New Self Published Book by R.I. Coffield

Rebecca (Becky) Coffield, longtime resident of Bend and an alum of the Publish and Sell Your Book class, now has a self published book on the market.

Titled Life Was a Cabaret, it chronicles her 25,000 mile sailing adventure around the Pacific Ocean with her husband aboard their sailboat, Cabaret. One can almost smell the sea air as she describes the fun, fright, and self awareness that she experienced.

The book is perfect bound, has a 6" x 9" format with a professionally designed cover. Of course there is a copyright, ISBN, LCCN, etc. Her experience with a book manufacturer offers insight into the problems and prospects of out-sourcing some of the work on a self published book.

Fortunately, she is more than willing to share what she discovered with you and I. Get all of your questions answered at her book signing at the Book Barn on June 30, 2006. Watch for the announcement in the Bend Bulletin.

Also, be sure to visit her author website (and purchase a book or two) at:
http://www.rlcoffield.com/

Graphic Design & Layout with Photoshop Elements

Photoshop Elements (PE) is a program that is powerful enough to edit photographs for book publications. I began to wonder if it could be used to create graphics from scratch. The thought was prompted by many of my books containing not only photographs but also maps, charts, flow diagrams, etc.

A little bit of experimenting produced the graphic to the right. It is part of a Power Point presentation on how to get your manuscript published by a publishing house (a new course to be offered by COCC). The illustration depicts the process of going from an idea, to having a publishing house accept the manuscript, to the publishing process, with royalties being paid to the author.

The illustration is a series of clip art images that I found in MS Word and MS Power Point programs. I copied them, saving them as JPG files. Next, I opened a document in PE using the New command and sized the new page. Then, I began to place the graphics on the new page, using a new layer for each one.

The arrows are one of the options within PE. I used a new layer for each one. The most difficult part was making sure the arrows were about the same size.

I used the Text function of PE for the dollar signs, placing them on their own layer.

Lastly, I moved the items around until I was satisfied with the overall balance and saved the illustration as a JPG file.

Admittedly, it took awhile to get it right but it sure beat the heck out of buying yet another program.