Thursday, October 25, 2007

MY FIRST MELT DOWN!!!

The more I looked at the cover of my book; the more anxious I got. They only have one more shot at getting my cover like I envision it. Then, I have to pay extra for anything else they do. And they are NOT understanding what I envision! I sent two photographs and asked them to change them into cartoons and put them on the cover. Well, they took the photos and blurred and darkened them. Then put them on the cover. It does not look good!
I called my contact girl about my concerns and she said what I think is a cartoon and what they think is a cartoon may be different. Apparently! I am afraid to send anything else because I can’t communicate with them so they just do what they think I think.
I thought they would be in touch with me before they worked on the cover. However, they do the cover once. Send it. I accept or reject. Then they do another. If I reject, I pay for another. I would like to E-mail or talk to someone in that department to make sure that what they think and what I think is the same! But, I guess that’s not how the publishing works.
As for the Proofreader, I took a good look at the manuscript in book form and there are still many punctuation mistakes. I paid a Line Editor to go over my manuscript. She addressed my sentence fragments, dangling participles and other grammar mistakes. After she finished, there were still minor typos and punctuation mistakes so I paid for a Proofreader and thought he would correct the commas and typos. But he didn’t address the punctuation at all. I also found other mistakes he should have addressed. So, I called my contact girl again and she said someone should have checked the book after the Proofreader sent it back. She asked me to E-mail some sentence examples and they will check if there is a pattern.
So, I am waiting to hear about the Proofreading. Tom is working on a cover for my book and so far it looks great. We have mixed emotions about doing my cover because I am paying for the primer plus publishing package and experts in the field are suppose to be working WITH ME on my cover. Apparently what they think working WITH ME and what I think working WITH ME is also different. I thought they would communicate WITH ME before making the actual cover. I don’t understand why they couldn’t E-mail me and say, “This is what we are working on for your cover? Is this blurry, dark, ugly cover what you had in mind? What do you think?” Then I would TELL THEM EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT OF THE COVER AND EXPLAIN WHAT A CARTOON LOOKS LIKE!!! Then the experts would know how to design my cover.
Now, I have to reject the cover. Then I guess I have two options: I can send the cover Tom is working on and hope they understand it or I can tell them to design a cover and hope for the best.


..........Expert,s Cover. ..................Cover Tom is working on.....

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