The hip is coming along slowly. Imagine, less than two weeks ago, I was on the operating table in Alexandria Hospital, getting my right hip replaced. I spent one night in the hospital. During the time, I took three walks with my new hip, ate Pot Roast and an omelet for breakfast before going home the next day with my brother – in the snow! and was going the next day with my brother – in the snow!

John was nice enough to spend a week taking care of Linda and me. Now, he’s home and we’re on our own. Thankfully Mary Sherman brought some groceries. Star Muir took me to my follow-up appointment with Dr. John Albrigo in Alexandria. Otherwise, it’s been a very quiet week.

Now comes the hard part –physical therapy. I finished in-home and have mastered the basics. That is the purpose of in-home PT – to make sure you can negotiate around your home. For example, Can I get out of bed or up from a chair. Am I able to go up and down the stairs? Although we have (and used it for about a week – didn’t want to over-do it on the first week) a stairlift, I’ve already started using the stairs and an exercising tool. That is the level I’m at right now.

As I recall, it took time to get to the next step. Now it’s building back up the muscles in my right leg. That is the challenge. Both INOVA home PT people (Amy 1 and Amy 2) were once again great. They were the same ladies I had for home PT when I had my left knee replaced. So it was like a reunion of sorts.

Now I start the in-office PT. A big thanks to Dave Feser for picking up at the ungodly (for retired people) 8 AM and giving me a ride to PT evaluation appointment and set up a month of in-office appointments. The evaluation provides a baseline. They’ll take another set at the end to see how much you improve after taking PT. At the end of the first appointment, I got a good laugh. She handed me a set of exercises they wanted me to do at home between appointments. I looked at the sheet – it’s the same exercises I’m already doing thanks to the home PT people.

My goal is to be able to drive sometime next week. However, I’m finding that everything is going slow, from walking, to creating digital paintings, writing and even this journal entry. It’s difficult to get comfortable for any length of time. I find sitting is best, but I have to often to move because of the pain in my hip/butt. I can only lie on my left hip for so long and then I want to turn over, but that is on the operated hip – no thank you. I’ve never slept well on my back.

Because of the holiday and their busy calendar, I only have one PT session next week. I’ll do the exercises at home. I want to be ready for my first session.

 

 

UPDATE:

Hold on, KDP has a problem with the spine of the cover. They sent an email this morning. It appears they think the lettering and logo on the spine are too large. Here is part of the email:

We checked your files and found issues you need to fix before your book can be published on KDP:

Cover

• Update the size of your spine text in your cover file. Spine text needs at least 0.0625″ (1.6 mm) on either side so that it doesn’t wrap onto the front or back cover.

Where possible, we give page numbers with examples. To make sure your entire book meets our guidelines, please review your entire manuscript file and fix all issues.

I had to spend the morning making the corrections to the spine and upload the cover again. So we’re still in the review mode. They say it can take up to 72 hours for the review to take place. So we’re in a waiting mode for the moment.

Yesterday, after pressing the publish button and seeing my book “In Review” I thought it’s done! I’m the author of a printed book. It’s on Amazon! Not Quite.

The revised version of the proof book came Monday. I went through with my correction/additions list, and all the changes look good. I did find one addition correction that I was not on my list. It’s not a correction but an addition to the subject of the sentence clearer. So this morning, I uploaded the revised version, and after previewing, I clicked the Publish button. Presto, the printed listing of the book’s status went from Draft to In Review. Well, now it’s done. We’ll see what happens.

Since going live with the e-book last week, much has been happening both personally and professionally. As I said in my last entry, I found out my golf season has ended because of problems with my right leg. I can only stand for a few minutes before the pain in the right hip and knee is too much. I’ll have to live with this until January when I’m having my right hip replaced. The surgery should resolve the problem with the knee, although I will not be surprised if I have to have the right knee replaced down the road.

Friday night, I was part of the MAG artist group displaying our paintings at the Weinegars Sweet and Treats, a bakery, coffee shop, and tearoom in downtown Manassas. Because of the cold night, the traffic was lighter than last year’s walk. It was nice to get out and display my digital photo-paintings to the public. I also had on display the 2020 PBS Studios calendar and the proof copy of the book.

I got some very nice responses to my “Digital Photo-Painting using Adobe Photoshop” book announcement email. Thank you for your support. I appreciate it!

