Today’s blog post contains an experiment. If you receive these posts in email, and read the email on your iPhone or iPad, and if the pictures in the post don’t show for you, tap here janabotkin.net. Then PLEASE let me know what happens, because this is a mystery I would like to solve.
Books
Writing, editing, and publishing are skills I have learned and practiced through the years. It began with The Cabins of Mineral King, under the guidance of my cabin neighbor, Jane Coughran. Many years passed before I took on The Cabins of Wilsonia. During those years of 1998-2011, everything about the publishing process changed.
This time I did all the book design myself, which is called “formatting”. I had to buy a laptop, a scanner, Photoshop, and InDesign, and learn to use them all. I hired an editor, hired a publishing consultant, recruited several proofreaders, and found a printer. It took four years.
That process taught me skills that I used for other books, some mine, some other people’s: Trail of Promises, The Visalia Electric Railroad, Mineral King Wildflowers, Adventures in Boy Scouting, Oil Town Teacher, six coloring books, and currently, White Plague: When TB was Called Consumption (the working title).
Who Cares?
You might care, especially if you or someone you know has written or plans to write a book. Let this serve as a short tutorial (or perhaps a warning).
Writing the book is only one tiny little piece of the process.
Tomorrow, I will begin The List.