And the tree at last bears fruit.

Skoob_ym · April 2016

I am pleased to announce that I have published The Atheist's Tale.

I hope that you regulars here who commented on my work in progress will be so kind as to examine the preview, and especially the acknowledgements. Hint, hint.

Thanks to everyone whose words of wisdom contributed to the completion of the work. I may yet do one more revision to the cover -- still not 100% satisfied -- but I want to see a proof copy before I make any changes.

Thank you all for your comments, suggestions, and encouragement.

Em_Press · April 2016

Skoob, your book looks amazing. Inside and out. Nice colours, nice interior and back cover font, formatting! Beautiful work.

Paul_Lulu · April 2016

I added it to our recommended list. It should be on the Lulu "spotlight" or "up & coming" at some point today.

edit: my terrible spelling

TheJesusNinja · April 2016

Liked what I read. I may have to get it sometime. Especially liked the acknowledgements Smiley Happy You're a good writer Skoob, wish I had your skills and inspiration to write. Good luck with this one I think it is really good.

Skoob_ym · April 2016

Paul_Lulu wrote:
I added it to our recommended list. It should be on the Lulu "spotlight" or "up & coming" at some point today.

edit: my terrible spelling

Wow! Thanks!

Skoob_ym · April 2016

Em_Press wrote:
Skoob, your book looks amazing. Inside and out. Nice colours, nice interior and back cover font, formatting! Beautiful work.

Thank you.

A lot of work and discussion with Ron and Jean-Paul went into that cover. I'm very glad you liked it.

Skoob_ym · April 2016

Keep plugging away, Shadowmonkey.

You're seeing the end result of decades of writings I wouldn't show to a pet alligator. Smiley Very Happy

potetjp · April 2016

Skoob_Ym a écrit :
Em_Press wrote:
Skoob, your book looks amazing. Inside and out. Nice colours, nice interior and back cover font, formatting! Beautiful work.

Thank you.

A lot of work and discussion with Ron and Jean-Paul went into that cover. I'm very glad you liked it.

I am embarrassed because I like the preview of your book, but I am afraid it deserves a better cover. All the same I plan to buy it with the next batch.

Skoob_ym · April 2016

potetjp wrote:
Skoob_Ym a écrit :
Em_Press wrote:
Skoob, your book looks amazing. Inside and out. Nice colours, nice interior and back cover font, formatting! Beautiful work.

Thank you.

A lot of work and discussion with Ron and Jean-Paul went into that cover. I'm very glad you liked it.

I am embarrassed because I like the preview of your book, but I am afraid it deserves a better cover. All the same I plan to buy it with the next batch.

I am honored, and I hope you will let me know what you think.

Any faults that remain in the design of the cover are mine alone. The advice I received only improved the cover.

potetjp · April 2016

You don't have to apologie for the cover. I never buy books after their cover.

WWDowd · April 2016

Ordered my copy. Will give a review as best I can after reading if you don't mind, so I can do it justice. Went ground shipping so it will be a while, but I look forward to reading it.

Skoob_ym · April 2016

Thank you for buying it. I eagerly await your thoughts.

Skoob_ym · April 2016

FYI: I received my proofs, and while I am satisfied with the front cover, I will be revising the spine and the back cover.

And of course, I also spotted two minor typos that made it through rigorous edits, argh! so I'll be revising the interior ever so slightly.

But that's the business, right?

Skoob_ym · April 2016

Okay, the final cover is finished, the typos have been corrected (I hope) and I bumped up the fiont size by 1 pt. because it seemed small on the proof. Of course, that might say more about my eyes than the print size...

The version on sale now is the final version.

Thanks for your patience, folks. All done, all through.

potetjp · April 2016

Skoob_Ym a écrit :
I bumped up the font size by 1 pt.

_________________________

It's a good thing. Pending a cataract operation and new glasses, I am currently reading with a magnifying glass. Small size fonts like yours do not make reading comfortable. I now wonder why so many Lulu authors are tempted by character sizes below 12pt for the main body of their text. I suppose they do not realize what the actual size is because they only work with the image of their text on the screen. If they printed a few pages, they'd probably see the problem.

P.S. Possibly the reasons why the number of newspaper readers is dwindling in France are that the illiterate generations at one end find them hard stuff while the ageing generations at the other find it more and more difficult to read small prints.

Skoob_ym · April 2016

It did look much larger in Word.

The italics especially seemed small in the print copy.

WWDowd · April 2016

Okay finished.

I am going to have to make some admissions before I go on. I don't have facebook, twitter or Linkedin. Not used to the "like" and "dislike" thing so I do not usually mark things. I am learning more about the like wars on this forum than anything else. I am not a critic and say the things I am saying as constructive criticism from a purely reader and intermediate graphic artist standpoint. My opinion has absolutely no weight behind it.

My review for possible readers and your website (not sure where to put this):

Five Stars

The Athiest's Tale was an enjoyable read with many thought provoking concepts. I fully recommend this book to anyone as an exciting jaunt touching through ideas about our existance that are poignant and thought provoking.

That said my review for the forums (Which I believe are to get better at this writing thing):

Cover:

Not a big fan of pastels without a bright bold "wheel opposing" title. The yellow comes across as another pastel splitting the book into distinct sections giving a 1950's reader feel to it. Not a bad thing, just not the type of cover that draws my eye for more than a glance.

Font size became an issue. The blurb on the back has letters so large and bold they are distracting as a printing error when the text box is not centered on the back cover, while the font size internally was too small to read comfortably. For this reason I could not read it at one sitting as I normally would for a book this size.

The story:

Not being a large religious fiction reader (unless it is horror, many of the best horror stories are based in religion) this is not my normal genre but from what I could tell the plot line ran smoothly and the writing had a nice flow. Your technique seems clean and well done.

Overall - Liked the story, distracted by the packaging

Skoob_ym · May 2016

Thank you, and I absolutely agree. I have redesigned the cover since, and I think if you look again at the preview, you'll find it much more pleasing to the eye. I also increased the font size by one point across the entire story, which added around 25 pages to the length.

Thank you for buying and reading it, and thank you for taking the time to let me know how you liked it.

And the tree at last bears fruit.

Comments