Woo-hoo! After some last minute fiddling with my ISBN, I submitted Giving Back to CreateSpace this afternoon. CreateSpace is Amazon’s subsidiary for self-published, print-on-demand works. Over the next 48 hours, they will review it, and almost certainly, reject it. I submitted the files knowing that I violated their submission requirements. Certain elements of the design of the book intentionally stray into the margins, but are still within the print area of the page. It’s called (as I learned from the designer) “hanging punctuation” and, unfortunately, it’s not supported by CreateSpace’s automated review process. So I expect to get a rejection, which I will appeal, and the people should nod in sagacity, approving the elegance of Dave’s design.
Unfortunately, we’re cutting the time very tight, and it probably means that I won’t have books for the Hospital for Hope fundraiser at Stanford on 8/16.
Still, this is a great milestone to celebrate, and I especially want to thank my fabulous editor Nancy Carleton, my layout person extraordinaire Thess Bautista, and design consultant Dave Blake with his artistry and encyclopedic knowledge of fonts.
As you can see from the picture, I went with the blue. The votes were very evenly divided, but with the designer, editor, and photographer all favoring blue, they carried extra weight. I over-ruled the popular vote and went with the longer sub-title primarily to have keywords “volunteering” and “donating” in the title for people that might be searching on those terms.
