Technology

Favorites 4: Innovation and Endeavor

Favorites 4: Innovation and Endeavor

View Planet Earth from the Orbiting International Space Station

ISS_Tracker_Screenshot

Tracker map detail. Click to enlarge.

This has to be one of the most fascinating sites you can visit. I like to view two sites simultaneously (or, rather, to toggle between them):

What is really neat about the second link is that you can zoom the view and also get a map or hybrid view. And you can observe the velocity and altitude (in miles!) of the craft!

Psalm 111:2 “The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.”

Psalm 24:1,2 “The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.”

Video clip below, screen capture for 20 seconds, ISS south of Australia, 20180920


The Car That Can Fly

Maverick_Steve_Saint

Maverick in flight

This is about Steve Saint, son of Nate Saint (remember the account of Jim Elliot, murdered in the early 1950s, by the Auca Indians in Ecuador?). View the YouTube video below of Steve’s invention.

(Jim Elliot famously said, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”)

This is a fine example of endeavor driven by a real and practical need on the one hand, and a zest to bring the message of God’s love and grace, in practical terms, to people out of normal and easy reach.

Come to think of it, to buy a flying car for a price ticket of around $80,000 sounds quite good!

 


 

Posted by Jim Holmes in Current Issues, Gospel, Heritage, Technology, Worldview, 0 comments
Publishing: 4

Publishing: 4

Jim Continues His Thoughts. . .

Who Moved My Cheese?

The cover design of the book caught my eye as well as the title. “Who Moved My Cheese?” it asked. It was a slender volume, no more than 96 pages as I recall, and it told the story of a number of mice that had to face change in life. The longstanding supply of cheese from which they have helped themselves is no more. “What is to be done in securing more cheese?” is the challenge facing these four mice. Written as a parable that takes place in a maze, the story engagingly describes Sniff and Scurry, and their associates, Hem and Haw, and how they go about finding more cheese. Spencer Johnson’s intention is to introduce readers to the concept of positive change and how to cope with it.  The book makes for engaging reading.

Shifting paradigms are always interesting, especially when they involve adjusting to new ways. Just because something has always been done in a particular way is no guarantee that such a way will always work—or that it cannot be improved.

When I first purchased my AB Dick printing press in the 1990s (more HERE), there was really only one way to produce books cost-effectively: by printing quite a lot at a time. The prevailing philosophy in the printing industry was to find a sweet-spot—establishing a printing number that was high enough to enable unit price to be attractive but not causing the publisher to have to mortgage his house to pay for the print run and then take take forever to sell the books—and not too short a print run to sell all copies too quickly. Of course, the fact that I owned a printing press did give me a strategic advantage at least when it came to the printing of sales leaflets and catalogs, but book printing was really a larger and more complex operation than my press would be able to manage.

After I relocated to Britain, the first publisher I worked for in the UK operated on the principle of having access to a fairly big warehouse to keep all the books safely stored during the time they were being fed out to the marketplace. Paper and print does not accrue in value under those circumstances, and it can be challenging to keep a large warehouse tidy and functioning in an orderly way. Maybe that got my thinking going about whether there was a better, a different way…

Other publishing wisdom I encountered in the early 2000s went like this: “We’ll print books in large quantities, but first find publishing partners—that is, buyers with whom we can engage in a kind of strategic alliance.” I liked that. It meant that the financial load could be spread and shared between two or more parties, stakeholders in each instance, and created a strong and efficient force for buying print and then for moving it into the market. I do still very much favor this approach, and I think it works really well under the right conditions.

Enter Amazon

The “Big A” has changed a lot of things. At one time, nobody took Amazon too seriously, but not so anymore. Amazon’s ability to operate on a relatively low overhead and to have negotiated specially preferential, volume-related relationships with shippers has dealt the death knell to many vendors who had maybe become comfortable with the status quo. The reality is that people’s buying habits have changed and continue to do so. Most people today are quite relaxed in making online purchases.

So What About a New Author?

