What the pages did...
Hi,
So last week, we told you about the fire that happened in the building where my scribe lives. And I told you that a neighbor knocked on her door to alert her and all her other neighbors about the fire.
You might be wondering why the property management company didn’t notify residents about the fire and the need to exit the building quickly. The president of the board and at least one board member live in her building and were aware of the fire. They alerted the property manager, as they should.
And do you know what the property management team did?
They sent an email warning about the fire. Yes, you read that right. They sent an email about the fire and advised residents of my scribe’s building to exit the building.
Why an email? I wonder this too since they call about tree maintenance and carpet cleaning. So why not call about a fire?
Who checks their email at 9 pm at night? Not my scribe. She found the emails the next day when she was outside her office building waiting for permission to return to her desk following a fire alarm going off. Wild right?
Oh but it gets better! They sent another email after the firefighters fought the fire alerting residents that they could return to the building.
How did they expect anyone to read the email when they were all outside and many residents didn’t grab their phones on the way out. So that’s the end of the fire story. Everyone asked maintains the materials spontaneously combusted somehow. So we have no new information on how it started.
But guess what else happened. We got the first round of proofs for the Robin of Larkspur series kickstarter, and those proofs included illustrated versions of:
Hunter's Night
Rogue Night
Rogue Ranger
Robin of Larkspur Books 1-3
The Robin of Larkspur Kickstarter is still coming soon but not until we get perfect proofs. Follow the campaign here, so you’re notified when it launches.
So how did the proofs look? Not like we expected, but that’s why we order proofs, so we can see how they print and make corrections for the next round of proofs.
That said, these copies had more problems than expected, and that annoyed the scribe. So what were those problems?
The sprayed edges were pink instead of the red in the campaign image. We knew it might look different when printed but not that different. We thought the edges would print darker since that’s usually what happens, not 50% lighter. (See image below.)
(How do we know it’s 50%? Because Melinda turned a picture the same red we chose for the edges and then reduce the opacity until it matched the color of the edges. Why do that? Because we were curious, and I might have asked how they got pink from bright red.
Who am I? Hi, I’m Ran, Sarn’s son from the Curse Breaker series and I might be plotting something behind my scribe’s back. In my defense, I’m easily bribable. I promise to tell you what I’m plotting when I’m ready to reveal it to my scribe because she types these emails for me. Hi, Scribe!)
Back to the proofs. What are we doing about the pink edges? Melinda raised a ticket with support and showed them pictures of the pink edges and asked what to do to get red edges. Apparently picking a red color from the choices offered by the printer wasn’t enough to do the job, so we needed expert guidance.
The printer wrote back a few days ago and asked us to pick a darker red. But they didn’t offer any advice or assurances that the edges would actually be red this time. So we’ll see when the new proofs the printer is printing now arrive. For that reason, I think we’ll make the colored edges an add-on because the printer charges quite a bit for them and you may not want them.
I recorded a video of Melinda flipping through the proofs of all 4 books, so if you’re curious, you can have a look. You can watch that video on the prelaunch page right now.
Melinda had to make changes to the interior pages too because the printer couldn't print the colored pages. They printed with weird white streaks through the colored blocks behind the text and the text wasn't white or sharp enough to read easily. So after a back and forth with support, Melinda reformatted all 4 books so the artwork fades to white not a colored background like we wanted. :(
I'm bummed about that but we’re not willing to pay 3x more or charge 3x more so the books can be printed on a premium machine that uses toner instead of whatever was used to print the books I received. (The printer says we have to use the premium printing process for pages that have solid color blocks behind the text.
Since the Rogue Gods books looked so nice with the chapter header images fading to white, the Robin of Larkspur books should look just as nice since they will be printed on the same machines.
On the positive side, the dust jacket, case laminate cover, and paperback covers look fantastic with the gold foil, so it wasn’t all negative.
Yes, I often compete with Robin for my scribe’s time an attention. But I want her books to look fantastic them for purely selfish reasons, as you might expect. After all, I have a rivalry to maintain.
So that’s the state of the Robin of Larkspur kickstarter and her illustrated books.
And now for some more books news!
Melinda is still writing Chasing Dragons but we’re done chasing them since they need a break, and we’re now chasing a twist you won’t see coming.
Now you might be thinking, Ran, those are bold words. Where’s the proof? Well, I brought receipts.
How do I know you won’t see this twist coming? Because Melinda didn’t see it, and she knows us pretty well. We caught her totally off guard with this one, and I’m not sorry about that. :)
And for once, Papa is not the one twisting the plot up. Who’s doing that? You’ll have to read Chasing Dragons to find out! When can you do that? Um…when Melinda finishes writing it?
I’ll just go help her with that. See you next week!
New Podcast Episodes & Videos
Listen to our podcast in your player of choice. Or Watch it on YouTube. Here’s the newest episode, recorded on Nov. 2:
New Releases and Book Sales
Follow the campaign to get notified when it launches. The preview page has the latest cover mockups and previews of the illustrated pages.
