Throughout the process of preparing Jackrabbit to go to print, I have been availing myself of an online service called Reedsy. I initially used the service to find someone to edit the manuscript. I ended up engaging the services of an editor named Jennifer Huston of White Dog Editorial Services. She was great to work with, and incredibly thorough. She lives in the Chicago area, and was able to correct some of my geographical errors, as well as many others.
Of course, this kind of quality does cost some coin. Between the editing and the cost of the cover art, I had pretty much blown my production budget for this project. I was concerned about how I was going to typeset the book, as I knew I was going to have to do it myself. I had head any number of sources say that MS Word was a bad choice. Adobe InDesign seems to be an industry standard, but is fairly expensive. I did shell out twenty-five bucks for a discontinued publishing application called Serif Page Plus. It looks pretty good, but I didn’t really want to take the time to master a new software package.
Then I noticed than Reedsy offers a typesetting called Reedsy Book Editor. I was a bit skeptical at first, but what the heck – the price was right ($0). Besides, Reedsy had gotten their vig from my transaction with the editor, so I figured it was the least they could do.
Color me impressed, friends! After a few minor initial hiccups (i.e. user errors), I was able to upload my Word file and the Reedsy Book Editor cranked out a typeset version in about five minutes. Super-duper-cool! Now I have to read through the bastard one more time and make sure there are no proofreading errors. Fun ahoy!
Thanks, for the shout-out, Crawford, and for the tip on Reedsy’s typesetting tool. Being on the other side of the publishing biz, I was not aware of this tool, so I will be sure to share it with other clients. Do you mind if I share this post on my social media?
Also, I keep meaning to ask: who did you use for the actual self-publishing? I know you sent me a print copy of the book, so I’m guessing it’s someplace that offers both print and e-books. Was it Amazon’s CreateSpace?
Thanks!
Jen
Hey, Jen! Absolutely, feel free to link to this blog. I published _Jackrabbit_ via Amazon KDP (formerly CreateSpace). It’s caused a few headaches, as I’ve chronicled elsewhere in the blog. It was great working with you, and I may have another project in 2020.
-Crawford