Where does a new author, someone not yet published, fit into this shifting paradigm? There are many variables, but it’s usually fair to say that the new author is relatively without connections and can offer no track record to a prospective publisher. Jack Canfield (co-originator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books) records how he had to work exceptionally hard to find a publisher who was prepared to take the risk with his publishing idea. But that publisher was not unhappy with the outcome. (Canfield has subsequently had several New York Times bestsellers to his credit.)

It’s a hop, skip, and jump (at least in one sense) for an unpublished author to fly solo, and there is significant temptation to do so. The ease with which self-publishing can take place has given newbie authors a lot of rope. Some such authors make good use of the rope for hanging themselves, speedily finding an in-law to help with the editing, a friend to design the cover, and a teenager to help with the uploading of files to the printer; others are more cautious and with due circumspection do a better job. The point is that homemade usually looks homemade. I’ve seen enough to make me queasy!

But let me get back to my story and to tell you why I publish. . . and to address three important questions that need to be kept under consideration.

Below: Some of the books I have published so far

1. The Question of  Editing, Design, and Production Quality

It soon became apparent that I could easily help a new author (or an established one) bring a very presentable book into print. And that was gratifying for me as well as for the author! Editing and book design are closely related, and I found that even as I was working with an author, ideas were coming to me in terms of how we could develop the work to make it look like a nice project once it was in print.

Any would-be self published author MUST think carefully about how to achieve an outstandingly good result!

2. The Question of Financial Risk

So, now finding myself in the position of working with authors and others in the publishing realm, but without a full-time employer, my instinct was to push forward and to push hard in developing a new model, one that would facilitate the kinds of people who are gifted writers, but who, for whatever reason, are not able to achieve success with a mainstream or established publisher. One of the most likely things that will happen to a self-published author is that he or she will end up with numbers of cartons of a well (or badly) produced book in the garage. The first ten or twenty copies were relatively easy to sell (or give away as complimentary items); and then things just dried up. That can be an expensive mistake!

DSR Printing

So I reasoned that we could find a way around that by using digital short-run printing (costs have become much lower in recent years) so that only a small number of books at a time would need to be produced. Wow! That made such a difference to how people saw things! In fact, I coined the term “Perpetually in Print” (more info HERE). An author’s book never has to go out of print. And an author never has to face the sight of cartons of unsold print in the garage gathering dust!

Then I turned my attention to how I could help people promote (and therefore sell) their books. That was fun, if you find Facebook and such portals to be fun! This is all about enabling an author to use his or her voice and to achieve maximum amplification through low-cost or no-cost promotional portals. But that’s for another post I’ll write another time!

3. The Question of Distribution Efficiency

But that still did not quite solve the challenge of global distribution. I loved it that my US-based clients could enjoy success in selling their books in the States, but what about my clients in the UK? Well, I am happy to report that there turned out to be a solution—a very good solution to that, too, and one of the print-and-distribute models that I now use is highly efficient in making my authors’ books available anywhere in the world, usually available to ship within just a couple of days.

It was pleasing to be able to see good and reasonable answers to each of these challenging questions as I moved forward in my thinking.

Doing It the Right Way

One of my clients–a self-published author (in fact, he has since started his own imprint with my involvement)–was happy to report to me that when he made his book publicly available, one of his associates spoke these words to him: “Dewey, this beautiful book is self-published, and yet it does not look self-published.” And that is exactly the point! An author who has invested years and years, who has toiled tirelessly to produce a manuscript surely deserves the very best treatment and the prospect of getting a really pleasing outcome from such labors!

The “Either/Or” and “Both/And”  Relationship

There is something of a watershed emerging in publishing. One the one side, there is the traditional model, a model that I love and that continues to be effective. I work closely with established publishers, publishers who have been around for a long time and will continue to be so. But there is a new way of publishing, and it is imperative that established publishers recognize the new dynamic and, where appropriate, make use of it for some of their printing needs. Of course, for the newbies who are careful enough not to hang themselves on the long length of rope suddenly available, judicious use of new technologies and systems provide the enabling to bring them into new realms of effecitveness.

