Serenastyle Scrapbook

Reasons why you really don’t want to publish a compilation book

Excerpts from our editor’s latest email:

The permission form is attached. You’ll want to fill out the relevant information and then everyone contributing material will need to print out the form so they can sign it and mail or fax it to you (and then you can send copies on to us for our records once you have them all).

After all, we’re only including about, oh, five-hundred submissions?! Suddenly I wish I had a P.O. Box, since I’m really not fond of the idea of mailing everyone my home address. I’m also too poor to buy stamps…CAN WE JUST SAVE TREES AND DEAL WITH DIGITAL SIGNATURES?! Dear all, please print out the form yourselves and email us scans, or create an authentic-looking digital signature for the sake of our sanity. Thanks! It seems as if I need to fill out a separate form for each person/submission…

Also, I will need the files for any photos you will be including. They can be sent as TIFF, EPS, JPEG (hi res), AI, PSD, or GIF files. The ideal format for photos is high resolution grayscale, 8-bit TIFF, at least 300 dpi at approximately the final size the image will appear in the book. Please number the art consecutively from 1 to whatever from the beginning of the manuscript to the end and key each piece of art with the corresponding number in the manuscript. As you do this, please fill out the attached art log with the image number, file name, description, manuscript page number, type of original, status, and credits and/or captions and return to me with everything else.

People send us low-res, cellphone photos or computer screenshots. Too bad every single photo is a different dimension, otherwise I could just do batch operations in Photoshop…

Our schedule can probably allow another 2 weeks if necessary, so please get me the manuscript February 1^st at the latest.

This is why I want to faint. (I have another illustrated book proposal due in Feb, and I’m having difficulty formulating my character as well.)

Shoulda listened to these mommas!

“Never give anyone a free trial and take your product home. They must pay full amount first. Because if they get free trial, I know because I sell cosmetics for so many years, they will always return product.”
—Dating Analogies, MMIAF

“Don’t be easy. Don’t be like a cow. Chinese people say, if a boy gets the milk for free, he has no need to buy the cow.”
—Don’t Be A Cow, MMIAF

What I’ve been doing all day long:

…going through MMIAF entries, picking out new favs to include in the book.

Came across this one, which I found particularly inspiring:

The firm that I interviewed with decided to rescind their offer. I called my mom and she gave me a pep talk. Afterward, she sent me this text:

if one door closed try find another. still have window. still have roof. push them u will see the sky.  sky is unlimited so are u. never lose your faith. not u. ur my chinese girl. love mom.

—MMIAF

Linode Alert - Transfer Quota

Your Linode, linode18747 (linode18747), has exceeded the bandwidth quota threshold for notification.  It has used 160.3513 GB of 200 or 80.2%.

This is always good and bad. Good because…hey!! MMIAF’s getting more hits again!! bad because…fudge, we need to pay more money for more space again????