#galley copy pdf as it were

[unproduciblesmackdown]

oh you mean our "offical nonbinary f&f character Cam Stone 101" entry in the lambda literary lgbtq+ anthology award-winning 2 trans 2 furious: an extremely serious journal of transgender street racing studies?

[verycleverboy]

In search of lost penmanship

There was an incredible struggle to get a definitive edition of Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu because the author kept scribbling massive reworkings of the text in the margins of the galley drafts.

That's why, after looking at scans of the tax bill that's about to be voted on in the Senate, they may be getting ready to pass Mitch McConnell's recipe for madeleines into law for all we know.

Despite the loss of Sen. Bob Corker’s (R-Tennessee) vote from the roster of Senate Republicans trying vehemently to pass it, the GOP’s controversial tax reform bill is still alive. After all, it scored a “yes” from Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) on Thursday, a political move that may very well guarantee the bill’s success should the Senate finally survive Friday’s ongoing debate and vote on it. Yet with a handful of other Republican politicians refraining from throwing their weight behind the legislation (let alone the guarantee of a vote on Friday night), the fight against it isn’t over.

This is especially true now that copies of the bill, complete with illegible, handwritten addendums and margin notes, have been published online. “I wish I were making this up,” tweeted Chad Bolt, a policy manager at the nonprofit organization The Indivisible Project. “Handwritten text up and down the margins.” Sure enough, according to the page pulled from the 479-page bill’s recent PDF scan, a long note of addition written in the right margin becomes increasingly harder to read as it progresses.

[plusorminuscongress]

New! The Library’s Cataloging Page for Publishers

New! The Library’s Cataloging Page for Publishers By Neely Tucker Published June 12, 2019 at 09:00AM

It’s in (almost) every book you read, but you’ve probably paid little attention to it. The Library’s Cataloging in Publication (CIP) information — that copy-block on the reverse side of the book’s title page spelling out the author, title, subject, its International Standard Book Number, and other information — is an essential beginning to a book’s publication.

The new-look Book Link page.

The Cataloging information provided by the Library allows publishers to get the book’s information relayed to libraries and booksellers months in advance of publication — ask any author how important that is — and keeps the publication process rolling. (It’s different from copyrights, although the Library does that, too.)

And now, for the first time in 16 years, the Library is rolling out an all-new CIP database. It’s called PrePub Book Link (PPBL), and it overhauls the sturdy-but-outdated 2003 system. Book buyers won’t notice any changes, but publishers and Library staff certainly will. The overhaul took more than one and a half years, involves more than 3,000 major scholarly and trade publishers and more than 50,000 books each year. The Library’s system for smaller publishing houses, the Preassigned Control Number Program, will be merged into PPBL, too.

“It’s a very significant milestone,” says Karl Debus-López, chief of the U.S. Programs, Law, and Literature Division, which oversees the program. “It’s a success story of collaborative work.”

The PPBL’s leadership team: (l-r) Bob Shirley, Amy Swanson, Caroline Saccucci, Camilla Williams, Cat Eiche, Karl Debus-López, Connie Pierce. Photo: Shawn Miller.

The CIP program has been around since 1971. It began as a way for the Library to find out about forthcoming publications to catalog and add to its collections.  The records created for those titles were sent to libraries nationwide.  Those libraries then knew about new titles to add to their collections and had records to use for their catalogs.  The publishers also benefitted in that the program helped to promote, market, and sell upcoming titles.  The program quickly became an industry standard.

In the beginning, it was all done manually, by mail, and was, let us say, very analog.

“Publishers would mail us a galley, or maybe the entire book, with a CIP application and it would literally be hand-carried from place to place,” says Caroline Saccucci, the Library’s CIP and Dewey program manager.

In 2003, the Library established an internal database that allowed publishers to take care of the process online, with electronic galleys attached. The system was clunky but reliable and, in the digital age, held on for 16 years.

Overhauling that system was complicated, as it had dozens of moving parts. More than 200 Library employees catalog CIP books. Thirty-one partner institutions – mostly academic institutions with university presses — also use the system to catalog their titles. Publishing houses, independent authors and small presses use it every day. At any one time, 4,000 or more books are in the pipeline.

Creating the new program took the efforts of more than 30 staffers, plus contractors, working across four departments. The new system is faster, allows publishers to log-in by multiple accounts and attach a PDF file for the book, and provides auto-filled data boxes to streamline the process.

“Everyone involved with the design, development, testing, and training of staff should be very proud,” Debus-López said.

So, the next time you look inside a book? You’ll feel smarter for knowing how complicated just one part of it is to pull together.

Subscribe to the blog— it’s free! — and the largest library in world history will send cool stories straight to your inbox.

Read more on https://loc.gov

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/technology/tech-were-using-sliding-backward-on-tech-there-are-benefits/

Tech We’re Using: Sliding Backward on Tech? There Are Benefits

How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? Pamela Paul, editor of The New York Times Book Review, discussed the tech she’s using.

About two years ago, you wrote an article about how you downgraded all your tech. How did you downgrade? What do you love about having done that?

It’s easier than you might think because you can pretty effectively downgrade merely by neglecting to upgrade. You just naturally find yourself sliding backward. In my case, this shift has been deliberate, but more about making a mental adjustment than about deactivating existing technology. (Though I did permanently jettison the electric toothbrush.)

There’s a prevailing assumption that just because there’s a new high-tech version of something previously handled in a low-tech way, one should adopt that technology. I come at it from a different angle, which is to start with the need or problem and ask myself: Will this new technology substantively help? And if the upside is speed or information, my next question is: What’s the trade-off? What do I lose along with this gain, and on balance, do the gains outweigh the losses? (Possibly the only thing I learned from Econ 111.)

Quite often, I find that it doesn’t. What lands in the loss column may have to do with process, and the process of doing something can be just as valuable as the end result. I read this book last year, “Cræft: An Inquiry Into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts.” I am in no way crafty, but this book had me yearning to thatch my own roof just to be in touch with the physical and attendant mental labor of putting something useful together. (That said, I haven’t lifted a finger.)

On the flip side, I find that many new technologies are actually far less efficient than the tools they attempt to replace. A Nook or a Kindle or iPad is, for my purposes, unequivocally worse than a printed book. You can’t flip back and forth to the photo inserts or skim easily through the index; you have no sense of page count (percentages, really?). You lose the design of the product, which is often beautiful, down to the weight of the paper and the choice of typeface. You’d have to pay me a very fancy salary to give up print for a year.

Same thing with paper calendars; they’re just better. I get irrationally impatient with the slowness with which people tap meetings into their calendars on the phone. It is at least 30 seconds faster to write it in an old-timey agenda (Levenger here). My Google calendar will always play second fiddle to this far more detailed agenda, supplemented by Post-its and a Moleskine to-do list. I trace this obsession with efficiency to the children’s book “Cheaper by the Dozen,” about a couple of efficiency experts and their brood, which I took way too literally.

Given all this, what does your tech setup look like for doing your work?

My personal life, techwise, operates in sharp contrast to and in part as ballast against my professional life. Despite working on what one might consider the most low-tech of beats, we are in a tech-oriented workplace, and our content is delivered through high-tech platforms to tech-savvy readers.

That means doing everything I can while at work to understand, adopt and assess the same tools our newsroom colleagues and our readers are using, and figure out how they can materially enhance our journalism. We were actually the first desk to have a podcast (now in its 15th year) and are part of the pilot program for Alexa, which adapts our audio content for voice users. While at work, I have 12 windows and tabs open, toggling madly between laptop and phone like every other digital drone.