To one of my clients, I recently used the analogy of what the skies are like to aircraft. Her husband, a retired doctor, loves flying his single-engine, four-seater Cessna 182. A 182 is not a Boeing 747. But it flies in the same skies, and uses the same principles of thrust and lift in order to stay airborne, and has many of the same capabilities. And so it is that she, a self-published author who may be unknown to many, is able to appear side by side with the greats when it comes to platforms such as Amazon, and the public response to her writing (expressed in customer ratings and reviews) has much the same visibility authors who may be much better known.

Ask me whether I am an either/or person or a both/and person, and I will tell you immediately that I am the latter, especially when it comes to publishing. And the interesting thing is that the two can sometimes morph together in related projects. An author who is going to enjoy spectacular success will most likely have his or her books printed many at a time, and published and promoted by a publisher and distribution network that can accommodate the speed and urgency of demand, and where the cost of sale relative to the final selling price dynamic is in a satisfactory and realistic relationship. Supply and demand factors often determine this quite naturally.

But there is so much to be said for the author whose books are just quietly selling through key portals, and where the ongoing activity is sustained through quiet and unobtrusive means. You might not find such books in window displays or endcaps in bookstores, and the authors might not be doing public signings, but the reality is that the reader interest and demand is there, and it fuels the life of the book over a good length of time.

There is More to Come. . .

I cannot complete this cluster of posts without sharing a little about some of the books I have published, and introducing you to some of the authors and the fun we had in getting the books from concept to completion. So look out for the next post or two in this series!

 

 

Posted by Jim Holmes in Current Issues, Gospel, New & Noteworthy, Publishing Books Today, Reflections, Technology, Worldview, Writing, 1 comment
Publishing: 3

Publishing: 3

More from Jim on Publishing

In my last post, I mentioned April Fool’s day 2014, the day that dawned following over ten years’ service to my erstwhile employers, Day One Christian Ministries. In my tenure there as director of publications and marketing, I had gained a good sense of the publishing world, its strengths and its weaknesses, and how it could maybe benefit from having things done differently. I enjoyed working with editors and with graphic designers, and it was both pleasing and productive to develop so many new lines of books. I’ve mapped out some of these things in my portfolio in one of my websites [HERE].

Working in publishing significantly connected me with some fairly well-known authors, including people like John Blanchard, John MacArthur, Andy McIntosh, Roger Ellsworth and many others (you could see a part list HERE–there are over seventy names in it–but since then extended to more than one hundred). Some of them said some kind words [HERE], especially Dr. John Blanchard (pictured, right, with his wife, Pam) who wrote:

“Integrity and Efficiency”
Two words come immediately to mind when I think of Jim and Sue Holmes—integrity and efficiency. When you add gracious courtesy to those you have a combination that encourages you to work with them, as I have in South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. Their experience and expertise will be of great benefit to authors who choose to partner with them and I commend them warmly to any who consider doing so.
Dr. John Blanchard, Evangelist, Author and Christian Apologist

All said and done, I now found myself in the somewhat unenviable position of having been let go of, with a significant workplace injury (which my employers at Day One knew well about and for which they refused to take any responsibility), though, thankfully, with a green card and the right to reside and work in the USA.

Making a Plan

“Well, Sue,” I remarked over my mug of tea. Her gentle face was showing some anxiety and I knew that I would have to work to keep her from stressing overmuch. “It has to be publishing in one form or another. That’s what I know best, and I am happy to be guided by the principle of Ecclesiastes 9:10—Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” Around this time, John Lehman, an associate minister at a nearby church, had come into my life. He had, he explained, written a long letter that he wished to convert into a book and wished it to be a blessing to his family members. I looked it over, and it was very promising. Now that I have gotten to know John, we can enjoy a good laugh about how I helped to get the book “out of him.” See the graphic above on the right; John is much better looking than the patient undergoing the X-Ray and I hope I would not be mistaken in real life for the doctor! He and his wife, Suzie, are pictured below. John now has three beautifully produced books—the first on parenting, the second on marriage, and the third on fitness, all with engaging titles: It’s Apparent…You’re a Parent; I Do or I Don’t; and Fit for the Master.

