You win some, you lose some

A glorious start to the week. The book I have written is a memoir of my four years at the smart American women’s college, Wellesley, during the late 1960s, where I lived across the hall from Hillary Clinton.

Late— very late — Hillary sends me a glowing endorsement. The book took her right back in time: it was a ‘true trip down memory lane’.

And so, at last, I can reveal to you my jacket.

It was designed for me by the talented Joe Ewart, and we went through several iterations before getting it right.

The jacket finalised, and waiting for the print copies of my book proofs to arrive, I start trying to set how much I will charge for my books. And how big a discount to offer retailers. It’s another minefield.

If you don’t charge enough you don’t meet your costs — and books that are too cheap look suspect. And unlike trade publishers, an ‘Indie’ as I have learned to call myself, can’t afford to offer returns and risk running up hundreds of pounds worth of bills.

Meanwhile, time is flying by. Publication is scheduled for 21 May. It is taking days for a printed book to arrive. Yesterday, at last, the first set arrives from Amazon (quicker and easier in every respect to deal with than Ingram Spark). But what is this big ugly print tape NOT FOR RESALE thing bound around the book and a vast bar-code affair obscuring part of the back of the book?

Still: it looks AMAZING. A proper book with 285 pages, nicely laid out with pictures, lists of contents and illustrations. Closer examination however reveals a truism. Ever since the invention of screens, I have been unable to avoid the fact that you spot a printing error far more easily on paper. And, boy, I have got mistakes!

So it’s back to the designer to correct. More days of hold-ups. And the proof from Ingram Spark is still to come. Fingers crossed. Not much time ‘til launch day.