As an aside: I have the ugliest but best low-tech phone case for klutzes like me who drop their phones all the time. It costs 3 euros from Ale-Hop in Madrid, and you can order it online. You will look ridiculous carrying it around but triumphant picking it up.

What’s your advice for others who want to downgrade their tech?

In general, when I hear the phrase “There’s an app for that,” my first question is, “Does there need to be?” The vast majority of new technologies are developed with a profit motive. So each new form of tech raises the question: Is this something I’m willing to pay for, whether the cost is in terms of dollars or privacy? Like many people, I chafe at the notion of my personal life being monetized.

How has the book industry’s shift toward digital publishing changed the way that The Times reviews books? And what hasn’t changed?

Strictly in terms of review process, our desk hasn’t changed much — because the vast majority of our editors and reviewers prefer to work in print.

It’s easier for an editor to assess a book without reading it in its entirety by dipping in and out. Reviewers like to mark up their galleys, which are early review copies.

That said, PDFs make fact-checking far easier and speed our process for embargoed books. We can also see early editions of visual books that aren’t available in galleys (the printing costs are too high) without having to wait for finished physical copies. And we can more readily get access to audiobooks digitally than we ever could with CDs.

Outside of work, what low-tech product are you currently obsessed with?

I am fairly confident that I’m the last DVD subscriber to what was once called Netflix and is now DVD.com, and my queue is maxed to the 500. I don’t subscribe to any streaming services, nor does our television have an antenna set up for network TV.

This makes my decision around what to watch really easy: There are only four choices. When I go somewhere with multiple streaming subscriptions, there’s actually nothing I want to watch. As Barry Schwartz wrote in his persuasive 2004 book, “The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less,” we become easily overwhelmed and paralyzed when faced with too many possibilities (at least I do). It’s also easier to find old and foreign movies on DVD.

I do, however, like tech that narrows choice down. One app we recently used with much success was Happy Cow, which locates vegan dining options. It was seriously useful while traveling in Germany last summer with our 13-year-old vegan daughter.

I still regret uploading all my CDs at the behest of my husband, who is far techier than I am. Recently, I bought portable CD players for two of my kids. I think about digging out the vinyl again. Maybe I’ll pick up a “new” record player one of these days.

[arlofinch-blog]

Half Title Page vs. Title Page

Arlo Finch is now typeset in preparation for the first printing run of advance reading copies (also called galleys). It’s great and weird seeing it in its almost-finished form.

At this stage, I’m looking at a PDF on my iPad. I’m making corrections—mostly small things, but also a new paragraph or two. A proofreader will also be carefully combing through it.

One bit of terminology I just learned is the difference between the two kinds of title pages you see in a book.

As you open a hardcover book, the first page with text on it is called the half title page. It has only the name of the book.

Here’s Arlo’s: 

Sometimes you see a list of other books by the author on the back side of this page, or a separate page.

Next up comes the true title page, which has the title, the author, and the publisher. Here’s Arlo’s:

(Roaring Brook Press is part of Macmillan.)

The back of the title page has all of the publisher information about the book. (I’ll talk more about that in a future post.)

True confession: I never realized that hardcover novels have two title pages until today. And now I’m kind of obsessed, grabbing every book on the shelf to check. It’s that classic case of once you notice something, it’s ubiquitous—at least in American hardcover novels.

Paperback novels often forego the half title page. John Green’s Looking for Alaska has one, as does Ranson Riggs’s Hollow City (albeit a few pages in). But Victoria Aveyard’s Red Queen is more typical: a few pages of glowing reviews before the (true) title page.

Why do books have half title pages at all? 

Originally, printers and book-binders were two separate businesses. The half title—also called the bastard title—served as the temporary cover of the book before it was bound.

If you’re curious to learn more, you can explore the history of the bastard title with Andrea Koczela.

[ciathyzareposts]

Missed Classic 78: Crash Dive! (1984)

Written by Joe Pranevich

For the era that we study, Brian Moriarty is one of the giants. He brought us three of Infocom’s classics, starting with Wishbringer, and jumped over to LucasArts to create Loom, one of my favorite adventure games of all time. Before we move on to Trinity (1986) and start the story of Infocom-under-Activision, I’d like to reverse course and fill in the final blank from his early career. In the early 1980s, Moriarty worked as a writer and eventual technical editor for Analog Computing magazine, celebrating the Atari personal computers that he loved. In that role, he wrote his first game, a tepid Adventure in the Fifth Dimension (1983) that failed to foreshadow the fantastic designer he would become. The following year, he penned Crash Dive!, his final Atari game before joining Infocom. Does that game show his potential? That’s what I would like to find out.

Inspiration can strike from just about anywhere, but Crash Dive! has perhaps one of the more unusual origin stories that I have ever heard. It starts with a failure: in 1982, Analog’s Jon Bell and Tom Hudson wanted to make a submarine action game. Bell and his team even toured two submarines (the Nimitz and Dace) for inspiration and historical accuracy. Cover art was commissioned, the game was announced, and even the back-of-box copy was written… but it evaporated into thin air. Despite the time and expense, it was never released. That would be the end of the Crash Dive! story, if it wasn’t for its “inspirational” cover art and a very special issue of Analog Computing.

Eye of newt, and toe of frog. For a charm of powerful trouble, like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

In April 1984, Analog planned a special issue to highlight adventure gaming on the Atari. This was early days in our industry and their definition of an “adventure” doesn’t quite match up to our own, but they found joy in narrative games (including what we would call “RPGs”) as distinct from action games. To celebrate these adventures, the editorial staff commissioned reviews of many such games available for the Atari. According to Moriarty’s introductory note, so many reviews were planned and penned that they had to spill over into the next issue.

I do not want to get too sidetracked from our Crash Dive! story, but it’s worth a moment to consider just what Atari adventures were highlighted that April:

Ultima I had finally been ported to Atari, three years after it debuted for the Apple II. Reviewer Steve Panak called it “quite possibly one of the most addictive” role playing games ever made, although he disliked the space segment and found the ending disappointing. (Ultima was covered by our friend the CRPG Addict back in 2010.)

Skipping the direct sequel, Ultima III was reviewed by Cliff Chaput and he had a lot of nice things to say about the title screen and about the first fifteen minutes of gameplay. Although he describes the game as a “must-have”, he admits that his copy (and many of the copies shipped for Atari) doesn’t actually work due to a “glitch”. How he could so glowingly review a product that might not even be playable, I have no idea, but he liked the bits that he saw. (Ultima III was covered by the CRPG Addict only a few months after the previous game.)

Gruds… in… Spaaaaace! (Apple II version)

Gruds in Space is a graphical text adventure game by Sirius Software, but not one I had ever heard of. Patrick J. Kelley reviews it and I’ll let his words speak for themselves:

“This is the most detailed and animated graphics/text adventure that I’ve ever seen, and belies a lot of love in its creation. Blinking eyes, twinkling stars, flashing lights and leering monsters fill every frame with a real character, and the continuity of shape and color are truly amazing. This game sets a standard that many other so-called ‘graphic’ adventures fall far short of, both in concept and execution. In some cases, the animation is so well integrated that it becomes more than just an enhancement to the adventure, but a feature unto itself.”

