Sunday, October 30, 2005

away she goes

it's gone. on friday afternoon i emailed a 15meg pdf of the inside of my book and an 8meg pdf of the cover to the printers.

next step is a bound proof being sent back to me to check before committing to the final print run (one of the luxuries of digital printing).

if you're reading this and you want a copy of the book, it'll be available through my website www.andrewkillick.com. i'll have a paypal system for people outside of new zealand. inside new zealand give me an email (you'll be able to do that through the website too).

next step is to get the website cranking - my next project - happening this week. meanwhile, if you want to email me for pre-ordering the book, contact me on andrew at andrewkillick.com.

i'll keep you updated about when the book is available and about how the website is shaping up.

on the headphones: 'little miss cypher' by pepe deluxe, from the album 'beatitude'. www.pepedeluxe.com

Monday, October 24, 2005

back cover

half-way through labour weekend monday, and the inside pages and back cover are pretty much finished - barring any minor tweekage.

here's the back cover. the inside is looking quite nice indeed - managed to incorporate a concept from an alternate cover design onto the title page, so everyone's a winner.

only thing that remains now is to impose the cover for printing (chuck the front and backcover along with a spine and bleeds - bits where the image goes outside the cropping margins so that when the thing is cropped there is no chance of getting any unprinted stuff along the edge - onto to one page) once i have heard back from the printers about the spine width and what their requirements are for bleeds. i guess that will happen tomorrow... meaning that [slight feeling of nervousness here] the book will be at the printers by wednesday.

on the headphones: 'space shanty' by leftfield, from the album 'leftism'. www.leftfield-online.com

Thursday, October 20, 2005

layout progress

spent a few hours last night working on the inside of the book - exercised my brain so much that i couldn't sleep when i finally went to bed. but the good thing is that i've broken the back of the layout and it's looking nice; it's come together well.

next i will tweek the layout (based on what i've seen in the readers spreads i printed last night), work on the title page and half-title, and put together a graphic that comes at the end of the book.

then i will work on the backcover - probably won't have any words on there apart from the publisher name, my web address, and the barcode. i'm publishing the book under my imprint 'shadow press' - hopefully the first of many art/text books under that name. the backcover will feature a black and white photo of me (oh the ego) taken by my mate luke - who i've known since i was 5. the image was taken on the east coast (nz) during a road trip we did a couple of years ago.

it's labour weekend this weekend and i hope to have the book ready for the printers by the end of it. actually starting to feel quite excited about it. if i can send the book away this coming tuesday it should be ready by november 1.

i'll be working hard on my website when the book is at the printers to get things ready for my giant marketing push...

on the headphones: 'speak low (bent remix)' by billie holiday, from the album 'verve remixed vol 3'. http://www.vervemusicgroup.com/artist.aspx?aid=4558

Saturday, October 15, 2005

the cover is here!

well, here it is finally. i've had a productive couple of hours, working through the text of the book, fine-tuning and getting a feel for the text itself in order to choose the right cover.

this cover was the crowd favourite when i did my 'market research', and although this isn't the one that came together so miraculously at the beginning of the design process, i think it probably fits the overall feel of this book and my poetry in general.

so here's the background on the cover image: i took the photograph in arthurs pass in the south island (nz) during a trip i did with two singaporean and one american photographer, acting as a guide, in 2004. it was a wet misty day, we pulled over to look at bush scenary. the image is of a moss-covered tree with a orange track marker nailed to it. had to open my aperature right up and shoot at about 1/30 sec i think. shot on 200 asa kodak slide film of some description using my pentax P30.

the motif over the title is a kind of mountain silouette. all the elements are very new zealand - moss, tree, mountain. and for some reason whenever i doodle i always end up drawing a tree on a mountain - which is why i went for those elements.

the title font is 'porcelin' - a double stroke script font which i am also using for the poem titles inside the book. the author name is in zurich bt - my body text font for the book.

publication is looking a lot closer now...

on the headphones: 'end of a century' by blur, from 'the best of blur'. www.blur.co.uk

Friday, October 14, 2005

coming soon!

after a lot of decision making, i think i have nearly settled on the cover design. i have to say working on my own book has been much harder than working on someone else's. much more difficult to be objective - impossible to be objective actually.

i had the printers do sample prints of the cover designs and they all came out looking pretty good.

the idea now is to print out a working draft of the book itself and then read through it from start to finish. at the end of that, look at the two cover options, and which ever one fits the feeling of the book better will be it.

so, i hope to have the cover design on here in the next couple of days. i don't make things any easier on myself do i?

on the headphones: 'directions' by broadway project, from the album 'hed kandi - serve chilled 2'.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

about the title

well, i went ahead and designed a couple of alternative designs for the cover and then did some 'market research'. got a wide range of feedback, and as usual with cover designs, nobody had the same idea. i narrowed it down to two designs and have sent files to the printers to have test prints done. i suspect that the final decision will come down to how these print. i'm printing digitally - so i won't get the fine quality prints i might get from offset.

meanwhile, jonathan asked me what the title 'epilogue' was all about, and here's what i said: "an epilogue is something that is written after the fact. poetry based on experience is always that - an epilogue to the actual experience. second, at a practical level i am in a poetry writing hiatus, haven't written anything for ages, so in that sense this book is something of an epilogue - a rounding off of a particular period. from an abstract sort of spiritual point of view - the epilogue is where the action happens - heaven, eternity etc. the title essentially comes from the end of one of the poems in the book that ends: "truth like a perpetual epilogue".

hope to have a cover design up for you soon.

on the headphones as i write this: 'snowflakes (cured by temple of jay mix)' by just jack, from the album 'the outer marker'. download it for free here.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

cover design?

i think i just accidentally designed the cover of my poetry book. i mean, i was trying to design, but through a series of 'accidents' i ended up with something different to my original idea. but it was too easy, so before i get all crazy and post the new cover on the blog, i better go back and check my original ideas to make absolutely sure that this first attempt is in fact as cool as i think it is.

another thing that happened today, too. anna and i decided that 'epilogue' is the best title of the book. she liked the sound of that better than 'transit'. when i came to typeset the words 'transit' and 'epilogue' i found that epilogue looks a hang of a lot better in type - especially the script types i am playing with. epilogue has two descenders - 'p' and 'g' and one ascender - 'l', which help with the forward movement of the script. you'll see what i mean when i post the cover.

anyway - good progress being made. stand by.

on the stereo as i write: 'burn out' by the cinematic orchestra, from the album 'every day'. www.cinematicorchestra.com