ok so we have worked hard the last few days and have made some progress. We have all layout done but are still arguing about a few things. We need to confirm the layout as we have been having second thoughts about how the mapbook starts.
Cover, key/how the map works, overview map, maps, listings. Also the numbering of the pages. I want page one to be map one and have the key and overview map not numbered. Heritic? Maybe. But it makes no sense to have the first map number page 3 or 5. We are breaking so many rules already lets not stop now! to a point i guess. But we want to make the map simple and not be tied to convention.
The profile charts have been added to the maps and the listings are also complete. Still no word on quotes.
Ok the lay out is done and the profile charts are also done. We need to put it all together and add the key and publishing info. Also confirm our cover price. This is tricky as the canadian dollar is doing really well against the US$. I would like to see for around $15 canadian but as we have not had any quotes back I am not sure if this will be right. We could do $20 but that might be too high. We only get 50% or less of this so thats why it needs to be around this figure also printing in colour and a wierd size is very expensive. As we have said before we don’t want to take the production to asia as you don’t really know what you are getting and the enviromental standards are zip. Also we don’t know what we are doing at the best of times so having it all done in china could be more hassle. Once we get the quotes back we can sit down and work it out.
So… we now have our computer working but every time I open something I realize something else is missing. For example our inventory is totally screwed up and need to be re done all the way back to MAY! Ouch! Just thinking about it wants to make me do another back up just in case it happens again.
Had fun today though mainly playing with Indesign and working on our new ad for this years travel pub catalogue. I need Beth to finish a few things on the profile charts before I can do much more on the map. Now that the city strike is over her time is gone so that sucks. If if and if we had not had this stupid computer trouble we would have been done now we struggle again for time. This map really is having a troubled birth i hope that means it will have a good life. I need to post another picture of it so people can look at it.
Oh yeah another thing some bugger tried to kidnap our website. The registration name went missing and went to some other company which is sort of part of the company that holds our www.name. ‘Oh?” they said when we asked them why. WHAT! #%%#@! Is what I said back. The domain name business is so weird and open to abuse. All sorted again but it did meant we had no email or website for two days. I can’t believe all they offered us was a credit! Rubbish customer service. We changed companies straight away they can shove their credit. I really need to calm down. I still hate computers the next project is going to be done with crayon.
Cooking garlic prawns tonight that should do the trick.
Starting to get quotes from printers. Or I should say getting ready to send for quotes. I will be interested to see how much they have gone up since our last approach last year. Maybe the strong dollar will mean cheaper? I doubt it somehow.
Thanks to all of you who have sent emails about our computer trouble. It helps to hear that other people have had similar trouble. I have already backed up twice since we got our computer back! I think we have learnt that lesson. I don’t mind making mistakes just don’t want to make the same one twice. I also didn’t realize how many mistakes there are to make!
Winter weather is here huge amount rain. Makes us want to go to Spain again. Maybe next spring… need something to get me through the rainy season besides vino tinto.
You would think by now we would know better but we don’t. Our hard drive died and with it loads of our data. Nothing missing on the map. Or at least we have not found it yet but we have loast loads of other stuff. #%$&!!! It took us 10 deays to get the computer up again and now we have it working we are just beginning to get things rolling again. We also have a new external hard drive to store all our stuff on and so hopefully this will never happen again. So the moral of the story is always back up. Always back up always back up. I should say it again but I will spare you.
I would guess that we are still about 3 weeks away from sending the map to the printers so hopefully we will not be too much behind our planned publication date. Does this sort of thing happen to big publishers?
Anyone who was on our newsletter list should email us again with there info as we have lost all our emails. #$&@! Sorry folks.