Saigon: The Final Days was reviewed by Ray Berube and he seems to have hated its puzzle design and the overall execution of the game. He writes, “I can’t recommend Saigon. Invest a little more money and buy an Infocom adventure, or even one of the original Scott Adams titles. You’ll enjoy your investment rather than railing at your monitor.” Our own Will Moczarski seems to have enjoyed the game more than Ray did!

The Return of Heracles was reviewed by Michael Des Chenes and he enjoyed the game very much, although it hardly seems like either an adventure or an RPG. The CRPG Addict shares his enthusiasm for Stuart Smith titles and had a lot of fun with this so the review seems on point.

Planetfall was reviewed by Carl Firman and he waxes on so much about the extras and the setting that he doesn’t even remember to tell us how much he liked the game, although it appears that he liked it very much. I agree! I cannot believe that it’s been two years since my review. Time flies!

These six games hardly account for the state of adventure gaming in 1984, but it’s not a bad mix of styles and genres. Was there really only one Infocom release they could have looked at? Were there no Scott Adams games? Except for Gruds in Space, these are all titles that are somewhat well-known today, at least to people that read our site and sites like it. I’m half tempted to play the game just so we can complete the set!

Some time either during the development of this issue or just before, Moriarty stumbled onto the abandoned art that had been created for the unfinished 1982 Crash Dive! Maybe something clicked then, or maybe he already had submarines on the brain, but that bit of art inspired him to create his own submarine-based text adventure. To save money, he could even use the original title and artwork! Moriarty finished the game in time to be included as a type-in for Analog’s special adventure issue. He explained in his introductory note that most commercial adventures didn’t work on 16K Atari systems, and that we wrote this game to scratch that itch for those owners. (It required 32K to be typed in, but once loaded onto a disk it could be played on a 16K system.)

It was the captain, in the galley, with a butter knife?

Crash Dive! Is by far the largest feature in the issue, no doubt thanks to Moriarty’s role as technical editor. With four pages of documentation and eleven pages of tiny-print source code, I’m glad that we don’t have to type it all in anymore! The documentation includes a half-page image containing the “feelies” for the game, although we’re not supposed to peek at them yet.

The story is well-done over all: we are a maintenance worker stationed on the USS Sea Moss, an experimental submarine in the middle of the cold war. It’s tough to remember that in 1984, the Cold War wasn’t just a genre, it was a lived-in reality. The sub is armed with nuclear missiles and has an advanced cloaking system which renders it invisible to the enemy. All of our greatest foes want to get their hands on the technologies in this sub. While we are doing some routine repairs, the unthinkable happens: sabotage! Everyone else on the ship has been killed by poison gas but we survived thanks to being in an air-tight torpedo tube. Our mission will be to find and defeat whomever killed the crew and keep the submarine from being captured. The manual provides a clue that we will need to get it underwater as soon as possible and that the only solution may be to destroy this priceless technology to keep it out of enemy hands.

Playing the Game

This style of start screen was reused by several Analog Computing games, but I am unsure which is the first.

An interface so cluttered that it is easy to forget that there isn’t much text.

The game opens with us in the “escape tube” that we were repairing when all hell broke loose. The hatch is closed, so I open it. Big mistake! Poison gas fills the room and I’m dead already. We have to start over. Nothing says “fun” like an adventure where you can die in the first move! It doesn’t take me long to realize that the solution (in Adventure International fashion) is just to “hold breath”. That lets you leave the tube and explore.

This game has a punishing start. You can only hold your breath for five turns. That gives you barely enough time to do anything so I save and commit myself to fast exploration-dashes and restoring when I die. For simplicity, I’ll just summarize what I found. The submarine is longer than it is wide with a hallway leading north-south and rooms off to either side. It is arranged on two floors and the room that we start in after emerging from the hatch has stairs down.

We find on the current level:

To the north of our starting position is an access tunnel with a sign warning of radiation. Heading farther north kills you immediately.

West is a locked door with a “very secure” lock.

Further south is a long corridor. Off that corridor to the west is a radio room (with a pair of cable cutters) and to the east is the sonar room. We can activate the sonar to discover that there are enemy ships approaching.

At the end of the corridor is the “command station” with a periscope. Looking through the scope, we can see those same enemies. To the west is a ballast room; we can press a button to make the sub descend and then watch a gauge to see how deep we go. To the east is the navigation room containing a manual and a readout of our current position in X/Y coordinates. I discover in my frequent restarts that the numbers change each game.

Not tremendously easy to read without the original issue.

The submarine manual instructs us to look at the photo in Analog #18. That is easier said than done because while I do have the PDF, it’s not completely clear and I wish I would have been able to find (and afford) the original issue. Nonetheless, we learn that the X and Y coordinates are scrambled through some magic so that they will not relate in any way to real-world latitude and longitude. It also warns that the values are recalculated every several seconds except when the sub is at rest. The remainder of the page describes targeting the sub’s weapons (using the same “simplified” coordinate system) and arming the warhead by radio. We’ll need to find a “Delta-Q Coordinate Decoding Ring” to be able to aim the missiles at the enemy.

Keep in mind that is already twenty or more reloads! With no breathable air in sight, I explore downstairs:

Below the command room is the missile bay. An airlock to the south requires an ID card.

West of the missile bay is the fan room. A traitor who “looks dangerous” there, holding a gun. Doing anything to try to hurt him just gets me shot. How is he breathing?

East of the bay is an equipment room with a radiation suit. I do not have enough breath to pick it up and get it back to the room with the radiation.

The north end is the crew quarters where I find a “card” on the floor. I am excited that it might be the ID card that I need, except that it is a playing card, the ace of spades.

West is a shower and ventilation grate. I try to unscrew it with the screwdriver, but my screwdriver is the wrong size! I also pick up some shampoo.

East of the crew area is a galley with a dull knife. I try to take that to the shower grate, but there’s not enough time.

In the far north is a torpedo room with a wrench. More importantly, there’s a weapons locker to the east containing a gas mask. I can breathe again!

In little 5-turn increments, I explored most of the sub and only found a gas mask in the last possible room. What was the odds of that? With the mask on (just picking it up is sufficient; “wear”-ing it just tells you that you are already holding it), I can explore the rest of the game and start smashing the puzzles. Except, I’m a liar because I only have around 10-15 more turns before the enemy ships (that I saw on the scanner and periscope) catch up to us. I am trading one time limit for another, but at least I have wiggle room. What can we do in 10 turns?

My first puzzle is the grate in the shower room. I theorized before that I could use the dull knife, but I could not get there before I ran out of breath. This time when I use “unscrew grate”, the game knows that I intended to use the knife and it opens! I can crawl south into a ventilation duct and see an opening down into the fan room. Obviously, this has something to do with the traitor who has parked himself there, but I don’t see anything I can do yet. I end up restoring when the enemy captures the sub and I’ll have to come back to this puzzle later. As an aside, the “traitor” has to be a “him”, even though the game doesn’t say so. The US Navy did not allow women to serve on subs until 2011, as sad as that statement sounds today.

My next trick is to check out the radiation area. I grab the radiation suit from the equipment bay and head back upstairs. The radiation-filled room is used by the sonar. There is a “bolted-down” sonar system as well as a power cable here. I spend more time than I care to admit trying to find the right verb to unscrew the bolt, but I fail anyway because they are rusty and too tight. We haven’t found any oil, but the shampoo might be slippery enough. I try it and the bolts come loose! I don’t get to do anything else because I run out of time again.

Oh, duh. I am on a submarine! I restore and head to the ballast room. I set the ship to dive. A few turns later we have a “bang!” when we hit the bottom of wherever we are, but it doesn’t seem to be an issue.

