Greetings Backers!

Wonderful news: I submitted files to my printer yesterday SLSC is off to print!

TL;DR: The book is off to print. I hope to have the ebook ready to deliver to you before the end of September. The Activities Notebook is going to take another month or more before it is ready for print. I am building up my Patreon so that I can continue to community build and offer information even when this crowdfunding is completed. I’ve given you another chapter to read. Your next update will be the week of September 15-19. Details below. 

I have spent the last week in a highly-focused haze of approving copy edits, creating layout, and drafting back cover copy.  All of it was very fiddly involving close attention to specific words, sentences, punctuation, spacing etc. To give you an idea of how fiddly it gets, Here is a gif of the many iterations of the back cover copy:

According to the timeline provided by my printer I will get books delivered sometime between December 8-22. Obviously I hope for the early end of those dates. The printer is going to do everything they can to accommodate me.  Over the next month there will be several check points where I get to see proofs both physical and digital. Then there is a long latent time where the books are taking a ride on a boat.  I’m so happy to have this piece done. It lets me turn my attention to the next pieces.

The next portion of this project is formatting an eBook for everyone who has that as part of your order. I’m going to take a break from book focus for the rest of this week, but I’ll launch into this early next week. This formatting is largely done because my copy editor paid close attention and delivered files that are essentially ready. I just need to compile separate chapters into a single file and process it into an eBook. I suspect the actual work will only take a couple of days.  Then I can turn my attention to the mechanics of delivering the book to you. I’ll talk more about that in my next update.

There are about 200 of you who selected the Activities Notebook as part of your order. I started work on that during my layout frenzy. Before I sent the book off to print I needed a clear idea of how each activity would work in notebook format. This also gave me a chance to review the wording of each activity to make sure it was clear. So I did a preliminary layout for the Activities Notebook.

You can see it here next to the book layout binder, the book test print cropped to size, and the pre-press edition.  I’ve written notes for each activity. They’re all going to need some graphic design. Some of them need diagrams, others need lined pages, some need charts. Creating all of these things is going to take time and I don’t want to rush it. So the Activities Notebooks will be another month or two behind the physical books on being delivered. I’ll keep you posted about the logistics of all of that.

One of the things I realized as I attended in person events in August and as I’m looking toward completing this crowdfunding: I want ways to keep in touch and to build community for people who need it. I’m going to try using Patreon as one of my tools for that.  Starting in September I will be picking a topic from this book as the discussion topic for the month. Then I’ll host a mini-lecture and a Q&A for various pledge levels. The full details of the plan are posted here on my Patreon. As backers for this project, you’re also welcome to join my Discord community. There is an invite link in the backers only section of this post that is good for 7 days. 

I’m sure I’ll talk more about community building via Patreon in future updates. 

 

That’s my update for now! I’ll have another one for you in two weeks.

Thank you so much for backing this project,

Sandra Tayler