revjim.net

It turns out that it wasn't a publishing issue, or a user error that caused all the "problems I had with the first copy of the book":http://revjim.net/2006/08/01/theres-good-news-and-theres-bad-news/. No, it was, in fact, "really, really, crappy software":http://www.acdsee.com/products/fotoslate/. Thankfully, I have a few helpful friends who pointed me in the right direction and, $690 later, "Adobe InDesign CS2″:http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?link_code=ur2&tag=revjimnet-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fproduct%2FB00081I4W2%2Fsr%3D8-2%2Fqid%3D1154716333%2Fref%3Dpd_bbs_2%3Fie%3DUTF8 is mine. Hooray.

I had to teach myself to use InDesign which, by the way, is not at all intuitive. However once I got the hang of it, I was able to recreate the book in less than an hour despite the fact that it doesn't have any of the automation capabilities I was looking for.

The final proof read should occur tonight or tomorrow morning and I'll send off for another copy from the printer. The big question here is, do I order all of the books so that I can ship sooner, or do I order only one book just in case it's still not right so that I only blow $32 instead of the cost for all of the books? I think I'll order just one which means it'll probably be two more weeks before all the books ship. On the good side, that gives you all two more weeks to "pimp me out":http://revjim.net/2006/03/29/finding-place-linking-information/.