Publishing

I have been thinking, this week, that I have painted quite a few images just recently, and maybe the time will soon come when I put a second books worth together and have them printed.
My first book came about through a colleague who had put together a beautiful book of the photos taken during a once in a lifetime safari holiday. It was lovely to look at, and a lovely souvenir.
My family live a considerable distance from me, so they are unable to get to my exhibitions, so it seemed like a good way of showing them my best (in my opinion) work. It is also a lovely hands on record of lots of the paintings which are sold - some of which have gone abroad.

I looked at the site she had used and after a few false starts, put together my first book of paintings.

The company I used was 'Blurb.com'. I found it reasonably user friendly and being familiar with image manipulation programmes like Adobe Photoshop, any problems were ironed out with a bit of imagination and patience!

It takes you logically through every stage of the process, enabling you to put several images on one page or not, adding text and titles, numbering the pages and creating an index. It even allowed me to place large paintings across a double page spread. The only problem I had was in the editing! It is worth getting someone to proof read the work, as I found that I read what I thought I had written, and not what was  really there.

Blurb also allows you to sell your book from their site and reap the profits!

I was really pleased with the results, and some months later, when invited to a 70th Birthday do, and requiring a gift for someone who seems to have everything, I put together a second book, as an autograph book for the occassion. The front and back covers were two paintings my  friend had bought from me, and inside I wrote a small piece about our friendship and the occassion.
On each of the susequent pages, I put a small version of one of my paintings, leaving space for all her guests to write a few words and sign their name. Everyone was delighted, and I felt that she had a really lovely individual gift. I will certainly think of doing another one, should the occassion arise.

Maybe my next book should include a much wider selection of paintings, not just the florals, as I seem to be doing lots of other stuff at the moment, not least because of the compulsory nature the programme at the group to which I belong.