Category: Random

Inspiration for a Monday

Monday already?! Blerg! To be honest, that sentiment is little uttered around here, since I’ve mentioned before that Doug’s “weekend” is Weds-Thurs and I work retail with a few days on, a few days off, and no true weekend at all. Anyway, I’m sure that those of you who have President’s day off are enjoying the extra day of relaxation, and those of us who are at work (or going to work in about an hour, like me) will shake our fists but put our heads down and do the best we can at our jobs.

I have a few cool posts in the works but nothing ready to share just yet. So, I decided to corral some things that were inspiring to me this weekend!

Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities— The first Dickens book I’ve ever managed to make my way through, and despite his meandering sentences paragraphs chapters, I really liked it! In full disclosure, however, I did listen to it on audiobook. My second audiobook experience! If you liked the themes of redemption in Les Misérables, I highly recommend this (shorter) classic.

Island Beneath the Sea

As long as we are talking about books, I read Island Beneath the Sea, a historical fiction novel about the Haitian slave Revolution months ago and it is still haunting me! I can’t wait to give it a re-read and I picked up another work by author Isabel Allende, this one grabbed my interest as it begins in Chile–in the town of Angela’s birth!

Downtown Encinitas

Encinitas, CA– It had been far too long since I visited this laid-back beach town. I surprised Doug with a quick trip up the coast to shop at Lou’s Records. After that, we walked up and down the shops on Pacific Highway even though it was cold and windy! Can’t wait to get back up there on a nicer day, camera in hand.

The album we picked up at Lou’s was Local Natives’ Hummingbird, which you can listen to here if you have Spotify:

PS- Check out this awesome BBC article about Sherry & John from Young House Love! They never cease to be an inspiration to me!

Valentine 2013

Happy Valentine’s Day to you! From me and my furry little valentine.

The Machine that lets Authors DIY

I have alluded to it a little, but I’m going to take this time to elaborate on my “other” job. As you might know, I’m working retail at Sur La Table, which is a lot of fun but not a full-time gig. To pick up a bit of the slack from not working a 40-hour week I have been working with my mom formatting manuscripts for authors who are interested in self-publishing.

What does that even mean?

First let me show you the book-making machine:

The Espresso Book Machine

This machine will print the cover and the pages, affix the pages to the spine, wrap the cover around, then chop them into a perfect softcover custom book. All in a matter of minutes.

Amazing, right?

My mom had been working with this program, called Flash Books, for quite a while before leaving to take a full-time load of coursework for her graduate program. The popularity of the book-making machine has increased since then, and because she left on good terms, they have been offloading some of the formatting work onto us. Basically I take the manuscript and change all the settings so it will print properly on the book machine. I will also adjust font, add page numbers, table of contents, headers and footers–anything it takes to get the book ready to print. I have two projects under my belt now and after holding the finished copy in my hands I am so excited to take on more clients!

Getting picked up by a major publishing house is really hard, since they are really selective. This makes it easy for any author to realize the dream of holding their own book in their hands. Some authors write memoirs and print them to pass along to children, grandchildren, or other relatives. Others sell them for $10-$15 at book fairs and make a minor profit (it costs $8 to print a book). Some who do want to get published by a large company print their book through Flash Books in hopes of getting it picked up.

It is enjoyable for me since I have always been a formatting freak–often obsessing about the appearance of my college papers and essays rather than the content. Whoops! It has also been a great opportunity to learn more about what the newest version of what Microsoft Word has to offer–which is a lot!

Here is a cool article the area newspaper ran about the DIY Book Program last summer.

Overall this has been a cool opportunity and I can’t wait to help more clients!