I'm now officially overbooked
Jun. 14th, 2010 08:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
voxwomanI received a draft contract from my (my mother's) agent, and it looks like I'm going to be responsible for the initial conversion of mom's books into RTF that then get turned into e-books. I don't have to deliver all of the books at once, and the initial contract is only for 6 of them, but that's still 1500 pages to scan, OCR and proofread/correct. I will have to purchase or rent a high-end document scanner (and I may as well scan in ALL her books at once - which will be closer to 8000 pages - and proof/correct over time). This is not a trivial task, especially since I have no experience in this.
I'll also probably have to purchase some high-end OCR software - I have some that came with one of the flat bed scanners I own, but it's dodgy and if there's a more accurate OCR out there it will be worth the money in the time savings. I really hope there's a market out there for mom's back catalog because I'm going to have to invest a serious amount of time and money getting these done.
I've also been putting off writing up quilt patterns, and I think there 's a market for it, and I've found a very good potential market at quilterboard. People have downloaded over 500 copies of my free oven mitt pattern in the past month, and I've started working on a baby quilt write up that I plan to charge maybe 5 dollars for, to "test the waters". The big quilts I've designed are really the ones that people want patterns for, but they will take the most effort - the quilt design software tells you how to cut pieces for an individual block, it doesn't explain how many strips of what width of each fabric to cut to assemble ALL the blocks - YOU have to figure that out and then explain it to someone else. Plus, my calculations are frequently "off" by one strip and until this last quilt, I haven't been keeping meticulous notes regarding changes I had to make in my initial calculations.
I guess some of this stuff is the stuff I should have been working on last summer. I could sure use the time off this summer, but I don't know that I can afford to lose the income. I think I'm going to have to ask my boss if I can further reduce my hours for a couple of months so I can tackle these side projects without them consuming me - I don't want to stop quilting or canning or doing the other things that I do in favor of scanning and proofreading.
I'll also probably have to purchase some high-end OCR software - I have some that came with one of the flat bed scanners I own, but it's dodgy and if there's a more accurate OCR out there it will be worth the money in the time savings. I really hope there's a market out there for mom's back catalog because I'm going to have to invest a serious amount of time and money getting these done.
I've also been putting off writing up quilt patterns, and I think there 's a market for it, and I've found a very good potential market at quilterboard. People have downloaded over 500 copies of my free oven mitt pattern in the past month, and I've started working on a baby quilt write up that I plan to charge maybe 5 dollars for, to "test the waters". The big quilts I've designed are really the ones that people want patterns for, but they will take the most effort - the quilt design software tells you how to cut pieces for an individual block, it doesn't explain how many strips of what width of each fabric to cut to assemble ALL the blocks - YOU have to figure that out and then explain it to someone else. Plus, my calculations are frequently "off" by one strip and until this last quilt, I haven't been keeping meticulous notes regarding changes I had to make in my initial calculations.
I guess some of this stuff is the stuff I should have been working on last summer. I could sure use the time off this summer, but I don't know that I can afford to lose the income. I think I'm going to have to ask my boss if I can further reduce my hours for a couple of months so I can tackle these side projects without them consuming me - I don't want to stop quilting or canning or doing the other things that I do in favor of scanning and proofreading.
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-14 03:52 pm (UTC)I've seen great stuff on videos though. Our state archive has a machine that even scans huge books - turns pages carefully, will handle newspaper columns nicely etc.
It will be far out of your price range, but maybe you could rent time at one? Just for a first scan? Check your local libraries, maybe.
Good luck - I hope you make a bloody fortune :-D!
no subject
Date: 2010-06-14 06:46 pm (UTC)