Category: My Book

Good morning my dears,

With all these book’s activities and last preparations to my very first book launch, I am still so overwhelmed and just realized that here is only 6 days until pre-orders for Spring and Summer books..  oh my ;o) So I decided to post every day until June, 13th some details about the coming books. Let’s start from introduction:

This was my very first experience in book-writing and a true labor of love. From the very first pages I was simultaneously absorbed and exhilarated by all the ideas that kept coming and demanding to be shared.

This book grew so fast that soon it got too big to be a single volume, so instead it turned into a series of four books, one for each season. Let me introduce you to the “Imagical Seasons” collection.

“Imagical Seasons” is a series of 4 books and 38 whimsical designs that were inspired by nature and the changing seasons. Each volume, be Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter, will show you how a little imagination can:

• Transform simple ruffle pattern into a nearly endless variety of pretty designs (in Spring book).
• Stitch anything from a blanket to a halter dress using the same square motif with varying yarn weights (in Summer book).
• Adapt and personalize lace-pattern-based designs to hook your own masterpieces (in Fall book).
• Create trendy and cozy garments and accessories for those cold winter days, or a delicate coat for holidays and special occasions—based on patterns that apply variations of a simple puff stitch (in Winter book).

“Imagical Seasons” comes with lots of stunning full-page, full-color photographs, very detailed written instructions that are easy to follow, and unique stitch diagrams that speak the international language of crochet. 

All projects in these books are designed to spark your own creativity and will help you create charming hand-made treasures that will grow with your Princess and excite your creative spirit and imagination. 

And here is the best part—garments come in sizes 2 to 12 years, and there are even a couple of themes for grown-ups!

… While “Imagical” is a portmanteau word—a combination of “imagine” and “magical”, it describes perfectly what I wanted to achieve by writing this book series: bringing unique ideas to life through creative crochet designs.

Spring and Summer books are coming July, 2015!

Pre-orders: June, 15th.

A lovely and amazing day everyone!

My very first two books are about to be released into the world, YAY!!!

Look what I got yesterday ;o) Yes, it’s proofs of Spring and Summer books from Imagical Seasons—a series of 4 books and 38 whimsical designs. The book scheduled to arrive just by end of June.

Pre-orders starts on June, 15th! Save a date and stay tuned!

In the other news—I almost finished my new website, which also will be launched June, 15th. I’ll post more details soon.

…find a dog:

A wonderful and lovely weekend to you all!!!

What a busy weeks, but totally educational and oh_well_exactly_what_I_ dreamed_needed_to_do_right_now things! To be shorter: ISBN, ABI, P.O. Box, SAN, EAN barcode, PCN, CIP data, copyright, decided on a discount schedule and terms, planed on future titles, submitted RFQs + very interesting experience with printing houses as I really hoped! ;o)

Well, I know that I have the followers working on self-publishing too and some who want to try, so bellow is more details and the helpful links:

• ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number. Each version of material needs a unique ISBN. That means you’ll need a separate for the hardcover, softcover, audio, video and e-book versions of the book. You can’t buy just one ISBN, but can order a block of  10, 100, or 1000+ from Bowker. Also, keep in mind that the owner of the ISBN number is the publisher-or-record for the book-so even if you could find another publisher willing to sell you a single ISBN number, that would identify heir publishing house—not—yours—as the publisher of the book (they would then receive the orders, the returns, the checks—you get the idea. If you give or sell one of your ISBN numbers to someone else, you are the publisher of record if they are sued for copyright violation, libel, etc.) This is not the place to cut corners; buy your own ISBNs. Since you need a different ISBN for each version of the work, you’ll need more ISBNs than you may think…
• ABI is R.R. Bowker’s Advace Book Information form. All books announced via ABI are listed in Bowker’s Books in Print. Since Books in Print is used heavily by many in the book industry, it is definitely worthwhile to fill out an ABI. There’s no charge for the ABI service once you have ISBN numbers.
• Rent P.O. Box takes about 5-10 min to fill in the application, but usually here is a waiting list to take the smallest size box (size 1 – $80 per year; size 2 – $129, and so on)
• SAN stands for Standard Address Number, and identifies the different mailing addresses of multi-location companies. Unless your publishing house has multiple addresses for billing and shipping, you can safely skip this step. A SAN costs $150 and can be purchased from Bowker.
• Once you have ISBN, title and price, you can get a barcode. The barcode specific for books is called the “Bookland EAN with price code extension” (you can see my on Spring cover above). EAN stands for European Article Number, and is international product code standard. The barcode costs between $10 and $30 and is available from variety of vendors like Barcode Graphics for example. Sure, you can buy barcode direct from Browker for $25.
• PCN stands for Preassigned Card Number. You can apply for a PCN through the Library of Congress’s PCN program. It’s free and it’s an important part of the CIP block.
• CIP stands for Cataloging in Publication data. This information typically found on the verso of the title page of a book (the copyright page). Librarians use this information when entering the book into their online catalogs. You can apply for a CIP through the Library of Congress’s CIP program. Or hire someone who will help you with CIP block. I found this great CIP service and so glad I did!
• And last thing (I hope!) in this routine is copyright. I still need to check it out.

To find more information about the whole process, I highly recommend The Publishing Game: Publish a Book in 30 days by Fern Reiss.

Also, I worked with printers and got really great experience and discovered a lot interesting things like described in this dictionary ;o) I’ve got quotes from 4 printing houses already, and still wait for 3 more …and the Spring and Summer books will be send to print! I’ll post about my experience with RFQs and printing houses next week.

And last, we have the Fall and Winter covers already! Unfortunately Windows Life Writer makes the pictures grey and I am not sure how to fix that… yeah.

a Wonderful and lovely week to you all!

You know, it’s a pretty hard to describe the feelings of keeping the first pretty own printed book in hands. I’m speechless… and not only because the sample book has two covers and all the pages are shifted so that outer edges go inside ;o) …but because I finally can see the result of true labor of love and one more of my dreams realized… and because it’s a first one…

Well, I need to polish some diagrams and few colors are not bold enough to see on a paper, but anyway it looks solid and even better then I may expected! Now, since we got an idea how the book look on paper, we want to check with couple printers and find the best solution of quality and price (hopefully, less then $15 per book as it is estimated now).
I am looking forward to update you with new status!

Happy and lovely Monday everyone!!

We’ve polished the book covers, and here is a final version:

There’s no limit to perfection ;o)

And we got spine and back cover too! What do you think?

A wonderful and lovely Thursday everyone!!