

The project is an attempt to upload my art for a book I want to self publish. I am thinking to work with Create Space at Amazon. The options seem to be to load my art on Microsoft Word or a PDF format called Create It. My first attempt with Create It after downloading the free program was disappointing, as I could not seem to get my picture files to open in it. On Word I found the set up/editing features less than easy going.

This is as far as I have gotten.

1. bought a new printer/scanner with 4800 X 4800 DPI for best scanned art. (good price at Costco)
2. downloading PDF Create It (free)
3. signing up at Create Space at Amazon. (free)
4. attempting to create on Word.
5. failing at transferring photos to PDF Create It...

Equals a lot of frustration.

Anyone out there with experience at self publishing a book with pictures and who wants to share info
I am all ears! It would be much appreciated.

I'd really like to get this book off the ground. (I am not interested in using the photo book self publishers like My Publisher. They are good for one book at a time; but I want to use a company like Amazon who will publish books in bulk at little cost to me, letting me set my own price, and then put them for sale on Amazon.com, e-books, etc. at no cost to me.)

21 comments:

  1. beautiful grand children, I have no help to offer about the book but I wish you all the success in the world my friend!!It will be a winner I just know it!

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  2. The colors are AWESOME.. they came thru VERY bright and clear. I wish I knew how to help you but I am counting on you to help me..LOL

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  3. Nice project you are beginning. I have been thinking about doing it too but so far it stayed with thinking. Will be interesting to see what you will create. Your grands are gorgeous young people. Their difficult start is way in the past and technology and love helped them through . So good to see them enjoying a happy childhood!
    Have a nice Sunday
    ♥M

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  4. Hi Lynn, grandies are gorgeous. Can't help with self publishing, this might though - http://www.freemotionquilting.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/quilt-biz-7-self-publishing.html
    Chloe

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    1. Chloe this link was terrific. Thanks so much. It all helps keep me going in my goal to self publish my art in a book!

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    2. Oh, I am pleased it was useful. I am an avid Leah Day follower, her quilting designs are inspiring. And if her insight is useful to you - all the better.

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  5. Hi Lynn, I've been looking into this because I wanted to make a diary for 2013. I wanted to go with Createspace because their prices were pretty good, but when you're not a US-citizen they take 30% of taxes out of every sale. So I went with Lulu, there you can also get an ISBN number for free, and then you can also sell through Amazon. There are certain conditions regarding size and binding etc... but it's all explained on the site. In the end I didn't do it at all, because with the amount of pages I would need and in full color, one diary would already cost me more than 50$ base-price, which is a bit ridiculous for a diary....Make sure you find out what it will cost you, because when you sell something, you also need to give a percentage to them, plus the base-price. I made my calendar on Lulu though, and haven't had any problems with uploading. An article that I found interesting was this: http://www.motleypress.com/mpress/?p=57. There are lots more like these when you start googling. Good luck! Exciting times ahead!

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    1. Thanks so much for this link and sharing your experience with self publishing. It's very helpful and even inspiring. I am jazzed to keep going.

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  6. Happy Birthday to your grandkids! How wonderful that they're such well-rounded individuals. And big congrats on your attempt to get your book on the road to being published! Can't wait to follow it's progress.

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    1. Thanks Stampmaiden! I will perservere! And yes, the kids are great! ;-)

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  7. Hi Lynn,
    Happy birthday to your grandkids. They are growing up fast.
    Google self publishing and see what comes up. Good luck with your new venture.

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  8. Beautiful grands!!! Aren't they just the best!!

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  9. Your grandchildren are really beautiful. Hard to believe they were ever so fragile. That must have been a very difficult time -- one in which you just had to have faith. By the way, I'm loving this slide show that's happening on your sidebar - just mesmerizing. Gonna stop typing now and just admire your work!

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    1. Yes, Jessica lots of praying, and good medicine, luck...
      Thanks too for saying you enjoy my art making!! :-)

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  10. Hi there, great scanned images, they will look great in a book. I recommend blurb.com and their easy to use downloadable, free program there. You just import all your photos and place them in, very easy and quick.

    Self publishing is super fun!

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    1. Thanks for your tip about Blurb.com. I am off to check them out.

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  11. Hi Lynn, I have some experience with blurb.com. The quality is amazing and I am pleased with their services. After you publish to their website you can then download the book in a PDF format in correct size and then to submit to create space at Amazon. Amazon's prices are much cheaper if you want to sell them. You can do this on both sites. But as far as I know Amazon only self publishes in soft cover blurb has hard cover. Instead of scanning how about photographing your artwork. More work and setup but probably better color! Hope at least some of this helps! You can sell on blurb.com too.

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    1. Thank you so much for your input about self publishing. Ask and you shall receive! I will hop over to Blurb next to check them out. Sounds like you and others are telling me they have an easy download system. Sure hope so. Then transferring to Amazon should not be hard??? I got the PDF Creator download on my computer. Now to figure out how to use all these things. Such a learning curve this all is. But I am determined. What sort of book did you self publish? Were there a lot of photos? Mine is almost all photos of my art. So am hoping for the best quality color pages. I hear Create Space has only Matte paper so the colors are not the sharpest. ??? What about LULU? So many choices. They are I hear more expensive to work with. ????????

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  12. scanner works nicely it seems. as rosemary implies i personally have better luck with photographing my artwork vs scanning re: color and sharpness but i may have a cheper scanner than you. i have no personal self pub experience but a friend did the above blurb.com thing. came out very nice. good luck.

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    1. Tips for photographing art work? I've heard everything from daylight to tripods and not sure how to go about this??? I will continue to try both and make compairsons. thanks for your input here.

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  13. A book of your art sounds wonderful. Good Luck.

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Thanks for leaving your comments as I love hearing from you. Your words of encouragement are why I continue to draw!