Friday, January 5, 2018

Book Details

I spent today attending to final details of my book "An Arranged Love", which describes the instruction of my late wife Mirjam, when she was terminally ill, to marry E, a rural Xhosa woman -- and of course how this unfolded. It is a heart-warming story, though also -- as one reviewer put it -- "a rollercoaster". The book is close to 300 pages, and includes more than 100 photographs, most of them in colour, and many of a world seldom seen. It is therefore a very large (in megabytes) manuscript. The printer tonight judged 96 photos to be of the highest quality, while 28 were flagged as sub-standard. Yet I deliberately put in some "sub-standard" photos, for the reason that they help tell the story. Printer's checks are ongoing over the weekend. We shall see. OBSERVATION: The cost of production of the colour version (in rands) is a hefty R250, compared with a mere R50 for the black and white edition. A problem for people who will buy the book in South Africa is postage, which is R140 extra. I am working on that.

POSTSCRIPT:  The printer finally vetted my black and white edition as technically perfect. My colour edition has minor issues.

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