The Golden Warisan Volume 1 Final
It has been a tiring one week. Asia Printers printed all 500 copies of my book about two weeks ago but since I ask for laminated binding, that apparently took a while. I ask for the first 20 copies which I brought with me to Singapore as my gift to all the Singapore agencies which I visited. The remainder came out last week.
Since my printers only print, I have to do the marketing myself. So I have to find out who in Best Eastern and Bismi were the ones in charge of purchasing books and got the books to them. Hopefully the books are doing well. I don't get paid unless the books are purchased. I don't intend to make a profit, just enough to cover my printing cost. Any profit I make will go towards printing my next book. I realised the only way to make money from book writing is to print and sell a few thousand copies. Otherwise forget it. You will just be doing it like me - for fun and for experience.
My efforts to give away free books have not been successful. Like I said, History teachers apparently do not read blogs and therefore do not write in for free books. I received emails from one teacher at Sharif Ali, another from STPRI and two from Science College and one request from MOE. They all get one hardcover each. I am not entertaining any more requests. I will be sending each secondary school one book to be kept in the school library including the four schools whose teachers wrote in.
The second volume of the Golden Warisan is completed. I am sending it to Dewan Bahasa tomorrow to get the ISBN number and by Wednesday, hopefully DBP would have given me the number. ISBN numbers are given out fast for a government service. I presumed not many Brunei books are printed in Brunei. By Thursday, the draft will be at the printers.
The second volume is much thicker and has 48 articles. There will be more photos and there is a long list of biographies which I forgot to put in for the first volume. Hopefully there will be less errors. There are so many errors in the first book that I am very mortified. Maybe one day I may have to reprint the first one and maybe I will correct all the errors.
Thank you for your support.
Since my printers only print, I have to do the marketing myself. So I have to find out who in Best Eastern and Bismi were the ones in charge of purchasing books and got the books to them. Hopefully the books are doing well. I don't get paid unless the books are purchased. I don't intend to make a profit, just enough to cover my printing cost. Any profit I make will go towards printing my next book. I realised the only way to make money from book writing is to print and sell a few thousand copies. Otherwise forget it. You will just be doing it like me - for fun and for experience.
My efforts to give away free books have not been successful. Like I said, History teachers apparently do not read blogs and therefore do not write in for free books. I received emails from one teacher at Sharif Ali, another from STPRI and two from Science College and one request from MOE. They all get one hardcover each. I am not entertaining any more requests. I will be sending each secondary school one book to be kept in the school library including the four schools whose teachers wrote in.
The second volume of the Golden Warisan is completed. I am sending it to Dewan Bahasa tomorrow to get the ISBN number and by Wednesday, hopefully DBP would have given me the number. ISBN numbers are given out fast for a government service. I presumed not many Brunei books are printed in Brunei. By Thursday, the draft will be at the printers.
The second volume is much thicker and has 48 articles. There will be more photos and there is a long list of biographies which I forgot to put in for the first volume. Hopefully there will be less errors. There are so many errors in the first book that I am very mortified. Maybe one day I may have to reprint the first one and maybe I will correct all the errors.
Thank you for your support.
Comments
But if you don't mind, there's a few things I'd like to highlight for consideration in the second volume.
1) Page numbers of each chapter at Table of Content (just a reminder because I know you're aware of this omission)
2) It's better to list chapter title on each page (instead of author's name). Makes it easier to find each chapter.
3) One big and clear picture for the cover would be much better I think (just an opinion)
4) As you said, list of references used must be included
5) It's always interesting for some readers (like myself) to see the picture of the author (also an opinion)
In any case, congratulations on the publication and I am looking forward to the second volume.