As good J C Ryle said, “The best way to do something is to do it.” So I decided that the best way to start was by pushing ahead in some projects, feeling my way forward using social media and making myself as useful as I was able to. Principles lead to empiricals. “Just try doing it,” I counseled myself. One of the concerns driving me was to establish fair competency in website building and development, so while working on some editing projects for P&R Publishing, I also forayed into the world of Google-Sites and WordPress, soon finding the latter to be quite powerful, and that even eCommerce was not as complex as it might first seem. With thanks, under God, for free online tutorials and perusing numerous FAQs, it was not long before I found my way forward in developing websites for other people to help them promote their writing ministries. These include www.fitforthemaster.fit, www.deborahhoward.net, www.timothyjcross.org, www.lifelineminibooks.com, www.twelvedaysofchristmas.org, www.exposingthefederalvision.org, and several other ones.

An Unexpected Phone Call

An email that dropped into my in box from an online form submission from one of my websites was very interesting, and even more so when I phoned the man from whom it originated. “I represent a publishing family,” he said, “And in doing due diligence, we wish to establish whether you might be the right person to help in their publishing ministry.” It was an extra surprise, a pleasant one, too, to learn that the publishing family was none other than that of Tedd and Margy Tripp. Tedd (pictured here) is well known for his remarkable book Shepherding a Child’s Heart, a manuscript derived from a doctoral thesis that nobody wanted to publish when he first wrote it, so it ended up being self published (under the quickly thought-up name of Shepherd Press). Now with a sales history of well in excess of a million copies, it is a book that has challenged, blessed, and guided countless parents and teachers over the years. To cut a long story short, following a weekend visit to northern Pennsylvania, there commenced a relationship between me and Shepherd Press that enables me to be of service in the promotion and development of the ministry, and to help in recruiting new authors and rolling out of new resources. That’s just one of the various things that I love doing. You can find out more about Shepherd Press HERE and HERE .

Waging War on Worry!

Because the Shepherd Press work is flexible and part-time, there are many other things that I do in publishing. Like when Simon Robinson, my good friend in England, told me that he had been writing some notes all about anxiety. “I think we should make a book of it,” I ventured. “If you could get to 31 readings, it could even become a daily reading book.” Simon warmed to the idea immediately and soon after we were exchanging emails and sharing ideas. The outcome not long afterwards was a book in a black and red cover with an anxious man regarding people holding the book—the man on the cover that is—with 31 easy-to-read chapters, complete with Bible reference, application points, and a suggested prayer to pray—even if just to prime the pump, as it were–all to strategically help readers get over the worry factor.

So, why do I publish… That’s a great question. Perhaps it’s something like ink (rather than blood) in my veins.

So I am not yet done in sharing these thoughts. There is more to say about this ministry of publishing, especially inventing new and more efficient and effective ways of doing it, so I will add to this short cluster of posts and share some interesting insights into what I do and how I do it—and especially how the paradigms are changing!

To read the earlier posts on this topic, see HERE and HERE. To read the next one, see HERE.

Posted by Jim Holmes in Family and Friends, Friendship, Gospel, Heritage, Memories, Publishing Books Today, Reflections, Technology, Worldview, Writing, 1 comment

Thinking About Sully

airbus-on-hudson-river

Rare Occurrence

Going to the movies is a very rare occurrence in the Holmes family. We do enjoy watching some DVDs, and some are definite favorites, but we’ve only sat in front of the big screen twice since moving to the USA. Once was when we were given tickets, and we went to see (and very much enjoyed) Paddington Bear—so well animated, and with such a good sense of setting in the UK.

The other time was just a week or two ago. Ever since 2009 when US Airlines 1549 went down in the Hudson just brief minutes after encountering a bird-strike that crippled both of its engines, my son Matthew and I were fascinated by the idea of a plane coming down in the Hudson in full view of the skyscrapers of Manhattan. We watched several YouTube reconstructions making use of simulations. So, when Matthew announced earlier this year that Clint Eastwood was directing a movie along the lines of a documentary on the well-fated flight, we decided it had to go on the “must see” list.

