Tag Archives: printers

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 17

Posted on March 14, 2022 by Patrick Miles

24 January 2022 I have received several emails commiserating with me over my ‘anxiety’ and ‘nightmares’ about marking examination papers. The writers clearly assume I am Dr Robinson in my story Ghoune — that the story is strictly autobiographical and … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Personal commentary | Tagged 'Ghoune', 'Sleep and Death', A.J.A. Symons, Alexander I, Amazon, Andrew Tatham, angina, Anton Chekhov, Anton Chekhov: A Short Life, archivists, Baron Corvo, BASEES, BASEES Conference, biographies, biography, birds, butterflies, Cambridge Tales, Carole Angier, Cheshire Cat, Chris Packham, Clays of Bungay, comments, conservation, death, democracy, examinations, Frederick Rolfe, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, George Sandison, heart attacks, Kittie Calderon, NATO, Niccolo Machiavelli, page margins, printers, RSPB, Sam&Sam, short stories, Speak, Speckled Wood, Taganrog, The Edwardians, The Holocaust, The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment iin Biography, trimming, typesetting, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, W.G. Sebald, W.H. Hudson, Winterwatch | Leave a comment

…and two back covers

Posted on September 16, 2019 by Patrick Miles

By the time you read this, Sam&Sam’s new book should be available through Amazon. No, I can’t say that… The penny has finally dropped: having Amazon print your book is a complete, utter, irreparable and gut-wrenching break with the previous … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged Amazon, back covers, Clays Ltd, Donald Trump, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, images, John Polkinghorne, Nielsen Corporation, PDF files, Poland, printers, proofs, publication dates, publishers, quantum/chaos, Sam&Sam, What Can We Hope For? | Leave a comment

FIRST BIOGRAPHY OF THE MAN WHO BROUGHT CHEKHOV TO BRITAIN!

Posted on September 7, 2018 by Patrick Miles

This book, the first full-length biography of the significant Edwardian literary and political figure George Calderon, who lived in Russia 1895-97, was an expert on Russian folklore and literature, premiered Chekhov in Britain, wrote the best seller Tahiti, and was killed … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged Anton Chekhov, Arch Tait, biographies, biography, buying the book, Catherine Andreyev, Clays Ltd, commemoration, comments, Damian Grant, Dardanelles, folklore, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Harvey Pitcher, John Dewey, John Pym, Jones, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Senelick, Patrick Miles, printers, publication day, publishers, Russian literature, Russianists, Sam&Sam, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Tufts University, World War I | 2 Comments

Guest post: Sam2 on… ‘How to Typeset a Book’ (Part 2)

Posted on July 23, 2018 by Jim D G Miles

“Pages… Pages EVERYWHERE!” ————— In the previous entry I went over some fundamentals of self typesetting. I want to point out that those techniques were merely what I had used myself…that is, how it appeared logical to me to do … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged Adobe Acrobat Pro, Adobe InDesign, Ashitaka, biographies, biography, bottom justification, bugs, captions, Clays Ltd, comments, crop marks, Dante MT, fonts, formatting, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, GIMP, glitches, hair leads, hair lines, image trials, images, indie publishing, inset images, Jiro Horikoshi, Johannes Gutenberg, LibreOffice, orphans, PDF files, Prince Ashitaka, Princess Mononoke, printers, publishers, publishing, resolution, Sam&Sam, Sam1, Sam2, self-publishing, software, spacing, Studio Ghibli, The Wind Rises, tilting, trim marks, typefaces, typesetting, typesetting a book, typesetting styles, widows | 1 Comment

Guest post: Sam2 on… ‘How to Typeset a Book’ (Part 1)

Posted on July 16, 2018 by Jim D G Miles

She shuffled forward. “I would…” “Speak up!” “I would like you to…” “Yeeeeeesssss?” “I would like you to typeset this.” A messy wad of pages; some in different colours, some upside down, some not in any recognisable language. “You would … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged biographies, bleeds, Character style, Chihiro, Clays Ltd, comments, fonts, formatting, Frame style, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Ghibli, guest post, headers, indie publiishing, James Miles, Kamaji, layout, LibreOffice Writer, List style, margins, page numbers, Page style, paper formats, Paragraph style, PDF files, printers, publishers, running heads, Sam&Sam, Sam1, Sam2, self-publishing, Sen, Spirited Away, Studio Ghibli, trims, typefaces, typesetting, typesetting a book, typesetting styles | 5 Comments

Does computer typesetting produce a ‘chaotic system’?

Posted on July 12, 2018 by Patrick Miles

Like me, I expect you have wondered why a modern commercially published book that is to all appearances superbly produced can neverthless have typographical garbage and weird other phenomena in it, or why odd entries in its Index are consistently … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged Anton Chekhov, butterfly effect, chaology, chaos theory, comments, determinism, garbage, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, glitches, Grant Richards, italics, John Aubrey: My Own Life, morpho butterflies, PDF files, printers, proofs, publishers, random events, roman, Ruth Scurr, Sam&Sam, Sam2, Two Plays by Tchekhof, typesetting | Leave a comment

pre-Announcement announcement

Posted on June 4, 2018 by Patrick Miles

Sam&Sam have embraced Ian Strathcarron’s kind advice to allow three months for marketing my book. The official date of publication, therefore, is 7 September. Shortly before that, a separate web-page and checkout will be available for buying the book online. … Continue reading →

Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary | Tagged advance copies, advertising, biographies, biography, Clays Ltd, comments, George Calderon, Ian Strathcarron, Kittie Calderon, Lord Strathcarron, marketing, printers, publishers, reviews, Sam&Sam | Leave a comment

So a second edition, then…

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Patrick Miles

It would have been almost too dull if there had been no dramas with Clays the printers in the final run-up to production last week, but I must admit I wasn’t expecting basic technical questions to erupt concerning the jacket … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged biographies, biography, Clays Ltd, comments, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, limited edition, Murphy's Law, PDF proofs, printers, proofreading, publishing, Sam&Sam, Sam2, thoroughbreds, typography, typos | 3 Comments

Word and image

Posted on May 10, 2018 by Patrick Miles

One of the many, many benefits to me of this blog has been what I would go so far as to call the ‘democracy’ of it: the fact that it stands open to feedback and Comment from you, its subscribers, … Continue reading →

Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged A Group Photograph, Andrew Tatham, Austerlitz, biographies, biography, Bloodswept Lands and Seas of Red, book illustrations, cartoons, commemoration, comments, design, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Lev Tolstoi, Louis Arthur Klementaski, photographs, printers, self-publishing, The Rings of Saturn, W.G. Sebald, World War I | 1 Comment

What we are trying to do

Posted on March 7, 2018 by Patrick Miles

We have met our deadline of typesetting the whole book, less Index, by today. However, the printers took a month to deliver to us the sixteen-page ‘print trial’ of text with images embedded in it. They emailed that the images … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged Anton Chekhov, biographies, comments, commercial publishers, Fyodor Tyutchev, George Calderon, Harvey Pitcher, hassles, illustrations, John Dewey, print trials, printers, production timetables, publishers, publishing, self-publishing, typesetting | 2 Comments

Progress

Posted on February 7, 2018 by Patrick Miles

It is now a month since I fired the starting-pistol for publishing George Calderon: Edwardian Genius myself on 4 June 2018. Every writer I know assured me we could bring the book out in six months…but what they didn’t tell me … Continue reading →