As many of you who read this already know, I’ve been writing a book. The book title is “The Easter Egg Fleet”. It has been under development for a long time. This post is going to cover a few of the reasons why.
I started writing about American ship camouflage in WWI because I was interested in the subject. I was painting some of my 1:1250 scale ship models and I wanted them in the actual colors and patterns the real ships carried. I did a lot of research. Then I decided on an outline that would cover both the development of ship camouflage and the background that made it an interesting, albeit short-lived, phenomenon.
I got pictures and drawings of the actual patterns and wrote the text. I finished it about three years ago. Yes, that’s when I completed writing the book. So why am I discussing it now? Because just after I completed the writing I did something really stupid. I opened an e-mail from someone I did not know. I actually thought it might have been from a fellow model collector. I should have known better. It contained an embedded virus. The virus took over my entire computer, encrypted all my files, and sent me a ransom message. I was to pay a large sum in Bitcoin in order to get a key to decrypt and restore my files.
My initial reaction was not to give in to extortion. I contacted someone in the police, and found out they probably could not identify the blackmailers, and even if they could, they would not be able to recover my files. Of course, the extortionists put a time limit on my response that just added to the pressure. At the time, I did not know much about Bitcoin. I certainly had no familiarity with it other than to have a vague idea of what it was.
I looked into the idea of paying the ransom. The sum they were asking for was actually well beyond my ability to pay. Despite that I tried to open a Bitcoin account and purchase some. I got totally confused in the process. I was quite unable to purchase any Bitcoin, much less the exorbitant amount the blackmailers wanted. Their deadline passed and I was no longer able to contact them. In fact, I was never really able to communicate with them. So, goodbye to all my files.
I got a new laptop, and started rewriting the book. I was able to recover some of the picture files via copies held by other individuals. Then I encountered a new source of delay. Preparing illustrations of the actual patterns was a major project. My graphic artist/illustrator does superb work, but it takes time. More months passed. I must also admit that I contributed to some of the delay because I kept learning more, and making changes to incorporate what I learned into the book.
Then I set out to learn how to publish my masterpiece. I found out you can’t talk to any big publishing company directly. You need an agent. Agents cost money, and are also very picky about what books they will take to the big publishing houses. Next step was to consider self-publishing. There are companies out there that encourage you to self-publish. They will walk you through all the steps…for a fee. I checked out a subsidiary of Amazon that offered free registration. They have since then closed down. I entered into a long communication with another company, and ran into another serious obstacle. Not only did they want me to buy their publishing package (not an unreasonable request) but they would supply me with a “free” ISBN number.
What’s an ISBN number? It’s an international identifier used by everyone in the publishing business to identify a particular book. All Book publishers and sellers use it. Among other things, it marks the book as “belonging” to the publisher. If I wrote a best-seller, or wanted to make changes to new edition, I would need their consent. I may have written the book, but they owned the ISBN.
So I bought my own ISBN from an agency that is licensed to provide them, and registered with a reputable printing service and distribution provider. They charge for their service, but I am the publisher. I retain the rights to my own book. This, as you may have suspected, resulted in another series of delays. I had to select what size the book would be, what kind of paper to use, color or back and white? Hard or soft binding? What about cover design? discounts? a whole host of additional considerations that have really got nothing to do with what the book is about.
After successfully navigating through all the technical details there was just one more hurdle to clear, sending the book to the printers. That turned out to be more complicated than I had expected. The electronic file containing the book, including all the illustrations, is quite large. For whatever reason, it was not acceptable to the original transfer program. Even after the draft was finally sent, the preview provided by the printer took issue with the quality of some of my illustrations/photographs. As of today, I am waiting for a proof print and possible technical comments from the printer.
So keep your eyes on this space. An official release date will coming soon.
Wetherhorn 