The family and I just returned from an overseas vacation (our first visit to London!), and I was super stoked to check the ol' PO BOX and find the first print proofs of Inheritance of Dust, which I'm prepping for a July 15th release.
It's amazing to hold that first copy in your hands, leaf through the pages, and see years of work finally made real. As much as I love technology, there's nothing quite like a physical book.
Proofs, of course, serve two purposes, both of which are about exposing flaws in the work.
The first is physical and aesthetic, and I'm glad to say that for both, the covers are clear and vibrant, and the text inside is legible and the formatting solid. I owe a lot of that to Vellum, the layout tool that I and many other indie publishers use to produce both eBook and print-ready files.
Proofs also provide a new perspective on the text itself. Taking it beyond the computer or eReader screen allows you to catch issues you might have previously missed. Even though I've employed multiple editorial tools and done more than one manual proofreading pass myself, the physical proof still exposed issues. For example, I quickly noticed inconsistencies in my use of numerals—things like using "7" and "8" instead of the more appropriate "seven" and "eight." These are little things, but it's often such things that signal the difference between books that feel professional versus amateurish.
For me, proofs represent the "final" step of pre-production, before I feel comfortable setting up the sales infrastructure and opening for pre-orders. I have over one hundred thirty line-items in my publishing checklist, which I am about three-fourths through. Once these last edits are complete and I've updated the source files, I'll finalize everything and hopefully get a pre-order setup in the next couple of weeks. When that's ready, you'll be the first to know.
Inheritance of Dust represents the Mars-based chapters of my coming novel Rogue Planet, which I decided to split up when it became clear that my editor's proposed changes would take significant time and effort to implement. Rather than delaying the entire work, I focused my efforts on the Earth-based chapters and released them as Our Once Warm Earth. Now, with the Mars-based chapter edits complete, Inheritance of Dust will complete the story.
Soon, I'll reunite the two novellas and release Rogue Planet, hopefully within the next six months. At that point, I'll retire the novellas and begin work on the second in the planned Rogue Planet trilogy.
For now, though, I'm curious—do you prefer the physical over the digital? How does it feel when you finally approach the finish-line on a long-running project? Anything you're at that stage with now? Any other questions or comments? I'd love to hear from you!
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