Where was I? The sonar system! I do that all over again and notice that while the system is clearly labeled “radioactive”, I cannot pick it up because the power cable is stuck. I use the cable cutters from the radio room and solve that problem easily. Now what? I take my radioactive prize to the ducts by the shower and drop it down into the fan room below. When I run down to investigate, I discover that he died of radiation poisoning! I pick up his gun, but what I am supposed to do next?

Let’s take stock of what puzzles remain:

Two locked doors, one near the beginning of the game and an airlock to the south that requires an access card.

Some enemies are chasing us and could have depth charges. Can I blow them up with our super advanced missile systems?

The “escape tube” that I started in seems the best avenue for leaving the sub, but I don’t see how to do that yet.

Of these, the most promising is the locked door at the start. I didn’t find a key, but I discover that I can shoot the lock! That door leads to the captain’s quarters. He’s dead, but he didn’t die of the poison gas. Instead, he left a suicide note:

Suicide is painless? Maybe only in the Korean War.

There’s a nice little detail on this note, placing the submarine as SSCN-718. These are US Navy hull classification numbers and a good sign that Moriarty and the Analog team researched for the game. There is no SSCN classification in real life, but the designation would likely indicate that this is a coastal-waters submarine (the SSC) classification with nuclear weapons (the trailing N). I also like that the captain’s name is Captain R. D. Avatar. This game predates Ultima IV and Moriarty was probably thinking of the more generic “avatar” rather than the Ultima variety.

Searching his body, I uncover his ID card which opens up the airlock to the south. That leads us to a missile bay in two sections: the lower section contains a locked arming switch, while the upper bay contains a digital display. That display also has X and Y coordinates, although they are different than the ones in the navigation room. Pushing buttons nearby adjusts the coordinates. I do not have a way to get the coordinates of our enemy; the sonar system didn’t give those to me even prior to when I dropped it on a murderer’s head. Am I supposed to use the coordinates of our own ship? That sounds vaguely like suicide. Since those are the only coordinates that I have seen in the game so far, I set the missiles to those. It takes a long while since the numbers only increment by eight for each button press.

Now, I need to find the key to unlock the firing mechanism… but I cannot find it anywhere. I eventually take a hint which tells me that I need to look at the radiation suit again after wearing it. Some idiot left the firing key in the suit! I do my thing and the firing mechanism is activated. There’s one more button in missile control to push and… boom?

Fade to white.

There’s no text that explains what happened, at least none that I can see before the screen clears, but we don’t need to have it spelled out: we nuked ourselves. Worse, that is apparently the correct answer because we kept the sub and all of its technologies out of enemy hands. Yay? This is the “win” screen so I’ll just end the game right here. I suppose it’s a better “you die!” ending than Infidel.

Time Played: 1 hr 45 min

Final Rating

That was a fun little game, although we must emphasize “little”. Type-in games can never be tremendously large and Moriarty did a good job with narrative efficiency. Let’s see how that comes out in our PISSED rating system:

Puzzles and Solvability – The game’s central mechanic for at least the first half is to die frequently and try again. Needing to discover the gas mask within five turns, then realize that you need to dive (which itself is not difficult) in ten to fifteen more, takes up most of the game’s thought-space. After that, we have a few clever things like dropping the radioactive sonar thing on the traitor and nuking ourselves to keep the sub out of enemy hands. I needed to take one hint. I almost want to bump it up one point, but my first instinct is that this is only worth two points. My score: 2.

Interface and Inventory – The interface is boxy and takes up a lot of space, which is good because otherwise we’re realize just how little text is in this game. Other games used the “windowed” approach for an interface by 1984, but I see little value in having an always-visible inventory and other features. The parser itself wasn’t great but it worked well enough with two-word commands only and no intelligence for the noun selection. You had to “push green” instead of “push button”, for example, because the game isn’t smart enough to know if there is only one button in the room. My score: 2.

Story and Setting – This score is likely going to be the best of the game. The story and feelies are great! The captain’s suicide is relatively unexplained, as is the traitor’s motivations and identity, but the overall idea of a submarine so secret that it has to be kept out of enemy hands at all costs is a good one, especially in 1984. The space was also designed well and the small number of rooms added to a feeling of claustrophobia which benefited the setting. My score: 4.

Final map of the game with only 22 rooms.

Sound and Graphics – I almost want to give points here because of the screen design and the use of the “feelies” to augment the object descriptions, but I really cannot. We have never given points in this category just because a game has a nice manual and I won’t start now. My score: 0.

Environment and Atmosphere – While I did not enjoy the timers for their puzzle-factor, the constant racing to beat the clock made the game tense. The small size of the ship and even the “bang” as we strike the bottom of whatever shallow waters we are exploring help sell the claustrophobia of the situation. Even with the limited text, Moriarty writes well enough for some kudos. My score: 3.

Dialog and Acting – Alas, the game is limited when it comes to game text and occasionally it’s not even clear what you are doing. The game also cuts to white for the ending so quickly that you only realize in retrospect what just happened. My score: 1.

Adding up the scores: (2+2+4+0+3+1)/.6 = 20!

This isn’t a huge score, but higher than Fifth Dimension’s 13. That is understandable given the challenges of writing a type-in, but I suspect there was something else involved. Both of Moriarty’s games for Analog were as much “challenge exercises” for him as they were games. Moriarty first challenged himself to create a BASIC game that worked even on the smallest systems. He then forced himself to re-use a name and cover art from an abandoned project. Even Wishbringer was a challenge to craft a story into an existing universe and that turned out amazingly well. Maybe Moriarty was just the type of guy that thrived under adversity, but I cannot help but think that he could have made even better games if he had fewer strings attached. Is that what we will find with Trinity?

With the last of his pre-Infocom games out of the way, we’ll be looking at Trinity next, probably at the beginning of January. I am playing a stubborn Christmas game right now and have a deadline coming… See you soon!

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/missed-classic-78-crash-dive-1984/

[betwixt-these-pages]

 Android Love, Human Skin by Richard Godwin Black Jackal Books Publication Date:  March 17th, 2018 Get a copy here!

BLURB:

Welcome to a world of four genders.

A dystopian science fiction novel that explores the nature of gender and sexual conflict and the addition to pleasure in a virtual world.

Welcome to the four genders in a future with no planned conflict, a utopia of pleasure engineered by the union.

Society has been revolutionised by gender control and the technologisation of man and woman. In a future where a biochemical weapon has removed the skins of the population, the rulers hunt for the beautiful ones, those men and women who still have skins. The union is the new government, a faceless body of politicians who were behind the order to use the weapon that backfired on them, leaving them skinless.

In the glass citadel, the new utopia, where the only surviving humans with skin are placed, they recreate the world of gender by offering humans four types of robot with which to have relationships. All the humans are placed in relationships with machines, apart from Gerald, who appears to be a spy for the union and is filming the humans, and Elliott, a robot programmer. The union watches it all, political voyeurs in a totalitarian state of enforced sexual ecstasies.

