First off, hope everyone reading had a lovely holiday--ours was great.  Yes, I did brave Black Friday & have the physical, emotional & financial scars to prove it!  Aside from working on what I will term "Operation Santa", I have been working in mini-sessions on my a few unfinished projects (My Empty Book Project & 16 Week Panic/Anxiety Project).  I'm still working on the logo and started really getting serious about content for the booklet and android/iPhone app I plan to go along with my finished product.  We did a lot of research on our topics a few weeks back, and the research info I used then is going to be really helpful for the booklet I have planned.  The thing I'm really happy about though... I got my empty book submitted to Lulu!  I could have done it at anytime since turning it in, but I didnt want to turn it in until I had made some modifications.  For one, I failed completely on the spine of the book & I definately wanted to fix that.  Also the leading & kerning were off on my title placement, and I wanted to really get a more polished feel before I had it printed.  Beneathe are screen shots of my modifications, the starting point & what I submitted to Lulu.

 

This is where I started, I was really pleased with it when I was done, but after presenting I did agree there was more work to be done.

 

First things first, I had to fix the leading & kerning.  Several mentioned it, and intuitively I knew something was not right.  So I measured it out and individually spaced each letter (which took some time, but was worth it), until it felt & looked "right".

 

I was still missing anything on the spine, so I made sure to measure it out (by putting the spine over the darker back, it misaligned my text box back there), and shift everything accordingly.

 

This is what I finsihed with.. a much better cover, IMHO.  I added a publisher's mark along with the title on the spine and a drop shadown behind the text on the back cover.  The text cracks me up everytime I read it, which probably makes me the geekiest person in America.  :)  I have a few weeks to get this in, but submitting it to Lulu now makes me feel much better! 

 

Between now & Thursday I will continue to work away at the 16 week project, especially now that I have this project finally squared away.  I really like how it turned out, and I don't regret all the work I put into making it just how I wanted!