Showing Off My New Book Baby with Formatting Tips

Lookie...my teenage girl is reading BOUND. I received my first set of author copies yesterday and can't get over seeing the product of my imagination in such a tangible manner. It's got weight. I have to share some pictures for those of you who won't get to see the paperback. The kindle version looks good too, but it's just not the same. 

You don't have to fiddle with the formatting as much with the kindle. The software takes care of most of it if you've used Styles to format your Word document. It's a trick I learned way back when I used WordPerfect for writing my PhD thesis. It made the document navigable on the computer. Of course, back then, there were no kindles, but it makes revising so much easier, and when you're keeping track of a hundred details like tables and graphs and pictures and footnotes, being able to link all these things makes life easier. Of course, the learning wasn't smooth. Just ask Michael. I wanted to smash the computer more than once when it didn't do what I wanted it to do. Does anyone here remember Sigma Plot or Corel Draw? I'm getting flashbacks. Anyway. If you have to learn the most useful feature of Word, it's Styles. And if I can do this, so can you.  

I made the kindle version navigable and had chapter titles so that if readers lose their place, they can easily find it again. This happens to me often--I blame the cats--and hate having to scroll. But for the print version, I got rid of anything that might distract from the story. So, no table of contents, chapter titles, headers of any kind. Just page numbers (and what a headache it was trying to number just the main part of the book, lol, but I done did good). I want the magic to happen, for the pages to disappear. I want the reader to be lost in the story, for time to disappear. I also made it easier to read by adding just 0.1 more to the spacing between the lines. There's just that extra breathing space. I love Georgia (the font I use on this blog) for it's roundedness but that would've put the book in excess of 300 pages and page count matters for pricing. So I switched to Times New Roman. The default for many paperbacks is Garamond but it is harder on the eyes. Once I settled on these things, I had so much fun making the pages look good. It's what makes holding the book such a pleasure. 

  


These first five copies will disappear quickly. I just know it. But for now I've placed them on *my* shelf. Don't I look like a new mother with her bookbaby?  It was a tough day with a rotten migraine but it was so great to just hold the book and flip through the pages. I spent a couple of hours reading my favorite bits. I would love to see pictures of BOUND being read by teenagers or even adults, so pretty please share.

 

BOUND Cover Reveal

This is a long time coming but I am insanely happy to see this gorgeous cover of BOUND designed by Derrick Alderman. It's finally available to anybody who wants to read it and so close to our Independence Day!!! So much to celebrate, including the right to publish stories. July 4th plays a major role in my book so the timing is perfect.

Here's the description: Seventeen-year-old Rebecca Joshi, an adopted girl from India, burn survivor, and primary caretaker of her intellectually disabled sister, Joy, has one dream—to be a physician. Her traditional Indian father relies upon Rebecca to care for Joy while he buries himself in work to drown his grief over his wife’s death. Leaving home is the only way Rebecca can envision reaching her goal. She helps Joy develop greater independence, and is devastated when Joy becomes pregnant. Rebecca tussles—with her father and with herself—over who is responsible for Joy and her baby. When Rebecca discovers the truth of what happened the day she was burned, she struggles to hold onto her dream while wrestling with questions of life, love, and responsibility.

Set in the beautiful Palouse, the little town of Pullman, WA, home of Washington State University, where I spent 14 years of my life as a high school and college student. When people ask me why I stayed so long, I always say, I never mastered English 101 :) 

Click on this link for a free preview.


I just love this country, how many opportunities we have, how free we are to live and pray as we wish. I can't get over what a privilege it is to be an American (I got my citizenship at 19). Here are some pretty fireworks from our celebration last night. I think even the gators of Smythe Park were in awe. God bless America!

 

June Celebrations

I never get tired of the view from the choir loft. Today we celebrated the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist. He is the patron of our diocese, our little Latin Mass choir, and also my little blog. He's the only created human being besides Mary whose birthdays we celebrate in Church, given their importance in salvation history. All other saints, it's their death day that's the feast day, for it's their entry into heaven. Fr. Tomlinson gave a beautiful homily but the one thing that touches my heart is that although some, like John or Jeremiah, were called from their mothers' womb, so are we. Every human who's ever existed has a unique purpose. But millions of children are aborted because they are inconvenient. We speak of choice, but it is Satan's choice. Evil. We must fight it however we can. I pray and write.

Max has been interning in DC these past six weeks and I hope he will fight the good fight if he chooses to become a politician. He's on his way home. Michael and Dagny went up there to see him in his element.

So I've had a quiet four days, reading, writing, praying, and formatting BOUND. Oooh boy, I can see why people hire out the print formatting. It truly is a pain. But I'm learning, the cats my constant companions. But Sundays I rest. Went to the beach after Mass. Tide was high, hardly any beach at all, so sat on the rocks and enjoyed the salty spray. So, so beautiful.