Humanity falls into four categories…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

 Richard Godwin is the critically acclaimed author of Apostle Rising, Mr. Glamour, One Lost Summer, Noir City, Meaningful Conversations, Confessions Of A Hit Man, Paranoia And The Destiny Programme, Wrong Crowd, Savage Highway, Ersatz World, The Pure And The Hated, Disembodied, Buffalo And Sour Mash, Locked In Cages, Crystal On Electric Acetate, The Glass House, Android Love, Human Skin, and Insincerity. His stories have been published in numerous paying magazines and over 34 anthologies, among them an anthology of his stories, Piquant: Tales Of The Mustard Man, and The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime and The Mammoth Book Of Best British Mystery, alongside Lee Child. He was born in London and lectured in English and American literature at the University of London. He also teaches creative writing at University and workshops. You can find out more about him at his website http://www.richardgodwin.net , where you can read a full list of his works, and where you can also read his Chin Wags At The Slaughterhouse, his highly popular and unusual interviews with other authors.

Blog – http://www.richardgodwin.net/blog

Twitter – https://twitter.com/stanzazone

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/stanzazone/

GIVEAWAY

Giveaway to Win 1 x e-copy of Android Love, Human Skin (Open INT)

*Terms and Conditions –Prize is a mobi or PDF. Worldwide entries welcome. Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below. The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then I reserve the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over. Any personal data given as part of the

competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time I will delete the data. I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.

CLICK HERE FOR THE GIVEAWAY

  Quick Reasons: interesting plot; intriguing story/characters; weirdly written snippets that read more like mini-stories than a novel; fascinating world-building

entertaining

disappointing

creeptastic

hot and steamy

Huge thanks to Richard Godwin, Black Jackal Books, and Rachel’s Random Resources for sending a free digital galley of this title my way in exchange for an honest review! This in no way altered my read of or opinions on this book.

This was a fascinating read, for sure. The world-building is intriguing, though I felt like it left a bit to be desired in terms of bridging the gap between characters and the world. While I anticipated there would be a certain amount of bedroom scenes, I felt as if the only place we ever really saw these characters was in bedroom snippets–and I mean snippets literally.

There was a weird amount of very short, very snapshot-like chapters. I didn’t feel we were given a proper amount of time with each character to be able to get to know THEM fully–instead, we got tiny glimpses into their lives, but only in the middle of things like eating and coupling. The outside world was lost to the smallest moments in bedrooms, in dining rooms. While I got the general idea, I felt like there were too many characters being focused on, and therefore not enough actual focusing happening.

This was an interesting and entertaining read, though I felt like it was more “snapshot stories” than “fully realized novel.” The world-building was good, though there was a bit of a disconnect between the characters and the outside world–and quite a large obsession with sexual favors. I’d recommend this read to lovers of erotic sci fi, futuristic worlds, and thought-provoking perspectives. Is your skin real, Penguins…or merely “human?”

Blog Tour, Giveaway, and Review: Android Love, Human Skin  Android Love, Human Skin by Richard Godwin Black Jackal Books Publication Date:  March 17th, 2018 Get a copy here!

[doxampage]

Book Printing: Tips on Preparing Book Cover Art

A book printing client of mine is about to send a 5.5” x 8.5” perfect-bound book to press. She and her husband, a publishing team for literary books of prose and poetry, have circulated “galley-proofs” (lower production quality versions of the book for editors and reviewers to use for commentary), and the reader suggestions will have been introduced into the final-copy art files shortly.

What this means is that the page count is in flux. And that in turn affects the overall price of the book (and the dollar payment my clients will need to send before the production work begins), plus the width of the spine is also in flux, so the cover designer is in a wait-and-see mode at the moment.

Regarding the last comment above, here’s the rub. The designer will need to create a single file with the back cover on the left, then the spine, then the front cover, all side by side. For this particular print book, there will also be French flaps (3.5” extensions on either side of the back and front cover). When folded in, these French flaps will provide a little interior space to print an author bio, reviewers’ quotes, or marketing blurbs. They will also make the paper-bound book look more like it has a dust jacket (like a hardcover book).

So reading from left to right, the final art for the cover will include a 3.5” French flap followed by a 5.5” x 8.5” back cover followed by a spine (indeterminate size at the moment) followed by a 5.5” x 8.5” front cover followed by a 3.5” front cover French flap. To this the cover designer will add bleeds for this four-color printed product (the interior of the book is simpler: black text throughout, with no bleeds).

All of these components need to be stitched together, but more importantly they must be of the correct measurements, or the spine art will end up wrapping onto the front or back cover and looking just plain ugly.

Fortunately the caliper of the interior text paper is known: 400 ppi. For the ease of the math, that means that if my client’s book winds up being 400 pages, the spine will be one inch. In actuality it will probably be 256 pages (it has ranged from about 264 pages down to 250 pages—for the digitally printed “reader’s galleys”). So the spine will be more than half an inch and less than an inch (.64”), but the exact size cannot be finalized until the page count is firm. That means the Photoshop file (the cover designer likes to work in Photoshop rather than InDesign) will need to be fluid, and the final press-ready PDF cannot be distilled until the text pages have been finalized.

In your own print buying work, there are three take-aways from this case study to consider:

Understand the concept of paper thickness or caliper, and get this information from your book printer once you have chosen a paper stock. To be safe, after you have calculated the spine width, have him confirm your math. It’s better to be safe.

Learn how to stitch together the various pieces of a book cover, making sure the overall size is correct, with or without bleeds, and the pages are in the correct order (back cover, spine, front cover).

Send your book printer both the native Photoshop or InDesign file (to his specifications) and a press-ready PDF (to his specifications).

Don’t be surprised, or upset, if your book printer needs you to make some final technical adjustments and resubmit these files. This is complex work.

Further Thoughts

Here are a few more things that I do when I design a print book cover. You might find them useful.

The Color of the Paper

The clients noted above often print the text blocks of their books on a cream stock. That is, the color of the paper is tinted slightly yellow, in contrast to bright white sheets that are tinted slightly blue. (The blue-white is less noticeable. It just looks like a very bright white.)

When my clients add a 12pt C1S cover to this text block, it is usually blue-white rather than natural, cream, or warm white. Usually, my clients print the inside front and back covers as well as the outer front and back covers and spine. The difference between the bright blue-white of the interior covers and the cream white of the text is not visible to the reader at this point because of the ink on the interior covers (it distracts the reader). However, if my clients choose to print a book on cream stock and they have nothing printed on the interior covers, the difference in paper shade between the blue-white interior covers and the cream white text block will be visible.

In cases like these I have often encouraged them to choose a bright white shade for the text as well as the cover.

As an alternative, could my clients print the covers on a cream-white cover sheet? Presumably. However, printing four-color process imagery on a yellowish tinted paper will change the tone of the inks. Remember, process inks are transparent, so the substrate will affect the perceived color of ink printed on an off-white substrate.

So it’s a trade-off. Depending on the colors, my clients may actually either have a bright white cover and cream white text, and live with the difference, or they might print four-color imagery on cream cover stock—depending on the colors in the images. It’s usually not good to print flesh tones on a cream substrate, since facial coloration can look odd (i.e., jaundiced).

Coated One or Two Sides

On a related note, when my clients do print on the interior covers, I always specify a C2S paper (coated two sides). Many coated cover sheets are specified this way: as 80# cover, for instance, rather than 10pt C1S. It can be assumed that cover stock paper has coating on two sides, since this is not specified, whereas C1S paper specified in points (10pt., 12pt.) is coated on only one side because the notation says it is.

I encourage my clients to do this for the following reason. Ink behaves differently on a coated, vs. uncoated, surface. Ink sits up on the top of a coated surface, but it seeps into the paper fibers if there’s no coating. Because of this, four-color imagery printed on the front of a C1S (coated one side) sheet will have a completely different look than four-color imagery printed on the uncoated interior covers (front and back). Ink on the interior covers in this case would seem dull in comparison. If you want that look (a softer, crunchy granola look), it fine if it’s done throughout a book, but it looks odd if it’s done on the inside front and back covers only.

