Tag Archives: epub

[Year in Review] 2012

Kittiwake Logo Black Background

When years start passing like weeks they say it is a sign of getting old. What happens when they start doing that when you’re only 26 and look younger?

Oh well…

2012 has been a year from Hell for so many for a variety of reasons. It was also my first full year of operation as a registered independent business… fuck!

All things considered I haven’t done too badly though there have been many setbacks that alas have got in the way of how things are progressing.

Book Releases
It has been a slow year for book releases consisting mostly of my reprints of the History Farce Series

Classic Core Cover

Classic Edition Front

Classic Edition Front

Weird and Wonderful CE Front

Of course out of this scramble to give existing books a facelift and a proper ISBN I also came up with this little gem

Slang Front Cover

More general Sourcebooks like this seem like a good idea: Not only to spread the reach of the History Farce series but to educate people on how very close to that nasty world 300 years ago we are today.

Of course I did manage to squeeze in another full game too…

WBH Front Cover

There’s plenty of potential in what one reviewer calls “a VERY rules light system” (seriously meet my mate Grim, he writes full games in 2 pages) and I hope to be getting back to it shortly with Fantastic Femmes.

Amazon Distribution
The main reason behind the reprints was that I wanted to build up my author profile with lots of proper shiny ISBNs. The result is below…

Lulu

EPublishing
Both EPub and Kindle Formats remain a right royal pain in the arse to use however I am gradually managing it to the point where I am seriously considering EPubing game books too albeit without the fancy formatting or most of the artwork. Do let me know what you think of this idea.

Third Party Publishing
My editing skills have made a real improvement this year thanks mainly to two very talented new authors who let me loose on their work. Do check them out!

How To Lose Friends and Anihilate People

From the Mind of UJames1978

Miniatures
Oh yes these… exist…

Seriously though… they may not all have professionally painted pretty pictures yet but these figures are worth a look for the novelty if nothing else…

Nurse

Fame and Fortune on Teh Internetz
My Review Show Is It Awesome? has found a new home on blp.tv. I know I know it funds a fascist American Political Party but…
1) It’s the only decent site left that understands what “Fair Use” means.
2) I’d have just as much of a problem with it funding the other lot as they are equally deplorable.

Anyhow it isn’t bringing in that much in revenue yet (keep watching) but it is fun to do and helps establish a weekly routine that helps with managing my chronic insanity.

Header Graphic

The Taxman Cometh
Not nearly as scary a prospect as you’d think, particularly when your turnover and profits are so low they actually give you the OPTION of not paying National Insurance. Needless to say I pay it: That’s right Propertarian Lunatics out there I PAY MORE TAX THAN I AM REQUIRED TO. Why? Because I believe in living in a civilised nation with universal healthcare and adequate poverty relief.

Speaking of Which…

Activism
This year in British Politics will go down in history regardless of if we have a future as a civilised nation or not. Between the re-legalisation of Slavery, the stealth dismantling of the NHS and the ongoing act of mass murder now commonly referred to as the ATOS Genocide we’re clearly at a crisis point from which there is no return. Keep up with my personal fight via the activism tag on this blog.

Atos Hollocaust

Personal Disappointments
It is a wonder that I and the various freelance professionals I work with have got anything done this year at all with the situation on both the micro and macro scale world wide getting so utterly stark bollockingly crazy but there are a couple of big disappointments for me.

Fore-mostly my inability to get either CID: Coppers In Disguise or The Scandal Sheets of Sally Sill Volume I remotely close to finished. This is totally the fault of me and my own personal “fuckbrain” issues as Grim would call them. I’ll try and get them done soon.

The other thing bugging me is the ongoing delay of my first comic Kittiwake Girl: The Beginning #1. Dale is the best man for the job and what he has done so far has proved that beyond a doubt however his own issues in this year from Hell have put us behind schedule and delayed my introduction to the world of comics… sorry about that.

2013?
My intention for 2013 is best summed up by that infamous Troll of a British politician Winston Churchill. KBO=Keep Buggering On. I’ll do my damnedest to get you lovely fans as much new material as I can muster and hope you bear with me through the oncoming storms of both my personal and political situation.

Best wishes

Ian

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[Tips and Tricks] Layout Silliness

Monkey Scribe

I’ve been doing book layouts for over a year now and I’ve learnt a few tips and tricks for doing it on the cheap without anything more fancy than Microsoft Word.

Here’s a few hints for my fellow self publishers…

1) Learn how to use Styles: Styles are invaluable for creating bookmarked PDFs and files for EPub and Kindle conversion. They also allow you to set fonts for all Headings at once which can be useful when removing fancy stuff from EPub files.

2) Automatic Paragraph Spacing: With the default “Normal” style for body text you get an automatic paragraph spacing look. With the exception of some game text like profiles this is really useful. If there is one thing that irritates the Hell out of me in Layout it is “run on errors” where due to an edit or a misplaced space lines run into each other or leave gaps at the top of the page. With Headings it is worth removing the Space Above option on the default as this means headings on the top of the page are slightly below where they should be.

3) Kindle and EPub Both of these have their own in built converters (on Amazon and Lulu Respectively) that are easy to use once you get the hang of them. As a rule of thumb it is best to switch fonts back to Times New Roman, remove columns and keep image use to minimum if at all. My initial practice of laying out the print as I go will probably be changed in favour of typing the whole thing out first because of this. Much easier than extracting the text from the draft file.

4) Title Page It Massively saves on Art Costs and layout time to simply put a grey scale version of your cover as the Cover Page for the print. EPub and Kindle of course do this automatically.

Hope these are of some help to those of you wanting to get started and I wish you all the best of luck.

[Release] Shadow World Plays on Kindle!

In order to reach a wider audience I have decided to release Kindle versions of both Shadow World Plays. Click the pictures below to go get them!

BtP Front Cover

CtP Front Cover

Also the original Print versions have been revised in order to distribute them to a wider audience and ePub versions will be appearing on the iBook and Nook stores soon!