Tuesday, April 17, 2001
Planning the Trip to Britain Next Month
Have been busy in my spare moments looking into places to go and see while in London with the family next month. I am very aware of the fact that we are heading there with my three-year old daughter, so am thinking about places I think she might enjoy. This means tours to places like The National Gallery, while not necessarily eliminated, come second after places like The Natural History Museum (with its dinosaurs), The London Zoo, and Trafalgar Square. I know I want to head to the Cleopatra exhibit currently running at The British Museum, and take a peek at Shakespeare's Globe Theater, and am hoping my daughter will put up with it. I also have ideas about heading to places closer to where we'll be staying in Orpington, such as Knole and possibly Chartwell, which both have extensive parklands. Heading out for a night on the town is all the more possible since I discovered info about professional babysitting services available that I feel comfortable with. Lots of planning to do yet, but am enjoying the process and exploring the possibilities open to us. Getting the Contract for Another Book
Got the contract in the mail today for doing what would essentially be a college text-book on creating Web sites. I love the idea, and a friend of mine pointed me in the direction of the acquisitions editor for Scarecrow Press. The royalty structure seems good, and will probably end up doing the formatting for the book myself, since doing the layout for it doesn't seem too onerous (the last book I did required the purchase of several rather obscure font sets from Adobe by the guy I recommended to the publisher to do the typesetting for me). The troubling thing to me is that there's no discussion about any advance for doing the book, which is odd since all of the previous writing contracts I've had state this up front. While I would still consider writing the book without necessarily having an advance for it beforehand, the contract pretty much puts all of the onus on me to write the book, and I have very little recourse should the publisher screw up for whatever reason, which would directly affect my income from the project. To my mind an advance is a form of surety that the publisher is willing to invest in my time and carry the project forward in the expectation of further profits. At the moment this is all a story of course, and I will email my contact there to clarify their position on this.
Have been busy in my spare moments looking into places to go and see while in London with the family next month. I am very aware of the fact that we are heading there with my three-year old daughter, so am thinking about places I think she might enjoy. This means tours to places like The National Gallery, while not necessarily eliminated, come second after places like The Natural History Museum (with its dinosaurs), The London Zoo, and Trafalgar Square. I know I want to head to the Cleopatra exhibit currently running at The British Museum, and take a peek at Shakespeare's Globe Theater, and am hoping my daughter will put up with it. I also have ideas about heading to places closer to where we'll be staying in Orpington, such as Knole and possibly Chartwell, which both have extensive parklands. Heading out for a night on the town is all the more possible since I discovered info about professional babysitting services available that I feel comfortable with. Lots of planning to do yet, but am enjoying the process and exploring the possibilities open to us. Getting the Contract for Another Book
Got the contract in the mail today for doing what would essentially be a college text-book on creating Web sites. I love the idea, and a friend of mine pointed me in the direction of the acquisitions editor for Scarecrow Press. The royalty structure seems good, and will probably end up doing the formatting for the book myself, since doing the layout for it doesn't seem too onerous (the last book I did required the purchase of several rather obscure font sets from Adobe by the guy I recommended to the publisher to do the typesetting for me). The troubling thing to me is that there's no discussion about any advance for doing the book, which is odd since all of the previous writing contracts I've had state this up front. While I would still consider writing the book without necessarily having an advance for it beforehand, the contract pretty much puts all of the onus on me to write the book, and I have very little recourse should the publisher screw up for whatever reason, which would directly affect my income from the project. To my mind an advance is a form of surety that the publisher is willing to invest in my time and carry the project forward in the expectation of further profits. At the moment this is all a story of course, and I will email my contact there to clarify their position on this.
Magical Link
A friend of mine, who occasionally does some magic tricks, pointed out The Browser's Den of Magic to me. Uh oh, will definitely have to make a visit to this place sometime soon! Many, many eons ago I was given a set of simple magic tricks from my Uncle Archie. From those times I managed to remember the very simple disappearing-coin-that-reappears-out-of-someone's-ear sleight-of-hand trick, which delighted my 3 year old daughter. Then this friend of mine -- who I had no idea did this sort of thing -- did a little performance of a number of such magic tricks, and he led me to the Browser's Den. One thing that has changed a lot since I was a kid is the proliferation of magic trick videos to help explain things. This is a great idea, since I remember the books on magic I devoured from the local library when I was young often had confusing illustrations of simple sleight-of-hand tricks -- confusing to a young kid, anyways. Will definitely investigate, perhaps on the weekend...
A friend of mine, who occasionally does some magic tricks, pointed out The Browser's Den of Magic to me. Uh oh, will definitely have to make a visit to this place sometime soon! Many, many eons ago I was given a set of simple magic tricks from my Uncle Archie. From those times I managed to remember the very simple disappearing-coin-that-reappears-out-of-someone's-ear sleight-of-hand trick, which delighted my 3 year old daughter. Then this friend of mine -- who I had no idea did this sort of thing -- did a little performance of a number of such magic tricks, and he led me to the Browser's Den. One thing that has changed a lot since I was a kid is the proliferation of magic trick videos to help explain things. This is a great idea, since I remember the books on magic I devoured from the local library when I was young often had confusing illustrations of simple sleight-of-hand tricks -- confusing to a young kid, anyways. Will definitely investigate, perhaps on the weekend...
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
