The Aardvark’s Tongue

Progress is slow but sure at the moment so like the rabbit and the hare, slow and steady wins the race. We’ve been updating the hosting settings to get ready for the newsletter that will launch along with the site. The audio-book CD cover is designed and now we have only a couple of outstanding pieces of photography to get done…oh, and of course the books need to arrive. Slow. Steady.

This  has undoubtedly turned into one of the least interesting blogs, even to me. The book has been delayed at the printers again (this time no fault of my own). Promised date: Jan 31st. Thank goodness not many lives are depending on the publication of this Aardvark.

So the book is at the printers and like many first endeavors there are the usual hiccups. Two low resloution line drawings slipped in so those had to be replaced, plus the cover which is to be black and white was mistakenly set up as four color. The new cover will be uploaded on the Monday after Thanksgiving then it is on to the press. We should be selling books in about three weeks! Happy Thanksgiving.

Time to go to print. The cover has been decided, the book has been edited, all systems go.

The votes are in (although most of them didn’t come via the blog) and the cover will be an amended Black and White version. The objective is to get the book to print this weekend so we can have the site up and selling in time for the holidays. Wish us luck.

Since beginning this blog I have been reading other blogs about blogging, particularly Lorelle on WordPress. Unlike many bloggers, the intent of this blog is not to generate income (at least not directly from blogging) but rather to catalog the progress on getting Aardvark-Tongue Publishing up and running and getting the first series of titles out. As a result, when there is no progress on the book (like these past two weeks which involved a move of offices and a household move) there is nothing to report on the blog. Still as Lorelle says “blogging success is about the long haul.” I suppose the same can be said of success in any endeavor - even publishing.

Being only able to steal short bursts of time to work on the only progress I have made this week is on the cover. At the suggestion of a publishing expert and the people who will probably print this first run I have redesigned the cover so that it is color (for better stand-out) and has a spine instead of being spiral bound (so that bookstores will want to stock it - apparently they don’t like spiral because to display it face out takes up too much space). So below is the original cover design and the new color version.

Any thoughts?

Things have been fairly slow on the book publishing front. The front cover design needs to be modified and some of the distribution details need to be decided upon, but life keeps getting in the way.

Things on the Captain Niekerk’s Fine Rooibos Tea front are moving much more quickly. The packaging for the tea arrived this week however dimension-wise it is about 15% less in every respect than “as advertised.” Thankfully it will squeak by in terms of acceptability. We need to get the packaging completed and shoot the photography for the website anyway to be ready for the web sales. Now, if you will excuse me…my tea is getting cold.

It’s official - Sun-Dried Aardvark-Tongue Swizzle-Sticks now has its copyright, straight from the desk of Marybeth Peters. One step closer to launch!

In case you were wondering if there were any other projects in the pipeline, the answer is a resounding yes.

Upcoming titles (the final titles may change) include:

• The Cannibal’s Cookbook
• Jake and the Booger Crane (or some variant thereof)
• and an illustrated book of Mixed Metaphors
  • which begs the question “Does the Pope $*@+ in the woods?”

Any suggestions for other projects or titles are very welcome.