More progress!
Toy Wars and An Eighty Percent Solution can be found as ebooks on Amazon.com. You can get to each of them by following the appropriate link below.
Dec 042012
Oct 202012
Progress continues on both Toy Wars and An Eighty Percent Solution. Why is it that writing a book seems so much more easy than printing a book? (that’s a rhetorical question, folks as we at TANSTAAFL Press are n00bs when it comes to publishing)
Toy Wars is now totally in the hands of the printer at this point after successful proofs. We’re expecting to have the print completed and books in hand by mid-November! Our official launch for both of these books remains April, but we will offer books for sale on this site as soon as we have hard copies in hand.
An Eighty Percent Solution is a horse of a different color… literally. An Eighty Percent Solution actually was at the printers long before Toy Wars. We had “galley proofs” printed. It was a disaster. Not only were the covers almost black (you couldn’t see the left side of the young woman’s face), but they also had a very significant green tinge instead of the ethereal blue color you see online. The list of issues we’ve had with the cover made getting Toy Wars cover correct the first… or should we say second time much easier. BUT problems continue on the An Eighty Percent Solution cover. We finally have the color right, but there is color bleed into the white space making the barcode unreadable. We’ve learned a great deal about graphics design, file conversions and CMYK vs RGB over the last few months. In short we still have an issue with this cover. Once we have that straightened out, it will be printed as well. We’re anticipating copies in hand by the end of November.
In anticipation of having product, we have added an e-commerce app to this site. Don’t look for it yet. We won’t activate it until we have books in hand. TANSTAAFL Press will never sell vaporware. Our site will only accept PayPal as a source of funds as PayPal already have all of the security for credit cards or direct withdraw from checking accounts. We will also only offering soft covered books, not ebooks on this site. e-books, and soft books will be available from Amazon and B&N at the official book launch. Again, use their proven abilities to control the electronic media.
Stay tuned. We will announce print in hands here when it happens.
Jul 162012
Wanted to give you all a quick progress update of the novels planned for our spring launch.
An Eighty Percent Solution – This novel gone through typesetting and is being proofed as we speak. Our intent is to have the first galley proofs started within 4 weeks.
Toy Wars – This novel is in edit right now. There are some interesting grammatical style issues in this novel that are taking longer in edit. Our editor said that Toy Wars has been one of her most challenging because of capitalization of toy types vs toy names. Probably see this to go to typesetting by the end of the month.
Demon Holiday – This has been the biggest challenge. To our surprise as we got ready to move on to the next stage, we found this novel is much too large for a single volume. DH’s author, Bruce Graw, will be converting this into two novels at a logical break point near the center. Our hope is still to have the first of these two novels to you in either spring or early summer. Note that Tony Foti has been retained to do this cover, it is low on our priority list so we asked him to put it on the back burner.
Jul 162012
Thanks to Amanda at ilioness.com, the covers are ready for galley proofs. She did a wonderful job. You can find the full bookcovers at Toy Wars and An Eighty Percent Solution.
For those of you who are unaware, galley proofs are books that are complete in just about every way. They bear the mark “Galley Proof” or “Edit Sample” or something similar. Galley proofs are primarily used to get into the hands of those who will review them and provide the immortal quote. Many books have a quote from a famous author or organization. The way they get those quotes prior to publication is to send galley proofs as a free offer to get their feedback before the final print of the book with those quotes on them.
Jun 262012
We apologize to all of you for the delay at posting the edited preview version of Toy Wars. The rewrite from 15 years ago took longer than expected.
You can find it through the menu or just link here: Toy Wars
I hope you enjoy!
May 212012
Tony Foti has provided a very nearly done version of the cover art for An Eighty Percent Solution. Here is your preview of what the cover illustration will eventually look like.
Apr 162012
We here at TANSTAAFL have added a free preview of An Eighty Percent Solution for your enjoyment. We hope you enjoy.
Apr 162012
Again, I intended to wait for the final version but decided you the viewers should see the near finished illustration. I hope you enjoy this look into the imagination that is Toy Wars.
Mar 312012
Sorry for the delay. I resisted the temptation to put up the tentative sketch art for Toy Wars for several weeks wanting only to put up the final product, BUT Tony Foti got me the tentative sketch for An Eighty Percent Solution and I couldn’t resist any longer.
I’ve added each sketch to its book description page and soon will add each to the scrolling picture on the home page. I hope you enjoy these pieces as much as I do.
Some things to note. Remember that these are to wrap around the cover, so only the right hand portion will be on the front of the book. Obviously there is a great deal of detail that will come with the final pieces such as tattoo’s on Sonya’s exposed skin and at least one battle scar on our teddy hero Don on the front cover of Toy Wars (not to mention hands). The Toy Wars final is nearing completion and will be posted as soon as I receive and approve it.
I really can’t recommend Tony Foti enough. He is a professional in every sense of the word. He has worked from book text in one case and a description from me in the other. He has been open to changes, been able to discuss the pros and cons of making changes. If you have any custom art that you are pursuing I highly encourage you to at least discuss your plans with Tony.
Mar 062012
Welcome back all for an update on the artist negotiations with Tony Foti. We have signed a contract for the first cover, Toy Wars. Hopefully within a month or so we will have a picture up on our website to share.
We will negotiate one contract at a time, but the plan is to have Tony do all three book covers for our Spring ’13 launch.