I've hinted at my newest project a couple times since last fall, but the first stage is finally nearing conclusion. As the title of the post implies, I'm writing a book. More accurately, it will be a series of six volumes – one for each year of the blog.
I have no illusions that anyone else will purchase this. It's purely a project that sounded interesting to me, and I think it will be interesting to see all those books lined up on my bookshelf. But how do you publish a book without spending thousands of dollars?
That's where lulu.com steps in. They are a printing/publishing company that makes it super easy for you to create your own books with professional printing and binding. You can choose from paper back, hard cover, coffee table books, and a large number of other formats. Each format has a bunch of different binding and printing options. You can even pay $50 and get a real ISBN number. I'll be skipping the ISBN number, but the books I'm getting printed are standard 6"x9" hardcover books with a color dust jacket and black and white pages.
For the past few months, I have been scrubbing old posts. The first 1000 or so posts didn't have titles or categories so that took a lot of time. I also had to write a program that pulled each post out of the database and stuck it into a word document while preserving the images and formatting.
It has been very tempting to edit the content of some posts. While I am ok with correcting spelling, I'm holding back from removing posts entirely. I disagree with some posts I wrote in the past, but that's part of what makes this an interesting project.
I'm getting close to sending year 2002 to the printer. Once I get that back and make sure everything looks as expected, I'll print off volumes for 2003-2007. It all depends on how I format the books, but I'm expecting to have well over 2000 pages in the complete set.
And now for the part that you can participate in. I'm trying to mimic an actual published book, and books that you buy in the stores always have quotes from reviewers. If you leave comments or send me an email with a review of the book, I'll consider using it. I realize I'm opening myself up for a lot of jokes, but that will make the book better. Don't worry, you're not going to hurt my feelings. If you don't make fun of the book, I will.
[Update] Fixed typo. Thanks JimW.