Great news! After 2 years in the production phase, Healing Scriptures has arrived in its glossy paperback format. Mom and I first put this book together 7 years ago from all the scriptures she collected on health and healing as my brother and I were growing up. The original book was in workbook format, printed at a local printer with a color copy cover, featuring a sunset photo taken here in Jacksonville. We comb-bound every book by hand and sold them at a couple very small church book stores and online at our site, HealingScriptures.com.

Soon, the comb bindings started turning--so attractive--and we ran out of copies. Reprinting them at OfficeMax, which we did several times, was hardly worth the expense. We finally decided to re-design it one last time, like a real book, and my good friend Robby Rhoden offered to do it for free.

Then life intervened, from every direction. His wife had their second child, and he struck out on his own in graphic design. Our other business demanded holiday attention. We couldn't find the right printer. The costs of reprinting were skyrocketing. Copyediting within our family of editors added months. Figuring out how to apply for an ISBN number... The list goes on. In fact, I completed the website re-design to reflect the book over a year and a half ago! In the meantime, all we had to offer our site visitors was an e-book of the old version.

Finally, things settled down and the book took shape. After requesting estimate after estimate from a few harried printers each time the page count changed, expecting to pay several thousand dollars for books that would resemble programs and have stapled spines, we stumbled on BookMasters. Not only were their prices infinitely better, but the product was exactly what we wanted--a soft-cover, bound book.

After a few more hoops, the book is here and we're so proud. Another improvement--we used to send out little black-and-white, laser-printed bookmarks, cut by hand by yours truly, with each book. Yesterday, our new Moo MiniCards arrived in 7 designs, each one of the sunset designs from our site, with a scripture on the back.


Here are all of our super vendors, to whom I'm so grateful:
Robby Rhoden
BookMasters.com
Moo.com

If you do have a small book project, BookMasters is definitely worth checking out. I'll be using them at least twice more this year for a family cookbook and for a freelance editing client who is printing a book of his poetry and prose for his 50th birthday.

Labels: business, editing, photos