I had already chosen the photos that I wanted to use for the next Hike with Me book. All I needed to do was create what I’m calling the photo plates. When I first researched using photos in a CreateSpace book, I discovered that using Word to put captions on photos was not a reliable way to do things. I use Gimp to put my photos and their captions onto precisely sized and print quality images.
The process for this isn’t terribly difficult, but it is time consuming. I’m not sure if I made it more time consuming this year by trying for efficiency. I figured that since my first reader would have something to say about the captions, I should have him evaluate the captions as I wrote and added them to the photo plates. It seemed like it would be easier to fix them while I was working on them, rather than having to go back and fix them after he’d read them in the proof of the book.
All the photo plates are now complete, and, in the course of designing the new cover, I’ve also submitted updates for the covers of the first two Hike with Me books. Once those updates are completed on CreateSpace, I’ll trickle them down to the ebook versions, since the biggest change is in the title design.
The next step is inserting the photos into the Word document. For the print book, this process is a bit more finicky than for the ebook. I prefer each of the narrow photos, for example, to be on the outside, rather than near the spine. Whenever a photo changes position, it influences the position of the text that comes after. For the ebook, I use an html layout view and simply stick the photo plates where they should be in order, no need to worry about page position. It will be fairly simple to convert the print book document into an ebook ready one.
The Wild Coast will, I think, be an improvement over the last book, as Queens River Loop was an improvement over Stump Lake. I’m continuing to learn more not only about how better to write, but also how better to prepare for the production of this particular kind of book. They aren’t really travel books, but I suppose that’s the best classification. They are adventure books. I find backpacking to be a wonderful adventure, and, in those books, that’s what I want to share.