 

 

 

Digital Art Press and Logo

I’ve decided to make some changes after looking at the Digital Art Press logo on my Facebook posting. Although I like the overall idea behind the original logo, I thought I need to brighten it up. It was too basic. So, I added more color. I made the outline of the book blue. Inside the one-side of the page, red and the other page, green. I also changed the “A” in Art to the color green. I think it’s an improvement. What do you think?

 

Print and e-Book Layout

I spent much of the week converting Digital Photo-Painting using Adobe Photoshop from my manuscript to print and e-book format. My guide has been “A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers” by Chris McMullen. Following his book, along with the MS Word to Amazon add-in program has helped me do the conversion converting the manuscript to print and e-book format. This past week I completed the first draft of the book in print and e-book layout.

The next thing on the agenda before I upload the book to Amazon is registering the book for copyright, an ISBN and getting a barcode for the print and e-book versions.

Copyright and ISBN Number

I’ve started researching the process of getting an IBSN number. According to the self-publishing books, I’m reading, I need at least two IBSN numbers if I want to sell both print and e-book versions of my book.

Wow, it’s become a money-making operation for R.R. Bowker. According to the website, a single ISBN cost $125, which does me no good all. Ten numbers now cost $295. But wait, there more! J They made up self-publishers packages. Along with the IBSN numbers, I can get two barcodes (which I guess is a separate cost if I purchase the barcodes separately) and a Word to e-book converter (which I already downloaded and used the one from Amazon) for the low price of only $395. Ouch! Since I only need two – does anyone know a way to share a couple of their IBSN numbers and barcodes? Let me know. I’m willing to buy them but at a reasonable price. Remember, I still have to pay the US Copyright Office to the copyright of the book. That’s even more money.

 

Back Cover

The other night while watching the Washington National’s playoff game (go Nats) and the Capital’s hockey game, I created a draft of the back cover for the book in Adobe Photoshop. Let me know what you think.

 

If I can complete all the legal tasks in the next couple of weeks, I’ve set a tentative publishing date for November 1. Just in time for holiday sales.

 

An interesting item was brought up for discussion from an artist friend who is also a beta reader. Her first comment was about the title of my new book, “Digital Painting with Adobe Photoshop.” She suggested I change the word “with” in the title to “using,” making the title of the book “Digital Photo-Painting using Adobe Photoshop.”

It made me stop and think – Hmm, not a bad idea.

So I’m asking family, friends, fellow writers, artists, beta readers, and anyone else who has an opinion about what you think which title would be better for my book.

KDP as my Publisher

While I’m waiting on my beta readers to provide feedback, I’ve been researching Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) website for formatting instructions.

Based on everything I’ve read (so far) it sounds like KDP is the best all-around publishers in terms of providing digital and print on demand formats. It also appears KDP has the inside edge in getting your book displayed (and in stock) so people can buy my book. I’ve read more than one account where someone went with another POD publisher an when they submitted their book listed on Amazon. They had problems. One person said after submitting their book to Amazon it took weeks for Amazon to show the book was in stock and available for purchase. Of course, if someone has other ideas, please leave a message in the comments section. I’m still flexible at this point as I do my research.

 Formatting the Book

Meanwhile, I’ve been reading about formatting my book for publication. Months ago, I created a cover for the book, as shown below.

 

The cover shows a before and after images of a digital photo-painting image. It’s the image I use when creating a digital photo-painting in the book. It’s simple, direct and I think it looks pretty good! What do you think?

Now I’m starting to research how to format the inside text for publication. Wow, I never knew there were so many things to think about when you’re formatting a manuscript for publication. Here is my beginning list of publication decisions I need to make:

• Single or multiple columns
• What font to use,
• Should I justify or not
• Do I center the illustrations – print screens or left justify.

Keep in mind there are a hundred or so illustrations within this book

I’m sure there are more decisions I need to make about the formatting of my book for publication. As I do more research, I’ll add those options to the list.

According to the first bullet on the KRP instructions is to upload the book in final form. As I learn about KDP standards, some of these items will not be allowed. For example, from early research, it looks like the preferred KDP formatting requirements is a single column of text on the page.

Once the manuscript is in its final form, I need to format to the KDP standards. That is why I’m researching this process now. So I’ll be ready to convert the manuscript into the proper format when I’m ready to upload the book to KDP.