Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Republishing - Part IV

When I started trying to locate all of Marilyn Meredith’s books, I discovered several I didn’t know about. The first was a cookbook. It had been published in 2000 and was long out-of-print. When I asked Marilyn about it, she said she only had one printed copy, and it wasn’t the published version.

She sent me two separate 8-1/2” x 11” paper copies. They were typed on a typewriter, and were three-hole punched. Apparently, the book had started life as two books. I scanned them and ran the OCR (Optical Character Reader) to extract the individual characters. Unfortunately, the characters on the typewritten pages didn’t always read correctly, and the resultant pages had no formatting. Fortunately, I had the originals, so I could compare each character to make sure it was correct.

Since I had two files, when they were both converted to one Word document, I re-indexed the recipes so the order made sense. Then I sent the document to Marilyn, She knew them well and made a few additional corrections.

The covers on the originals I was given had simple sketches, but we wanted the new one to have a professional-looking cover. So, I set my large oak table with blue placemats, white plates, and flatware. Larry took a couple of photos.

“This is too plain. It doesn’t look as though it’s actually set for a meal.” He went downstairs and soon returned with new photos of the table. He’d added my big, white soup tureen, a basket with a napkin in it, stuffed with paper to resemble bread, white cups, a sugar bowl and creamer. We both liked the look, and he still had room for the title, Cooking for a Big Family and Large Groups.

We both liked it—and so did Marilyn.

The other books I discovered were horror titles. These had only been published as ebooks. Marilyn requested—and received—her rights back for these. We began with Cup of Demons. (The title comes from a Bible verse.)

This appeared to be an MS Word file, but I suspect it might have been a WordPerfect file converted to Word since it seemed to have some hidden formatting. It didn’t cooperate well, and I had to upload it several times to get it to look right.

Since Marilyn didn’t have the rights to the original cover, and she said she’d never liked it, I had an idea for an image. I located free photos of old, faded and stained wallpaper, an ornate mirror, and a woman who fit the description of the ghost in the story.

Larry created one of my favorite covers. It conveys a sense of the story, and it is beautiful at the same time.

So, two more of her books are now available again. We still have a couple more of the horror titles to complete, and all of her books (except her Rocky Bluff P.D. ones, which another publisher is re-publishing) will be available.

Next week and the week after, I will interview Marilyn about her two historical novels, based on her real family members. I adored these books, and I think you will, too.

Marilyn Meredith’s published book count is nearing forty. She taught writing for Writers Digest Schools for ten years. She served as an instructor at the prestigious Maui Writers Retreat, and has taught at many writers’ conferences.
Blog: http://marilymeredith.blogspot.com/ and you can follow her on Facebook.


7 comments:

  1. Thank you, thank you, thank you! This truly was a huge undertaking! I thought about doing some self-publishing but didn't feel up to it. I am so blessed to have you for a friend!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You know I love you! And I adore your writing. Your books need to be available--all of them.

      Delete
  2. So very interesting to read about this and so happy for you and Marilyn!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Now she owns all of these in perpetuity. Really glad to see these two available again. And the historicals, too.

      Delete
  3. Wonderful to know that Marilyn's older books are making a comeback!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Too bad they were gone for a while, but they're back now!

      Delete