More copies shipped today, but only one to a paying customer. Here is the latest update. This morning I received one more order via the PayPal Buy Now button on the whiteknightpress.com web site. I also shipped out free copies to the copy editor and to one of the most helpful of the substantive editors. I don’t have the luxury of sending out very many free copies, because it takes so much time and effort to print and bind each book. It’s not as if a truck had pulled up to the house with multiple cartons stuffed with books; each book is the result of a little adventure — sending the .pdf file to the laser printer with the correct settings; checking to make sure one side of the pages is not printing upside-down; laying the pages down under a pile of heavy books to flatten them out after the curling from the printer; cutting the two-up pages in half to yield the actual pages for the books; printing the covers; scoring them and creasing them; binding the covers to pages in the hot-glue binding machine; trimming the books on three sides to become finished products; and, finally, shrink-wrapping the finished books. So, there won’t be very many promotional copies sent out.
This morning I also managed to register the book with the Copyright Office and sent the required two copies off to the Library of Congress. That was quite a battle, because the Copyright Office’s web site apparently didn’t get along very well with my Mac’s Firefox browser, and I had to re-do the registration about seven times before I finally got it finished. In the end the process went fine; I got the reduced $35.00 price for registering online, and the site then let me print a shipping label to send the hard copies to the LOC in Washington. According to the site, I should get my certificate of registration in about six months, though the registration is effective immediately upon applying and paying the fee.
Right now Clenise is trimming a new batch of books, after she ran them through the binder and attached the covers. She is getting the process down to a real system, which is great. Our little book factory is starting to hum along now, rather than operate in crisis mode as it did just a few days ago.
One issue that bothers me somewhat is that pages of the books seem to be somewhat wavy; that is, they curl in a couple of directions, so they don’t lie completely flat. Some copies are better than others, and I think I need to settle on one type of paper. As of now, I think 24-pound HP Color Laser may be the best for this project, but I’m still experimenting. Right now we’re using some generic 24-pound laser paper from Office Depot, which could save some money if the finished product comes out okay.
So far the eBay listing of the books for sale has not had any activity at all; it has had only 5 page views, though it’s only been up since Friday night and it’s now Saturday afternoon. I’m hoping for better results after the listing has been active into the weekdays.
