Sweating bullets

I thought my book was A-1 ready to go but alas, my 8 a.m. early morning intention to submit the order was postponed until 3 p.m. while I did more tweaking.  I had spent days going through every single photo (over 200 of them) to make sure they were at least 200 dpi.  I didn't actually know what that meant but my scanner setting told me they were 200 when I went through the various steps to edit the size.  Well, come to find out, unless you scan the picture you've taken yourself and make it 200 (or higher) dpi, the actual photo doesn't really change.  Who knew?  Obviously not me!  What a shock when the sample submission came back to me saying everything was good EXCEPT a ton of pictures that weren't 200 dpi!  What?! They were according to my machine.

I was able to take the picture for the cover and the back cover and rescan them to 200 size (cause I had taken those photos myself) and still had the hard copy here.  Most of my other photos, however, were old family shots of this and that.   And, of course, I didn't take those.  I worried whatever was I going to do now?  The publisher told me they can still print the book with lower dpi; they just won't be as great as they would have been if I'd been able to make them 200 dpi or more.

I didn't want crummy pictures since people are paying to read it but I didn't want to scrub my whole project either as I've been working on this book for five months!  Then I remembered -- my  Town Kid book was full of older photos and I know darn well they weren't 200+ dpi.  They seemed to come out good enough so I crossed my fingers and hit "submit order."

I'm definitely going to consider trying to find an agent should I decide to undertake another book. Too much stress.  On the other hand, my next book probably won't be full of pictures. I would have been fine if I hadn't included photographs.  But I think pictures make it better.  Actually would have liked to have even more than I had and would really have liked to made them all color. So much nicer in color but the price is double!  Just couldn't walk down that road.

The turnaround is about ten days so I should have my book ready to distribute the first week or two of April. I won't relax until that package arrives and I get to see the books in person.  Please God! Make them with good enough photos to pass mustard.  I've got my fingers crossed. I should be okay.

If I had any liquor in the house, I'd drink it and toast to my good luck. I guess I'll have cranberry juice instead.  Ha!