Progress towards publishing.

Option 1. My manuscript is now definitely with a publisher for a read through.

Option 2. I went to see a large printer group in Wiltshire where I talked through the preparation for, litho printed, sewn book and actually walked round the factory to see the process at work, also compared with the digital option.

I understand much better now what's involved and what deadlines to work to. The place gave me a good buzz and afterwards I walked through the offices were loads of people working and dealing with the client side. I would be assigned someone to look after my book and liaise with me.

It was made clear to me that it did not matter what font style I use as it will be changed for a book type face and also how I lay it out in Royale size will also be changed. All my footnotes will have to be stripped out and also the photos and diagrams even though I am putting them in with the text. I also need 100gsm coated paper to do this. I now have the margins and layout size of the dust jacket so I can rough something up but the printer will design it for me.

I need to get my ISBN numbers ordered and with a batch of 10 the printer suggested I start thinking of my next book! When we talked I found I had 2 new book ideas already. I'll need an ISBN per edition, one for a hard back, one for a ebook which the printer can organise too. It is nice to feel in control. If I want spaces between paragraphs as I am doing here I need to hit the return key twice otherwise all double spacing will be ignored.

Is anything reading this? Oh and an index, has to be left till all the text is edited and proof read and then I will do it by hand. I am also planning a Glossary of acronyms and abbreviations.

That's enough for today.

Influences and big issues.

It turns out there is more to connect Arthur with Doug than I first thought.
Doug was finishing his degree in electronics in 1945 when he was called up. He had chosen to study electronics at Oregon University because he was fascinated by radar and the secrecy that surrounded it during wartime. So he joined the Navy to train as an engineer technician. He sailed for the Philippines just as Japan surrendered. It was there in a thatched library he read about the concept of setting goals and working on big problems to assist mankind.

Doug's career was centred on collective intelligence via the interactive computer. He was 20 years ahead of his time.
"Douglas Engelbart never really gets credit for the larger contribution that he worked to create: an integrative and comprehensive framework that ties together the technological and social aspects of personal computing technology."
He was a new kind of person. This resonates so well with Arthur.

Arthur once said" he was concerned that certain parts of the world were progressing rapidly and becoming richer. These parts may become greedy and full of fear. The other parts of the world are caught in the spiral of hunger and poverty. He wished and hoped that people like us would balance the world."

Anyhow I wanted to share these thoughts because we are in a very serious place in the world's history - our politicians do not know how to handle the problems we face example: by 2017 official figures show we will have to find £70 billion just to pay the interest on the National Debt the equivalent of today's budget for Defence and Education put together. WHOW. 

'Follow My Dreams My Life & Times Arthur Ivor Llewelyn'

 

copyright Miranda Andrews 2013

I thought I had sent my manuscript to the publishers via a "send large files" service as at 13.8MB it is too large to send by email.
When I received an email from the publisher saying they were still waiting to receive the manuscript I at first thought that meant back from the editor; then I thought OMG perhaps they never received it in the first place. It always pays to check and check again.

'Follow My Dreams'

To check out the book follow the link below

http://followmydreams.co.uk 

Christina's video

R.I.P.

Christina's video, about her now late father's (Doug Engelbart) vision, is 39 mins long and well worth watching.
http://bcove.me/9dfr3p56

His vision and radical approach took years to be recognised - he was even advised to keep his ideas under wraps in case he got fired; his greatest breakthrough innovation, according to Christina, was improving the human condition to unleash the human potential to solving the world's problems.

Politicians take note!

Another famous visionary
Like Arthur, Douglas was years ahead of his time. I wonder if Arthur knew him. I am going to try and find out. His daughter Christina has written a biography about him.

Douglas Engelbart born on a farm outside Portland Oregon; a radar technician during WW2 in the US Navy he invented the first version of the computer mouse in the 60’s that was not widely used until the 60’s when the patent had run out died aged 88 on 3rd July 2013.

Among Engelbart's other key developments, along with his colleagues at the Stanford Research Institute and his own lab, the Augmentation Research Centre, was the use of multiple windows. Engelbart's lab also helped develop ARPANet, the government research network that led to the internet.

As a graduate student in electrical engineering at UC Berkeley after World War II Doug Engelbart began to imagine ways in which all sorts of information could be displayed on the screens of cathode ray tubes like the ones he had used as a radar technician during the war, and he dreamed of "flying" through a variety of information spaces.

At the heart of this vision was the computer as an extension of human communication capabilities and resource for the augmentation of human intellect.
http://www.dougengelbart.org/vision/paradigm-map.html
http://www.ibiblio.org/pioneers/englebart.html