Finally, it’s tease time

I have had to come to terms with reality, much as I despise the concept. It was never possible to get this multi-author book sorted out in the time frame I gave myself, especially with moving house at the same time. However, it’s nearly there.

The Christmas anthology isn’t likely to be possible this year but I will still be looking for stories. The sensible way to do things (an alien concept for me) is to set up for a Christmas anthology next year. That gives people time to write the stories and gives me time to recover from formatting disasters and the intrusions of real life.

Once this is done I have two completed and edited novels to deal with. Those won’t take as long because the hard work (editing) is done and I’m only dealing with one author per book. I’d like to have both out by Christmas if I can but otherwise it’ll be the new year for both.

In addition, it seems my contracts for publishing Jessica’s Trap and Samuel’s Girl are expiring or have expired. I intend to take those under the Underdog banner too so I can sell them at a lower cost than the publisher. I’d only need to develop new cover art, the rest is done.

It seems I missed a couple of authors on the payments before I moved house. I’ll deal with those at the weekend and get an answer on whether they want cash or books. Most are already sorted, but I apparently missed two.

The book itself is in format and, I think, finished. Cover art won’t take long, I have an image in mind…

I’ll send each author a PDF of the whole book so they can check everything is in order. Check that I didn’t miss anything when fixing the format disaster. I’m deliberately sending PDF because I don’t want a lot of Word and OpenOffice documents coming back with minor changes in each section. I’d have to merge sections again and that would set me back to the time just before the formatting disaster.

This time, it has page numbers. Any changes, tell me page and line and what needs to be changed. I’ll fix it in the original and that’s the final chance to change anything. No more tweaking, no more perfecting, here we go. I am absolutely determined not to let this one slip into 2017. I’d quite like to do an Easter one, and next year the Halloween one is starting a lot earlier.

This weekend I’m finalising it. I have to force myself to stop proofreading and procrastinating. There are more books waiting. The Underdog Anthology is, I think, ready to go.

Here, as a tease, is the contents page with page numbers. This, as the saying goes, is it.

Roo B. Doo – About the Author 11
‘Til the Fat Lady Swings 13
Mind the Gap 17
Succulent Sardines 21

John Duffy – About the Author 25
The Wheel 27

Mark Ellott – About the Author 35
Wings Over Malta 37
The Revenge of Morning Cloud 47
Memoirs 71

H. K. Hillman – About the Author 75
When the Wind Changed 77
Waiting for Midnight 79
Seven Minutes 83

M.J. McFadden – About the Author 91
Breathers 93

Pete McLaren – About the Author 97
Breakfast at the Albany Café. 99
Cycling 101
Charlie Wobbly Bosoms 103
The Christian and the Toddler 105
When Things Go Wrong 107
Small Boys and Cigarettes 109
Accidentally 111
The Beach 113
Lego 115
Bin it… 117

Elizabeth Pole – About the Author 119
Dave 121
The Orchid Girl 123
Husband 127

Hugo Stone – About the Author 129
Jesus Saves 131
The Coffee Shop Girl with a Smile like the Sun 145

Justin Sunshine – About the Author 153
The Caretaker 155
The Death of Marcus Fernsby 161
The Halloween Haunting 169
Suffer the Children 175
Return of the Butterfly 183
Gaol Time 191

They are, of course,. formatted properly in the actual book 😉