Wednesday, November 02, 2005
The Heroes of the Hour
My editorial assistant at Tor, Denis Wong, and publicist, Dot Lin, are my heroes. They have labored tirelessly all this morning doing battle with the inertia of the entire publishing and distribution industries in order to wrangle up sufficient copies of my book for Saturday's launch. What a relief! Well, actually, what a relief it'll be when FedEx does its own magic and gets them here on time. One thing we in Alaska know is that "next day delivery" actually means next couple o'days.
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QUOTES
Fernando Flores:
"Great work is done by people who are not afraid to be great."
Albert Einstein:
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."
Note to the Non-mediocre:
Read Marusek.
My copy from Amazon came in today. It's a nice looking book.
It's nice to see smaller typefaces than usual these days. More book for the buck.
Also, some good blurbs on the back.
Now, crack the cover, sit back and enjoy. Ahhh.
Brian R.
Thanks, Anon.
And thanks, Brian.
The compact type in the book is my small effort to conserve trees.
Actually, that's not true. The real story is that my editor told me to cut my 185,000 word manuscript into two books. Then he asked me to put them back into one. I agreed on the condition he promised not to ask me to cut anything out except for artistic reasons. So, a few months later he gave me a choice. The price of the book had already been set, but in order for Tor to offer it at that price, I had to either cut out 80 pages of story or allow them to set the type small. I am both an author and a graphic designer (and a guy with middle-aged eyes) and so I knew the implications of both options, but the author in me won out and I agreed to small type.
Now that it's out I don't think it's so bad. In fact, design wise, they did an excellent job, from cover to inside text, and I'm pleased with it.
Hope you enjoy the read.
Oho, so it's not divided in two now? That's great news. I was lamenting that I'd have to wait to get the full story.
I don't think the small type is a problem at all. It looks quite sharp. The trend these days seems to be toward larger type, which has it's advantages I suppose, but I've definately felt sometimes that some books have been arbitrarily divided to their detriment.
Brian R.
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