DIY Publishing
June 13, 2007
Just thought i’d share an idea with you.
a few years back I freaked out that maybe all my poetry (in .doc files all over this laptop, the last laptop, and my desktop computer) might be wiped and I would have none of my work. You just can’t trust digital files. That said, my house could burn down and paper wouldn’t hold up too well either, but one is definitely more likely than the other.
So at the time, cafepress.com just started printing books. These days, there is lulu.com as well. Both work well. So i created a pdf file with all of my poetry up until then (2005) and made a book, paid for it myself, and had it delivered. Now i have a paperback hard copy of every poem i wrote over those years. Very cool. Additionally, you get to see how your work would be set out in print, which is a very useful exercise.
Anyway, I decided again this year that I should re-archive stuff and today cafepress delivered (after only a week and a half - not bad for international orders) the book. The design is minimalist on purpose. It has a picture of me so in 25 years I can remember what i looked like when i made this specific book.
(click the image for the larger version)
very very pleased. I definitely recommend this as a form of backing up and archiving your work.
Tip:
Set the selling price to something ridiculous like $500, because you don’t want passersby on cafepress picking up your complete works, before you’ve had a chance to publish them the first time. cafepress will automatically deduct the mark-up because they give you your own products at cost price. But it will prevent other people from buying them.
Don’t leave a poem or a story out because it’s half finished. This is not for the publisher to see. And that half a sentence might come in handy somewhere.
Great stuff Sam..
I was actually thinking of doing a book of my Sydney photos from the last two years for when we leave in September.
comment by Findo — June 13, 2007 @ 5:56 pm
Er… this wouldn’t be classified as procrastinating your honours assignments would it? I do seem to recall a conversation between you and I - you telling me I could have had a whole extra week to work on my Cultural Studies essay - me telling you that instead of stuffing about for an extra seven days I might as well hand it in early.
Now who’s laughing? Me. Hahaha. Oh, being me is so great right now.
comment by Lady Lou — June 14, 2007 @ 12:58 pm
Hi Sam,
Thanks for the open words. I have a theory that in the future we will all lose many of our photos due to digital disasters of one sort or another. I do a similar thing with my photos; a yearbook with the best of what I’ve done in print. I also use a private blog for personal photos, that way the family can keep tabs on what we are up to (live in Germany with family in NZ, AUS, UK and US) and the photos are backed up at the same time.
comment by Mark Hamer — November 29, 2007 @ 10:23 pm