A Califonian Odyssey....You followed the trip report, now read the book!!!
 

It's finally complete. After many hours of cropping photos, proof reading, re-writing and formatting, I have just published my first book.

To say thank you to all of the Fodors members that helped me plan this trip and then encouraged me to keep writing and sharing my travel journal, I have made this book available for public viewing.

I will keep it open for the next 2 weeks so that everyone who cares will be given an opportunity to view the complete 160+ pages. After that, I will close it off as it feels a little "creepy" having complete strangers see every detail of our family trip. Of course, I no longer see you guys here as complete strangers. You have all become friends.

I hope you enjoy it.....

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1544336

What a fabulous trip of a lifetime you had! Great photos and great job on the book too. That will be a wonderful memory for your family in the years to come.

Shane-
What a great story! I got totally caught up in it and read the whole thing. Your planning certainly paid off and I'm sure your family will always look back fondly on your time here.

Thanks for sharing.

WOW! just WOW! Shanek!
This is truly incredible! And so nice to SEE you & your beautiful family. We have out of town guests coming in, so I wasn't able to read it entirely, YET. I will return for sure. Just a note: pg 23. It was IHOP- International House of Pancakes not HOP that won you over. But I think I'll call it HOP from now on. :)
Great way to start the day! Thanks mate!!!!!

What a great idea! This book will be such a terrific keepsake for you and your family. (I only got as far as the pics from Alcatraz, so far...really great photos to go with your narrative)! And thanks for sharing the website.

Great, great pictures. Are we supposed to be able to read the text? It sounds as though SOCALOC could, but I can't (too small).

yes, it was tiny text. I enlarged my on screen font to read it. I also go a kick out of your visit to HOP vs IHOP (pron: eye hop).

BTW, what software did you use for the book?

Thanks Guys.

Azzure, you can change the view to full screen by clicking on the icon on the top right of the screen after the book is loaded. That should help you read it.

I have to blame the spellcheck on changing IHOP to HOP. I thought that I clicked on "ignore" but I must have missed one.

I have ordered a "working" copy that I can make some changes to before I get a final version, so if you pick up on any thing else, I would appreciate you letting me know.

lucy, the program is called Booksmart and you download it from blurb.com . You can make your books in many different sizes and styles amd then order a final copy in your choice of soft cover, hard cover with a jacket or hard cover with embedded photos. A small book with 30 or so pages can cost as little as 20 bucks.

I will let you know how the printed version comes out when I receive it.

I hate to be a wet blanket. But isn't it against Fodor rules to advertising something for sale?

I have opened up a full preview, Howard, so that it can be viewed, not bought, and as it is purely a family trip momento, I couldn't imagine why anyone else would want to spend money on it.

Thanks for you comments anyway. I am sure that you will become very popular around here if the editors decide to delete this thread.

Shanek, having used Shutterfly and Snapfish in the past, I'm always looking for other options and was impressed with that site for book and photo book publishing. I thought the prices were reasonable too. You did a really nice job arranging the photos and the text.

Great book, Shane. Your family will remember this one for a looooooong time!

Dear Shanek,

as much as I have enjoyed reading your trip report I simply cannot read the book; not even in the full screen display mode or with installing the magnifier. The preview font is just too small, but again, my eyes are not very good. Am sure, many can figure out how to enlarge the font, I just cannot.

Can you post the publication as a free trial for - let's say - a couple of days? May be the publisher would allow it. Bad idea?

Thanks Maggi,

I was a booksmart "virgin" when I commenced this project just after we returned from our trip 5 weeks ago and my wife has been joking about the amount of time that I have been spending on it.

It actually took me the same time to finish it as the length of the trip!

My advice to anyone starting off, is to decide on your style first before you start dragging in text and photos as I had it all formatted, changed my mind on styling and had to re-do alot of text as it automatically changed the font. I am glad that I had all the text pre-written in "word" first, rather than typing it straight in to "booksmart" as I found it easier to cut and paste paragraphs with the knowledge of how much space it was going to take up.

You also gain a lot more flexiblity by just starting with a blank page rather than their suggested page layouts, as this allows you to determine the size of the text boxes and then modify them as you import photos. The text boxes are locked in their pre-set layouts so you are stuck with the sizing and will then find it impossible to stop paragraphs flowing onto the next page unless you waste space.

I plan on making further books from our previous travels, and future trips, as it seems to be a great way of displaying your photos. Much more interesting than the tradtional album and not that much more expensive when you calculate the cost of printing out 400, 6 x 4 prints. It will be alot quicker and easier next time.

Hey Shanek, I know how you feel. We did a 316-page blurb.com book on our 2008 Central Europe trip. I don't believe my closest relatives would pay $150 for a book about our trip. it is a great way to relive the trip, however. Nice job.

((H))

Carol, Welcome back from Bangkok. I followed your "live" report daily. It was your "on the ground" reports that first inspired me to start doing my own.

puffinx, What size screen are you viewing this on? The text is hard to read on my netbook, but seems ample on my 20" desktop. Bare in mind that the actual book is in a large landscape size and I have formatted the text for the book, rather than on-line viewing.

95% of the report is directly lifted from my trip report that appears here....http://www.fodors.com/community/unit...m#last-comment . You might find that a bit easier to read. I have just corrected most of the typo's and changed the tense.

Thanks maitaitom. You are right, if I had planned to sell it to family, I would have condensed it to a small size in softcover and priced it at under 40 bucks. As a keepsake, it is priceless.

Unless someone hits the little yellow triangle and writes a little report to Fodors, Shanek's post won't be deleted. So-Nobody do That!!

shanek, get over it. I really will not lose any sleep if I am not as popular on the forum....not that I know if I have any popularity here in the first place.
My whole point is that people (including myself) are quick to point out when someone tries for some sort of free advertising on the forum. Whether intentional or not, as soon as I went to your website, the first think I saw was information about the availability of your book and its prices.
I'm certainly not out to kill your trip report, which I'm sure is quite worthy of posting and being read. How about killing the pricing information and we'll all be happy?