(On a related note, keep in mind that all of the text blocks of this particular client’s books are printed in black ink only on uncoated paper stock. Everything I’m saying would become far more complicated if my clients were to shift to four-color interior text blocks. In fact, at that point, I’d suggest that they either print both the cover and text on coated stock or print the cover and text on uncoated stock, depending on the effect they were seeking.)

Print Out a Hard Copy

One thing I always suggest for my clients’ book covers is that they print out a hard copy on paper with crop marks and printer’s bars. They may need to tile the pages and then tape them together. But the idea is for them to have a full-size physical representation of the cover, ruled out to show the bleeds. This will make it abundantly clear–in ways that often elude the viewer who only looks at the cover on-screen—as to whether everything is correct.

You can see where the type falls on the spine: whether it is centered vertically, or whether it is too high or low. You can see whether the front or back cover art is centered on the page (exclusive of the bleeds, which can be misleading, because once you draw pencil marks–“rule out the cover”–to connect the trim marks, you can see what the cover will look like after it has been printed and trimmed to size).

All of this is visible on a computer screen, granted. Maybe I’m just “old school.” But I do find it easier to see the flaws when the entire front and back cover and spine are before me in actual size (not enlarged or reduced– zoomed in or out). You can always catch the errors at the physical proof stage (and I would encourage you to request a hard-copy cover proof rather than depending on a virtual proof for a print book cover), but why pay to fix errors you can catch by just printing out and taping together a cover mock-up?

Book Printing: Tips on Preparing Book Cover Art published first on https://getyourprintingcompanies.tumblr.com/

[unproduciblesmackdown]

spent the evening reading through all of the like galley pdf copy of the 2 trans 2 furious zine and a great time start to finish like it was Not an effort to keep at it despite its being like 160 pgs. and despite my not having ever seen a f&f movie or really especially directly "correctly" being interested, though i'd ofc love to see any of the films like live & in person w/a bunch of trans strangers, say

laughed and teared up multiple times and thought about how impressive and creative entries were and like, the momentum was easy, everything was engaging and intriguing and invigorating and enriching....and Printed Editions (that ship to US & canada) are still available for pre-order, for about another week (also the window given for us going over the digital copy for edits/corrections lol) soooo. again i like haven't seen any f&f movies, and that didn't impede anything at all, and it was a fantastic time:

and another reason i'm like Oh My God So Appropriate To Have Sent In An Entry is how, like, it's all transformative fun and serious yet not somber Media Analysis on media you don't have to have actually even seen, or "like" straightforwardly, or at all, or be the "correct" audience for, or have an "intended" interpretation, lol, lmao....like this is Extremely our shit out here lol, what one is up to all the time in the world of Billions Series Analysis like, personally haven't even seen it, i'm not cishet enough to be the intended audience or otherwise sharing various particular assumed perspectives that are occasionally required to even parse, much less enjoy, some material....and yet!!

and like, if there was an all-autistic contributor's fun fan media analysis / commentary / parody / exploration / transformation / etc zine about billions? it'd be like wow how exactly me, and yet ofc i'd be at way more of a loss at what to scream abt winnie, perhaps ft. & tay, and the overall [billions]ing, much less how to actually execute that lol. it was easier to do a Very 101 Intro To: Cam Stone Exists Btw, nonbinarily, in that i limited myself to One Page so i could actually feasibly get it done, but in doing so i, as expected, could only say a fraction of what i could say about cam, were i explaining things in full / just unleashed, and skim the surface but just go "they exist btw and here's a tiny bit of further 101 info." it's not like, An Issue, b/c i don't think the [everything] that i could say would work great in full, and i can't write a great little short form piece of text about them (or winston, or anything else)....but it was also like, well if a trans f&f zine Doesn't have the trans f&f character in it then what are we doing, and We Know Of Cam Stone, so the most feasible [handing out a flyer] version of telling ppl they exist has gotta be done

and it's like, it's (relatively?) matter of fact to this end of only having so much room to put in words, and definitely ending up having to squeeze lines in vs struggling to fill the space. it could've been weirder, or funnier, or hornier, but it successfully exists and maybe it's a little weird, funny, and horny (drew an Especially [ooh sexy cam stone]-tinged pic lol) and whatever is difficult for me to perceive abt my own personality infusion in whatever, like how i have to be reminded like oh right, my Art Style, the way that Eye draw lol....and of course, i can't and don't expect my one page informative crash course intro to cam stone to be able to be Everything, any more than years' worth of lots of [winston billions] material in various formats of various extensiveness from various angles has been Everything. and the zine as a whole can't be Everything but it is, in fact, So Much abt So Many Things from so many different approaches. i enjoyed everything, especially like, "An Ode to X" as in fast x, which evolves into "x" as an (implicitly nonbinary) in-universe character and i was Moved and teared up, and i see it immediately follows "Jason Statham Will Call My Dad A Pussy In Fast 12" which moved me and made me tear up, which follows an entry that's a haiku about each film, none of which i've seen, which i didn't get misty about of course but was fully engaged with and enjoys, which follows my entry

there's naturally plenty about roads and horizons and racing and speed and i'm also like, i'm a gay who can drive, and i can feel it re: the trans contributor whose entry mine follows which is about their irl experiences driving in a demolition derby, inspired by f&f. and i can feel it re: enjoying f&f beyond how you're "supposed" to, or how you would in a cishet(tm) way, and how so many of these entries had resonance, and that intrigue and engagement, and lenses on where to find explorations of gendering which will kind of Have to come up whenever anything succeeds in approaching things that are genuine and really truly more To Life, even while the point of f&f is not to be "realistic," especially about, you know, the driving and what you can do with cars, which i fully appreciate and definitely understood more for cam stone being in a story ramming through a wall outracing an avalanche hacking cop cars and defusing bombs and ramping over bucket wheel mining excavators and being swept out of the way of a train that was going full speed but silent until like 0.05 sec ago when it also burst through a wall or something? and whomever all is involved with racing like a rocket launch fr. and having fun, being yourself, and killing people, hell yeah

and like, the [this is like my autistic ass out here laser pointing at winston billions as autistic and having that lens on this media that doesn't intend it or directly invoke it] relevance also Of Course in that, through kompenso, that is where it is like yes as i have that personal symposium of ongoing compounding unfolding branching distilling consideration, analysis, appreciation, transformation, etc going on, so too does my colleague as the world's preeminent tayficionado, which is where they looked into akd's oeuvre and found the cam stone material, and passed it on to me, then passed on the [zine call for trans f&f contributions], So

and that, just like as is also found crucially in kompenso / the then preexisting & all eventually following winnie n tay material, there's that Autistic and Trans resonance. some particular quotes from this zine were especially like, oh, pointing, pointing...."Thirty minutes into my visit, I suddenly just didn’t want to be there anymore. I didn’t feel angry, not really very sad at all either. I just longed to be elsewhere. A different place, with different people, within a different moment. And then every cell in my body pleaded to not feel that way in all of my moments, in every group of people, in all places." ....[from a poem, ft. formatting thusly:] "It made me feel important, kind of? Like, more present? Like people talked about me a lot but never exactly about ME, if you know what I mean. I mean, of course sometimes I could feel something inside of me. A sneaking or, like, a skittering. I just kind of figured everyone feels that sometimes, like really deep down, right? It’s just that no one really talks about it, you know. That’s what I figured." ....[from a section of a contribution w/the context of the author not yet knowing that they're trans]: "but he was familiar and didn’t make me think too critically about much in the world, especially myself, especially as he never seemed too interested to ask me about me—not that I would’ve had much insight to share at the time beyond “please do not think too deeply about how I am.”"; and then, w/the context that they do realize, and have expressed, that they're trans: "but I was still learning about the concept of mattering, so I didn’t push the issue of basic respect at the time." ....from another submission, that is Sooo: "maybe i am transing Fast and Furious just by loving it" ...."Discovering, loving, and sharing this franchise (and myself) with others has been such a wildly different experience—maybe even the opposite experience—than self-policing myself into who I thought I should be. It’s nourishing, welcoming—an open invitation to learn and grow rather than an ongoing test to constantly worry about failing."

