I may have had an early start yesterday, but it didn’t necessarily follow that I did everything I needed to do.
Firstly, I dropped my car off to be serviced and had a lift back to the house. When I got home, I changed out of people clothes, had breakfast and a cup of tea or two. I did all of my social media catching up and went through my emails. And I went to my desk.
Because it’s been a while since I wrote either a secret sugarholic blog post or an our garden this week, I chose to rectify that next.
The secret sugarholic blog post was written first because it’s developing quite the following. I don’t know why but people are liking it and following it left, right and centre. And I’m really not publicising it anywhere.
The garden blog is a bit more personal. I don’t think anyone has found that outside of anyone here. I spent some time in the rain taking pictures and I used a few from indoors that I already had. And I wrote and posted the blog.
And then I wrote up yesterday’s blog post for here.
All of that waffling took me up to dinner. I had some sliced gammon (cooked by the poet) on rye & wholemeal bread (cooked by the poet), a biscuit (cooked by the poet), some yoghurt and some grapes.
I was about to settle in for the afternoon and catch up on the diary when the phone rang. My car was ready and the mechanic was coming to get me. I got changed back into people clothes and I went out to wait for him. About 15 minutes later he called to say mission aborted, due to something he needed to do at the garage, and he’d come out in about 15 minutes.
I went back into the house, but couldn’t really settle to anything, and when I thought the 15 minutes was up, I went out to wait again. After about ten minutes it started to pour with rain so I went back inside again. The poor dog didn’t know whether to sulk because I was going out or get excited because I was coming home!
About five minutes later, the mechanic rang me again to say he was on his way. So out I went again, to wait again. He turned up in my car and jumped out so I could drive him back. I had to pay him, after all.
When I got back I heard the cuckoo clock. It was 4pm… Really? Had it taken that long? I checked, but it was only 3pm. I must have misheard the cuckoo.
I sat back down at my desk, did a bit more faffing, but really couldn’t settle to anything. I didn’t want the entire day to be a complete washout, though, despite the rain. So I made an executive decision and I had a go at publishing a boxed set.
It took me a few hours, because I’ll be making five boxed sets all together and I had a play with making the covers different colours. I might stick with the purple though, in case I want to do something in the future like Project Management for Writers: Juggling Articles, or similar. The original boxed set cover I played with was the same colour as the omnibus cover, and I decided I didn’t want them both the same colour.
I paused for tea. I had a pork steak, baby potatoes, sweetcorn and gravy followed by tinned pears and ice cream. I did have a fruit crumble to make, but I wasn’t going to eat any last night because the poet wants some when he gets back from his trick and he was already jealous thinking I’d be eating it without him.
Then it was back to my desk to finalise the boxed set and write today’s post.
Project Management for Writers: Box Set 1 will be out in ebook on 4 September. I’m toying with making it a paperback too, but I don’t have any idea how to work the slip cases, and merging the first two books starts to push the price up in hard copy.
I finished work at around 9pm and went to make that blackberry crumble.
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Boxed sets fascinate me. Was it very complicated to do a version of the published book into the set?
I love boxed sets and am a real sucker for them.
It was easy to merge the two ebook files into one, just by joining them together. Then it was just a case of making the image. (That was the Covervault software I bought and had to search out when the site closed down, but there are other mockup sites and packages available.) There are 2 places that can use the boxed set 3D images, but everywhere else uses only the flat cover, and I just had to make a new cover for the boxes, or I could have used one of the original five.
However, I think the paperback version would be much more difficult as those would be more than one physical book plus the slip case. So I might save the paperbacks until the omnibus is ready (i.e. all five books).
I used new front matter, a new introduction to the boxed sets, and new end matter, then removed those from the first two book files. I inserted ‘parts’ but called them ‘volumes’ and made sure all of my chapter titles were in title case.
Oh, how interesting!
The entire procedure fascinates me no end.
The box set looks great! I love the colors and how they fit together. I echo Devon’s question about how complicated it was to do this way. I really love the look of it.
Thank you! I really like the purple and wish I’d chosen it for Book 1 too.
I’ll paste my reply to Devon here too, in case you’ve activated email replies.
It was easy to merge the two ebook files into one, just by joining them together. Then it was just a case of making the image. (That was the Covervault software I bought and had to search out when the site closed down, but there are other mockup sites and packages available.) There are 2 places that can use the boxed set 3D images, but everywhere else uses only the flat cover, and I just had to make a new cover for the boxes, or I could have used one of the original five.
However, I think the paperback version would be much more difficult as those would be more than one physical book plus the slip case. So I might save the paperbacks until the omnibus is ready (i.e. all five books).
I used new front matter, a new introduction to the boxed sets, and new end matter, then removed those from the first two book files. I inserted ‘parts’ but called them ‘volumes’ and made sure all of my chapter titles were in title case.