1. Today I realised that publishing a hard copy book is a lot more enjoyable than having to dick about with the process of publishing for ebook platforms. That's right, one of my post-it notes was to make sure all the ducks were in a row on the digital front. Laying out text and making sure the whole affair will look good in your hands is very different from adding page breaks to make sure it turns up in a basically sequential order. Why can't everybody just get along and agree on a single format for this stuff? Bookmark a lot of web pages to research it again. I've done it before but it was so much fun, I obviously forgot everything the minute I shut down my machine.

2. LuLu have pulled out the stops this week - I ordered a proofing copy to play with only a few days ago and it arrived in the mail today. It's not always been that fast but this is impressive. For those keeping score for their own purposes, if I had decided to run with Amazon and CreateSpace, they would still be thinking about printing it at this point. So far, so good. If they roll out at that speed from ordering, I will be a happy man with happy readers.

Here's the package:

The next few days will be odd. I have a magazine to proof today and then I leave for Manchester at lunchtime tomorrow until Monday. I think I will take everything I need with me and instead of lying on a hotel bed watching crap on TV, use the time to get through the work without a dog panting in my face. Maybe I'll wander up to some bookstores early on Saturday morning to see if they will host some flyers on the counters.

Anyway, not too bad for Day Five...