The film was even more gripping than I had expected it to be. It captures well the ambience of La Guardia airport, Manhattan, and the atmosphere of the Airbus A320 (I’ve flown on quite a few of them in recent years).

The flashbacks or imaginary scenarios that play out in the mind of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger (played by Tom Hanks) are realistic in the drama and tension that they convey.

At the time of the incident on which the film was based took place, we were living in the UK. News coverage was extensive, and praise for the pilot and crew was widespread. The film explores the events from a different perspective—how Sully was challenged that he made the wrong decision to ditch the plane in the Hudson river—and that makes for good movie watching.

Character development is about as good as a movie will allow it to be. Not a lot can be achieved in just 90 minutes (and in that respect, I somewhat prefer the power of the written word). Nevertheless, the film is both engaging and actually quite gripping. It’s a DVD we agreed we would like to purchase when it comes on sale and can be purchased for a discount!

Things to Think About

What’s the takeaway, you may ask? We thought of the following points:

Great for suspense; life does keep us guessing at times

Excellent for atmosphere—the visuals are consistently good, and any viewer who has been to New York city in the winter will likely vouch for its sense of authenticity

Super special effects; the bird strike and water landing scenes make for very good viewing

Something very real but harder to express: capturing of the spirit of New Yorkers—ordinary people about their day-to-day business who divert course without a moment’s notice to come to the aid of the stricken plane and its occupants; Thank God for common grace!

A Real Story

And there is one final thought: this story is, at heart, a real story. We typically read and measure life through our own experience. We do better to measure life through the lens of the Word of God, the Bible. At the time of the event in 2008, the media often referred to it as the miracle on the Hudson. A miracle (in biblical terms) is generally considered to be an exceptional and direct act of God. I’d not go as far as to call the water landing a miracle (as it was entirely within the parameters of ordinary physical possibilities), but I have no difficulty in considering it an exceptional providence of God, a remarkable display of His singular care for the people of the city (and on the aircraft) in working out the details as He did. Of course he could have kept the birds out of the way in the first place. But it pleased Him to so work events that the soundness of the aircraft and its residual and still operative mechanical and electronic systems, the skill of the crew, and the actions of others, notably air traffic controllers and ground crews, were able to ensure the safety of all concerned.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being,” the Scriptures state (Acts 17:28). He gives to us life and breath and all things, determining not only the beginning and end of our lives, but everything that takes place along the way. The message of Paul to the men of Mars Hill (see Acts 17:15-34) makes for good reading, especially in our postmodern times.

Image Credit: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549#/media/File:Plane_crash_into_Hudson_River_(crop).jpg. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.)

 

Posted by Jim Holmes in Current Issues, Gospel, Reflections, Technology, Travel, 0 comments

Serving Others Joyfully

Typewriter_Icon

For the Joy of Ministry

A friend loves to end his emails with this strap line: “For the joy of ministry.” This resonates well with me. Jesus Himself took on the role of a servant. He came not to be ministered to, but to minister–to serve–and to give His life as a ransom for many.

Reflecting on this, I am drawn to some key thoughts in my editing and book production operation, Great Writing, and how I distilled an operational service ethos. These are the key points I wished to define:

Serving Authors: We Appreciate the Challenges

Being an author today certainly means having to navigate some heavy seas. There may be more ships on the water, but the oceans themselves have violent ebbs and flows. Writers’ block comes even to experienced authors; distractions, fatigue, and staleness are ever-present dangers to be guarded against; and the risk of just being, well, plain boring is there! Sympathy and understanding on the part of an editor can do wonders to help a writer!

Serving Editors: We Support the Process

My wife once put it quite bluntly: “To be an editor,” she said, “you have to be pedantic.” I hadn’t thought of it quite that way, but, yes, she could not have expressed it any more accurately. Is this according to the Chicago standards? Is there an exception to how this inflection should be rendered? Will the splitting of the infinitive actually offend our non-US readers? Should I adopt the purist approach and insist on absolute concord, or will the text read more evenly (and not over colloquially) with the grammatically less preferable rendering? These and a multitude of questions hustle around me anxiously and impertinently as I endeavor to polish paragraphs for other publishers.

