My experience is centered around one of the most challenging and anxiety-laden aspects of publishing -- getting your book printed (i.e., book production).
It all started back during the week of September 6th. I made final arrangements to send my book off to the printer. What an exciting time. I had finished my book, laid out the pages to make them look all pretty and nice, created PDF files of my document, and saved it on a zip disk. As I'm recapping this, I realize how many glitches or should I say obstacles were actually placed in my path. Nonetheless, I still managed to find some way to hurdle (or go around) these obstacles.
GLITCH #1
My printer could not read my PDF files because I had compressed my zip disk to create more room on it. Well, when you compress your zip disk, it takes your 100MB disk and turns it into a 130MB disk. One minor problem, it's only readable on the computer you compressed it on.
MY WAY AROUND IT
No problem. I'll just e-mail the files down to the printer and he can download the files from there. Aside from the time that it took to send the files, it was the perfect recovery...
While I was making preparations to get my book printed, I was in the process of closing down my business for a week to head off to a long, overdue vacation in Paris, France. The files were at the printer and he assured me that he received all the necessary components to start working on this book. I returned from France...
GLITCH #2
My printer calls and says he has a copy of the proof ready for me to look over. Talk about anxiety. This is the time when you are looking for printer errors, not author errors. Much to my dismay, I found a blatant typo staring me right in the face, in the Introduction no less. I had misspelled the word Introduction (it looked something like: Intrnoduction). Now this wouldn't have been too bad if the word wasn't in my running header (which appears on every page of the introduction). And if that wasn't enough, my printer found an error on page 15 within the introduction as well.
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