an ongoing test to constantly worry about failing....here ofc a parallel to Gendering, and, ofc, the autistic & trans [handshake] and resonance, to Autisting....i resonated with plenty, genderingly, but this wasn't a surprise or even like, my focus, and of course not all the entries themselves Textually mention [gendering], but it's like, a trans space in a zine lol, a baseline of that understanding and perspective, vs having to be actively looking. nonzero textual neurodivergence mentions, too, and other lenses of ways to be Othered / non normative, like race, nationality, religion. the overarching, Constant [omg sooo me] resonance is that of like, having this foundation of refusing Limits, of approaching a Rich Text a hundred different ways, w/different tones, and different formats, and different experiences and ideas explored. you don't need the source material to acknowledge any noncishet people textually exist (to be understood by noncishet audiences), or to be deemed Good, or Enjoyed, or your entry to be proffered as like, correct and definitive rather than One exploration you could offer up, amongst many offered by many others who could say more, again, differently....i've been like, balancing excitement for having this contribution, and its being like ooh fancy lol this is the one time i can say i have (non self-)published work, and it'll be Out There, and (including all contributors' gifted copies) apparently that ft. abt a thousand printed copies atm, and the digital distribution option hasn't happened yet....along with, like, it can't even be my comprehensive, definitive [cam stone exists btw] theoretical Ideal Entry lol b/c that would not be feasible for me to make or to be put into a zine. knowing i have Points on my side for it being crucially relevant lore (and the competition being hotter for the small form text entries, though there's other illustrations, comics, collages, edits, etc) like, yeah the strength of this isn't in its being as weird or funny or horny as anything could be, lol....but my Personality is embedded in it as per like, see: how that Journey of relevant interests and enthusiasms and engagements and perspectives and weirder, hornier, more extensive and varied works led up to and contribute to this piece's existence (such as, years of drawing winston 9000 times being part of how my drawing looked in march, when i made the cam stone piece)

and like, in not seeing everything as a test to fail, in seeing [when are you seeing things as that test to fail], &/or similarly/overlappingly seeing [when are you seeing things as a test to Prove Value to others or something and achieve person status in their eyes b/c of it] like, lol, i hope a thousand plus ppl learn cam stone exists, and it'd be fun if they enjoy that process. put in little floaty hearts as flair, just as i often do, b/c by now i just Know and Embrace that i do. and i'm not like "i hope everyone ever is blown away" b/c why would they be lol, and that's fine. like how even in [i just say some shit abt winston billions, and ofc abt myself and my experiences / perspectives through winston billions while knowing that's not what's "meant" out here probably maybe though put me through to will roland, yknow...] i'm like oh don't be thinking abt proving your value w/this specific oeuvre lol like. anyone Caring as validation like, it's too late by now, i like people liking shit and getting anything out of it but it's like, i'm doing my thing, i'm having a specific ass symposium abt quantent and billionsing "wrong" that eye enjoy, i enjoy getting any feedback/attention on shit i put out there in case ppl wanna partake, i don't enjoy any/all of it in any/all ways just so long as it's Anything, yknow. like same with interactions/attention on Me as an autistic person who actually exists, lol. speaking being exhausting when it's ppl saying shit At me, would-be "positive" attention that's from someone like deciding what i'm like or what i'm communicating and wanting something from me, that shared discussion Abt something can only be a gateway into like "normal" exchanges to "normally" socialize, finding that pattern of not being worth effort unless it's effort that gets something out of hurting you / thwarting you; all versus: i have plenty of expertise knowing myself vs needing feedback, i like doing my thing, i like doing my thing Alongside others, probably strangers, within a certain context, like being cooped up at college and socially recharging by going ""alone"" to the coffeeshop down the block, while going "with" people would generally be a mixed bag if not disheartening to even distressing. which, here i am, doing my little thing alongside strangers in this context of transgendering and fun and serious but not not funny and varying and daring and earnest materials exploring something that's about anything or everything or nothing, and not made for You, but here you are anyways, as you always have been

anyways, that is to say, like, perfect that it's turned out so like "yeah you don't need to have seen the movies even" and such enriching Reflections and like, so different and yet cohesive without needing to like, painstakingly group or order things to create some Connections, they're all there, and i'm like damn yeah cam's quarter-mile V neck, so fucking true. and i'm like, this is so Me, without having to be like, "and that is b/c i have put Me on the page, in full, with utmost success, and Everyone Will Love It (Me)" lol, which was not like, a danger, but that's through all the years of going [everything is a test i'm failing / can fail at any moment] and yknow, even up to recently and this very moment wrangling with and realizing things like, hand on shoulder are you looking to "earn" some estimation of Value in others' eyes that they can only choose to give by seeing everyone as a fellow person w/inherent value who deserves basic respect. like the mortality mondays that ramped up since late january, but also since '09, but also since like forever in different forms, and back when first discovering billions and, for like the only time while we've been watching, Knowing when everything in a season will air, but also not thinking i'd get to see it, and now in a similar boat, but different (having done "nothing" on paper over the years but like, been Realizing Things, been powering up, been assigning the Value to myself and Understanding myself & my experiences further. and also other things that you Could put on paper, but yknow), and like, it's still about [grr let me see billions through, even though i don't even see billions] and still about [!!!] despite it all and things that are "unserious" and also not and who needs like a certain kind of validation from enough of certain kinds of people

anyways, the autistique resonance within it, and in the process of reading it, and having our specific path to sending something in, and making it. it's an excellent ride and it's very epic that it exists so consider that print copy preorder if you want (plus the intended eventual digital distribution option, not yet available)

[dtraversscott]

Photocopy Phantasia

So I don’t have the original electronic files for my first novel. (It was published in 1997). Despite cracking open every old laptop and floppy disk in our house, no luck. It’s sort of OK because the final edits to the book were all done on paper. Yes, even in 1997, the publisher sent me a paper copy of the proofreader’s galleys on which to write my mark ups and comments.

One of the reasons I’ve never done anything with the book, even after I had the rights restored to me, was because I didn’t have a digital version to work with.

Well, I tackled it the analog way and spent some time the other day photocopying the entire book. Then I scanned them to PDFs, so now the whole original first edition is available for free on the Internet Archive. 

But, I want to do some kind of deluxe super fab queertastic 20th anniversary remix. So, I’m thinking about serval options:

1. Use optical character recognition to convert the PDFs to text that I can edit and rework.

2. Markup the hard copy printouts by hand and rescanning them into a new annotated PDF.

3. Cutting up the hard copy printouts in a random remix.

4. Annotate the complete PDF of the first edition digitally, like I did with the book’s old website. 

I may do none or all of there. What would be most interesting?