Serving You: We Value Your Uniqueness

I deliberately chose a fingerprint motif to express this point. There really is no such thing as “one size fits all” when it comes to bringing the best out of an author. I once met an editor–a true pedant (and that in the worst sense of the word)–whose in-depth knowledge of linguistics equipped her well for the production of textbooks*. However, when it came to feeling the pulse of an author and helping him or her to express even better those things so passionately felt and articulated, this editor might just as well have been using a clothes iron set on “maximum” instead of an editor’s pencil.

Serving Your Audience: We Keep Your Book in Print

What is a book without an audience? It’s probably about as good as being an author without a publisher. That’s why I have come up with a completely new publishing and distribution model. It is totally low-risk, guarantees a professional outcome, offers a secure production and distribution model, and facilitates getting your book to where it needs to be–visible and available for ordering online.

Great_Writing_Logo_copyExcellence in the Written Word

Find out more about my services by visiting my work site here. I endeavor to live up to the strap-line I have chosen: “Excellence in the written word.”

 

* From Hard Times, by Charles Dickens, consider this definition of a horse: "Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth."
Posted by Jim Holmes in Publishing Books Today, Technology, 0 comments

God’s Lightnings Enlightened the World

Lightning2

His lightnings enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled. (Psalm 97:4)

My son, aged twelve, and I were discussing Benjamin Franklin earlier, and the topic was lightning and why it strikes where it strikes. It led to a discussion on his views.

Matthew writes as follows:

Ben_FranklinBen Franklin, Matthew reports, believed we would be judged by our good works, so he decided to do some good for the town of Philadelphia. He started America’s first library, etc. He decided to try and discover the mystery of electricity, so he performed experiments to see whether electricity could kill a turkey. He observed some similarities in what he observed with lightning, and found that if he put a small metal ball near a metal rod, there would be a blue spark that made a small noise, similar to what happens with lightning (though on a much grander scale in the case of lightning).

Franklin performed an experiment in which he flew a kite on a stormy day to see if he could transfer electricity from the lightning via a key that was tied to his kite and, in turn, to his finger, to be transferred to a jar to be reused.

He published details of his experiment in his almanac that year, and it caused a stir among the clergy because, in their opinion, if lightning is an act of God, then if a person or a house gets struck by it (and you are trying to prevent it by using a metal rod), then you are interfering with divine forces. Ben Franklin argued that, since we put roofs over our heads to protect us from unbearable weather, as well as rain and hail, then why should we not protect ourselves from lightning?

Thoughts and Observations from Jim and Matthew’s Discussion

This led us to look up a few Bible verses on lightning. Ephesians 1:11 makes the point that God is working all things after the counsel of His own will. So that includes lightning as a direct act of God.

Some Bible verses specifically state:

Exodus 9:23-24

And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven: and the LORD sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground; and the LORD rained hail upon the land of Egypt. So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous, such as there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.

Job 37:3

He directeth it under the whole heaven, and his lightning unto the ends of the earth.

Psalm 135:7

He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the rain; he bringeth the wind out of his treasuries.

As we considered these verses, and the video clip below, we thought of how wonderfully powerful God is, able simply to send millions of volts of power surging through the atmosphere!

To find out more Bible verses on the topic, visit this site here.

Enjoy this two-minute video with HD lightning strikes!

 

Featured image above, www.publicdomainimages.net
"Franklin-Benjamin-LOC" by Joseph-Siffrein Duplessis - Library of Congress LC-USZ62-25564. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Franklin-Benjamin-LOC.jpg#/media/File:Franklin-Benjamin-LOC.jpg
Posted by Jim Holmes in Biblical Creationism, Technology, Worldview, 2 comments

Perpetually in Print

 Perpetually-In_Print_featured_image

Great Opportunities, but Challenges, Too*

“I have prepared a manuscript. I believe it has value, and that it should be in print, but all the publishers I have approached seem to think otherwise. What can be done to get it into print?”

