It’s a continuing saga.

The book is edited and formatted. I’m 90% finished with designing a website for selling the book, including deciding on all the methods for taking money. I have a book cover. I had decided on a publisher to do an initial print run of 300; hopefully I could sell plenty more and do another run, but I’d start with that.

Note the past tense in that last sentence. I had decided on a publisher after doing a ton of research, and the company I chose seemed wonderful: responsive, polite, reasonable in price, and they even sent me free samples of paper types and a book or two they had published.

Looked good.

I was ready to order my proof copy, and if that went well I’d order the print run of 300. Friday I learned that within the last week the company has suddenly gone out of business. So it’s back to the drawing board on that. I’m researching printing companies again and have selected a number of possible candidates.

By the way, I’ve decided for a host of reasons that print-on-demand isn’t the best way to go. The main reason is that it makes a book far more expensive, and that effect is even more pronounced for a book that has any color pictures. Each essay in this book will have at least one photo, much like Gerard’s blog posts.

The project is taking close to a year longer than I thought it would. But I still hope to issue the book at some point in June. We’ll see.

Happy Mother’s Day!

The problem some of you had yesterday accessing the blog and the comments has been fixed – hopefully, for good.

I’m getting closer and closer to the time when I’ll be able to announce that the book is for sale. All the editing is done. I’ve gotten the blurbs from a few other writers. I have a book cover design.

Lately, though, it’s been taking more time than I thought it would to create a website for selling the book. It’s a different skill from creating a blog, something I’ve done several times before. I thought “piece of cake,” but instead it’s been a rather tough bit of beef jerky. But I’m getting close to finished even with that.

Then it will be time to order a sample copy, and if that works out well I’ll have them do a print run. And then – voila! – I’ll announce on this blog and mine that the book is ready for sale.

In addition, I plan to ask some other websites to mention that the book’s for sale. I also have a list of email addresses of people who donated to Gerard after the fire, and I plan to email them with the announcement and instructions for ordering the book.

I don’t know the exact amount of time all this will take, and I’ve been wrong when estimating the time frame before. But my hope and expectation is that the book will be out by May.