Everything will continue to be available for free through Internet Archive.

[hermanomayorycelador]

My Publishing Journey

I don’t know when I became a voracious reader, but by the time I was maybe ten, I had a hundred Scholastic books on my shelf. Reading very likely contributed to my desire to become an author. I don’t exactly remember either why I decided on the subject of my first book, but the more I became committed to the arcane topic the more I wanted to get my father’s story out there to preserve a dying tradition for my culture. With that in mind, in 1990 I wrote my manuscript, revised it, and gladly turned it over to a dear friend who was fluent in Spanish (some Spanish/Spanglish is included but most is also defined in context) so she could go over the whole thing. When I was pretty confident with the revisions, I printed it out and submitted it with my query to four publishers one at a time (I’d read somewhere that it wasn’t kosher to submit simultaneously.) When the first publisher kept it for three months, I began to feel optimistic; however, they sent it back with the rejection rationale that it read like more of a biography than a novel (guess they were looking for the novel). So I promptly sent it out again, and six weeks later received the second rejection; this time the reason was that it read more like a novel than a biography (guess they were looking for the bio that time). Anyway, two more rejections followed in the next few months. Snail mail made the entire process take about six months. Disheartened by my rejections, I put the whole project away and devoted my time and effort to my family and my career. Teaching English required so many hours of essay grading, lesson planning, taking courses to become a bilingual teacher, taking more courses to become an Advanced Placement teacher—the next two decades quickly passed. In 2014 several months after I retired, I decided I would try one more time to get my father’s story published. So with new fervor, I rewrote the entire manuscript, all 289 pages because the only draft I had was my old hard copy—printed on a Dot Matrix printer, no less—I’d used for submissions back in the ‘90s. Also, since it had been written with some program from the mid ‘80s and no PC currently has any portal for the old five-inch floppy disk the manuscript was saved on, what else could I do? So I typed my fingers off for the next few months, did some research on details I’d added, edited, revised, edited again until I was once more satisfied it was the best I could do. (It wasn’t.) What follows is a timeline of the process I’m still undergoing to get my book out there to the masses. 1. 4.16.16 I sent out queries only after researching what I needed to do to create a query destined to hook whomever read it. 2. 4.18.16 I received four acceptance emails from each publisher. After following up with each, I found that three wanted cash up front—one promised to help me self-publish for a little over $2K; two wanted about $1,500 up front; and the one I went with only asked that I purchase 200 copies of my own book at a 50% discount. If/when I sold them all, I’d double my profit. So I sent the last publisher my manuscript to see if he’d actually want to publish. 3. 4.19.17 I created my Facebook author page, linked it to my Tumblr blog and Twitter. At least once a month, I post a teaser to keep readers interested. 4. 4.20.16 I sent publisher my Facebook business page and Tumblr links so he could see the promotions I’d already started. I also sent my attachments to the manuscript: forward, afterward, dedication, and author bio. 5. 6.22.16 My publisher finished reading my manuscript and we decided to go forward. 6. 7.18.16 We discussed the contract. 7. 8.11.16 Publisher sent contract which I promptly forwarded to a lawyer for advice. 8. 8.18.16 I returned the signed contract to publisher after we discussed the lawyer’s concerns. 9. 8.30.16 Meanwhile as all this time was passing between emails, I had decided to go over my manuscript again and to my dismay discovered about 55 errors (a typo, redundant use of same word, personal preferences in changes to syntax or detail, and oh my goodness, a dangling modifier! How careless I’d been, thinking it was pretty perfect the first time.) I resent the corrected manuscript that would be also forwarded to the editor my publisher chose. 10. 9.15.16 This was the date my publisher and I agreed upon for all attachments. 11. 9.16.16 Editor emailed so we could get acquainted. 12. 9.21.16 Editor phoned and we exchanged information regarding manuscript. 13. 9.22.16 Publisher and I discussed through email photos to go with text and reader reviews. I snail mailed a request for a review from a well-known author, Rudolfo Anaya, who’d actually written me in the nineties when I asked for publishing advice. Another request went out to Barbara Villaseñor, owner of Charles Publishing in California, for permission to use the review she’d written back in the 90s also. 14. 9.23.16 I sent the publisher two positive and complimentary reviews I’d gotten back in the 90s. 15. 9.26.16 Editor emailed that she was in the midst of reading/editing the manuscript. 16. 10.13.16 Publisher acquired a well-known local artist to do the cover art. 17. 10.14.16 R. Anaya responded with his review and B. Villaseñor also replied that I could indeed use her review if I sent her a copy of my book. 18. 10.19.16 Editor sent me her notes. 19. 10.23.16 Editor returned the first edited manuscript. 20. 10.26.16 Cover artist sent her sketch. 21. 10.30.16-11.2.16 I went over editor’s comments, corrections, suggested changes. Reviewed the manuscript three times during this time period. 22. 11.15.16 Cover artist made the deadline for spring catalog with her first painting of my book cover. 23. 11.18.16 Sent the manuscript for the second time back to the editor. 24. 11.27.16 Editor sent some changes I rejected immediately. 25. 11.30.16 Well-known author James Santiago Baca is reading my manuscript to offer a review. 26. 12.9.16 Received amazingly detailed review from JS Baca and just about cried with joy. 27. 12.12.16 Editor reviewing attachments (foreword, etc.)/12/14 she returned them. 28. 12.20.17 Editor finished 2nd edit of manuscript. 29. 1.7.17 I emailed/messaged 12 famous authors for marketing advice. Within a week 4 replied with great suggestions. 30. 1.10.17 Cover artist finished book jacket completely. 31. 1.16.17 A Facebook friend, a follower of my author page Googled me and found my book up for pre-order on Mountain Press, my publisher’s book distributor. I emailed him with the news; he responded with a link to us on Amazon. 32. 1.16.-19.17 I put my 200 books up for pre-order on my Facebook author page linked to my personal page; they all “sold” in 4 days. 33. 1.17-21.17 We are now on Target, Goodreads, ETextbooksNow, Barnes & Noble, Fishpond (German), Bol (Dutch) websites. Created my author pages on Amazon and Goodreads. 34. 1.31.17 I started researching more marketing ideas and author support groups. Discovered a talented self-published author who is also a graphic artist. He created my bookmark, connected me to a colleague who made me 1,000 beautiful bookmarks; they’re made of durable card stock and glossy, vivid colors. 33. 2.23.17 My publisher returned my manuscript proofs in PDF format. I had a week to search for any typos/errors everywhere from chapter titles to font to photo captions. I also had to write captions for photos. 34. 3.2.17 My publisher informed me that I now have a Library of Congress number (meaning a copy of the physical book will be housed in the Library as well as having more copyright protection). Wow! 35. 3.6.17 My editor emailed that we’d done excellent proofing of the proofs 36. 3.9.17 My publisher is getting 8 galleys to deliver to reviewers, including NM magazines and book stores. NM and other states’ book sellers, including museum shops, will receive information, in not actual sales calls from representatives. 38. 3.10.17 My galleys arrived (two copies of uncorrected ARPs); Mike and I cried. 37. 3.13.17 I sent Karen (book club coordinator for Las Comadres in Denver) newsletter and 85 bookmarks for promotional purposes. 38. 3. 14.17 My publisher asked me to provide him with a list of places I’d like to go on a book tour. Oh my! My very good friend arranged a connection for me with the Citizens' Committee for Historic Preservation; my launch will be at their location in the first week of May; some of the artifacts in my possession will be displayed there for the entire month of May.