It is not uncommon to hear words such as these. The good news is that it has never been as easy to publish a book as it is today! However, with the opportunity of doing so, there are also challenges that have to be met. It may be relatively easy to rush a book into print, but just as easily, the outcome can be quite unsatisfactory. Often, a well-meaning family member or friend takes care of the editing, and the friend of a friend looks after the cover concept, but the quality standards are just not high enough for professional publication and distribution.

Another scenario involves taking shortcuts with the book’s internal design. Maybe it looks OK on the screen of your computer, but in real life, what you end up with is a disaster in print.

Then there is the matter of the bar-code, Bowker registration, and establishing a realistic retail price. Without these matters being carefully considered and planned, your home-made efforts may just be an accident waiting to happen.

What about warehousing and distribution? Who takes care of that? How does your book get placed on Amazon and into the hands of key vendors such as Ingram? Is there any possibility that your book will make it when it gets out there in the real world?

Are you likely to end up with cartons of unsaleable books in your garage?

Well, here’s a solution you should think about!

Introducing Perpetually in Print©

Perpetually-In_Print_Icon_largeBecause of considerations such as these, we have developed a model we call “Perpetually in Print” or PiP for short. PiP is a unique way that explores, considers and harnesses efficiencies, minimizing all costs, maximizing quality elements, and ensuring a realistic set of production costs to get your book into print.

The PiP model allows you the best of everything. In short, this is how it works:

You present a manuscript or writing idea to us;

We guide you through the developmental aspects of it, ensuring that the outcome is a publication-worthy piece;

We prepare your piece for publication on a perpetually in print basis.

What Do You Get in the PiP© Model?

Typesetting to the highest professional standards

The option of eBooks, too

Cover concept and design from an artist well qualified in the industry

ISBN purchase and registration

Production, including a thorough copyediting and proofreading process of all internal pages and the cover

Placement of your book in a warehouse and distribution supply portal located in Tennessee. At this point, your book is a virtual entity, so the distributor is able to print any number of copies (one is the minimum order; each copy is always at the same cost) and ship them out to the customer in the USA on the same day the order is received. An ONIX feed ensures that your book’s data is always right up to date, and that it reflects as being currently in print

The distributor offers international distribution capability and also takes care of all sales and receipts; warehouse storage charges are minimal owing to the virtual nature of your book until such time as there are specific orders for it

A preferential discount is offered to you as the author; you may order as many or as few books as you wish, whenever you wish. Trade terms are made available to all prospective customers

Support of your own promotional initiatives via a social media and the related construct of strategic activities through other portals associated with Great Writing, including personalized website design and hosting

And here’s the best part of all: You avoid the heavy costs of conventional printing and yet your book never has to go out of print!

What Does It Cost to Be a PiP© Author?

Prices are assessed on considerations such as the scale and scope of the project, the need for editorial intervention, and such related considerations. Contact us to discuss your project, and we will come up with the best possible deal!



*This post is extracted from one of my editorial services websites, Great Writing, and introduces a new concept I am working on.

Are you an existing or first-time author? Is this something that might interest you? Then, why not go ahead and contact me, share your idea, and let’s see if this is a model that could work for you.

 

 

Posted by Jim Holmes in New & Noteworthy, Publishing Books Today, Spirituality, Technology, 1 comment

When the Lamb Becomes the Light

When_the_Lamb_Becomes_the_Light_Graphic

As I was driving…

Serendipitous things can happen when the car radio is on and music is almost subliminal. I was arrested by the thoughts prompted by When the Lamb Becomes the Light, and checked it out on Google. I found something interesting; and I think you may enjoy it, too.

Here are the lyrics. After you have reviewed them, click on the video below and listen to the rendering of one man, Nathaniel Kramer. And enjoy the special effect when he and his other self join with him to sing a well-harmonized trio.

The source citation link below takes you to some other interesting renderings of hymns and spiritual songs.

When the Lamb Becomes the Light

The Spirit showed to John a wondrous vision.

From heaven’s highest realm, a holy city did descend
With its crystal river, gates of pearl, and great celestial chambers.
John saw it, but could scarcely comprehend
This place of perfect peace that’s everlasting
Where death is gone forever, and where no one will grow old.
And the sun is overshadowed by the Lamb in all His glory.
Oh, what a vision we too will behold!

When the Lamb becomes the Light,
And the faith that we’ve held onto becomes sight.
There’ll be no more weeping,
No more sorrow, no more night
When the lamb becomes the Light.

At times our eyes are filled with tears of sadness,
Yet we hold to the promise that these tears will pass away,
And though the world around us now is filled with pain and suffering,
We await that bright and glorious day.

When the Lamb becomes the Light,
And the faith that we’ve held onto becomes sight.
There’ll be no more weeping,
No more sorrow, no more night
When the lamb becomes the Light.

Written by Joel Lindsey and Regie Hamm. Source citation here.

Posted by Jim Holmes in Hymns, Spirituality, Technology, 2 comments

Secret for the Time Being!

Enterprise_piggyback

Launch Pending

I am not going into details at present, but anticipate being able to update you with an interesting development in the next few weeks. For the time being, consider this as being classified information that I’ll let out of the box below when I am ready.

Blogspot52_Favicon As the saying goes, watch this (Blog)Spot!

 

Box secret Blogspot

 

 

Posted by Jim Holmes in Biblical Creationism, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Current Issues, Family and Friends, French Christian Literature, Friendship, Heritage, Humor, Hymns, Interviews, New & Noteworthy, Publishing Books Today, Reflections, Sickness, Spirituality, Technology, Theology, Travel, Westminster Standards, Worldview, 0 comments

Big, Bigger, Biggest

Big_bigger_Biggest_runway

A World of Superlatives

Big_bigger_BiggestI love to view the world through the eyes of my eleven-year-old son. He fishes around on the iPad for interesting things, and something that has caught his attention is a series of ITV documentaries dealing with human endeavor–including the development of telescopes, tunnels, domes, and, just yesterday, he asked me to watch with him a documentary on large airplanes.

Astonishing!

For scale, it is almost impossible to imagine how human beings can manufacture such objects as the ones shown in the documentary, especially in light of the fact that heavier-than-air flight is really not much more then a century old!

The Antonov 124 is one of the world’s largest cargo aircraft. It has carried everything from battle tanks to other aircraft all over the world. In this documentary, the story-line involves a train being loaded on board and flown from Germany to India.

This educational documentary invites you to uncover the technological leaps that enabled this and other aircraft to be built. You will be fascinated by insights into how other airplanes have also been built, each one an epoch-making accomplishment in its own day, and each of which has yielded its significance to a yet larger craft.

Enriched with computer animated graphics, this video (and others in the series) will engage your attention for about fifty minutes!

Coming back to my son… it’s a wonderful opportunity to teach him that all of life belongs to God; He made the environment that we inhabit. We are to subdue the earth, taking the principles of physics and chemistry and applying them in a relationally integrated and useful way. In this He is glorified; and in this, we are enriched.

“The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof.” Psalm 24:1

Since generating this post, I exchanged emails with Prof. Andy McIntosh, an expert in creation science as well as in aviation and aerodynamics. He pointed out that there is a larger sibling to this Antonov (124), the massive six-engined AN 225. In the screen below, you may view a 9-minute video of this giant lumbering gracefully into the air from Manchester airport in England. Thanks to Prof. Andy for this piece!

You may read more about Prof. Andy McIntosh, a member of the board of Truth in Science, here.

Also from Prof. McIntosh are the graphics at the end of this post, below the video link. Click the thumbnails to enlarge these high-quality graphics. Enjoy!

Aa-2

Image courtesy of Prof. Andy McIntosh

an225-2

Image courtesy of Prof. Andy McIntosh

antonov-an-225-with-buran-space-shuttle-15713-1920x1200

Image courtesy of Prof. Andy McIntosh

1307322

Image courtesy of Prof. Andy McIntosh

Posted by Jim Holmes in Technology, 0 comments