This Author’s Desk

My Desk.

The vintage items you see here aren’t part of a deliberate theme on my part. Everything simply came together over time.

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1. 20-inch Dell 2009w LCD monitor. I bought this in 2008. It’s great for text, but the color isn’t up to snuff for production work. (Oh, and hiding behind that lovely illustration by Carolyn Arcabascio, is the working draft of The Murk, which I am currently editing.)

 

2. Western Electric model 500 telephone (sold from 1950 to 1984). This is my high-tech communications system. I picked it up at a yard sale ($5) several years ago because I was getting tired of buying new batteries for my cordless phone. It still dials out, but when confronted with an automated message system and asked to press “4” or whatever, I just have to hang up.

 

3. Panasonic Electric Pencil Sharpener, model KP-77 S (probably early 70s, with Auto-Stop!). My trusty friend, bought by my wife for $3 at a church bazaar. Amazingly, you can still buy replacement parts for this model.

 

4. Sony MDR-V700DJ headphones. My portable orchestra. I bought these in 2001, shortly after purchasing an iPod, because said iPod couldn’t pump out enough juice to drive my old AKG 260s.

 

5. 15-inch Apple Macbook Pro (Winter 2006). Tucked behind the monitor, Graphic Mayhem rests in a little wooden bracket and runs in closed-lid mode when it’s not doing color work.

 

6. Apple Pro Keyboard (2000). The computer this came with is gone now, but I kept the keyboard because Apple built it to outlast the sun.

 

7. Apple Mighty Mouse (2005). I have no clear memory of how I acquired this mouse, but it’s still on the job.

 

8. Picture of an Egyptian chariot (gift from a friend), because chariots are cool.

 

9. Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition (1938). Yes, it’s old, but it still beats the hell out of any other dictionary I’ve ever used.

 

10. Two Rinn. These were a Christmas gift, hand-made by my wife and children. They are more precious to me than my weight in 1st edition hardbacks of The Princess Bride, by William Goldman (Fine in Fine dust jackets). And THAT, my friends, is saying something.

 

11. Placebo coffee (or sometimes placebo tea). It’s hard to see in this photo, but it’s right here on the corner of this middle shelf.

 

Featured on lifehacker.com.

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New Author Bio and Author Note

My editor has been asking me to rewrite my bio. She thinks a bio should satisfy a reader’s curiosity about an author’s journey and skillz.  She also sees it as an opportunity to let a prospective employer—in this case, one of the goliath publishing corporations—know that I’m not a complete dolt.

This is what I emailed her today. Any feedback would be welcome—just post your comments at the bottom. Thanks!

Author Bio:

Richard Due (pronounced “Dewey”) first imagined the Moon Realm while telling bedtime tales to his children. He makes his home in Southern Maryland, where he and his wife have owned and operated Second Looks Books since 1991. The Moon Coin is the first novel in his award-winning Moon Realm series.

Author Note:

I started writing stories in the 3rd grade and moved on to novels in my teens and twenties, only to give that all up in my mid-thirties.

In my working life, however, I’ve been into making squiggly marks (or dots, lots of dots) on paper since the 1980s. First, I worked as a laser scanner operator, making halftones. (Halftones are a reprographic technique that simulates continuous tone imagery through the use of dots). Or, put more simply, I turned black and white photographs into a whole mess-o-dots, extra pretty-like, making them perfect for running on printing presses.

Later, I worked as a DS camera operator, making halftones and text negatives on orthographic film. Or, put more simply, I turned photographs into a whole mess-o-dots, on film, and did the same with text, only without all the dots, making them perfect for running on printing presses. I made several hundred BFOPs this way. (BFOPs, pronounced BEEfops, stands for Books For Other People. And they aren’t always fun to make, but they’re great for paying for things like books, car insurance, rent, more books, food, and drink.)
Eventually, though, computers took all those jobs away from me and gave them to something called a digital typesetter. So I taught myself how to be one of those, and made more books (some cool, most not so much) and computer software manuals (can you say: kill me now).

In 1991, I put the typesetting business on freelance, and entered into the exciting and glamorous world of book selling. My wife and I are still at it, selling books at our independent (mostly-) used bookstore in Prince Frederick, Maryland.

In 2010, however, something very strange happened. . . . On a complete lark, during the night of a full moon, I put all my skills together in a paper bag, and waved them over my head while clucking like a chicken, then opened the bag, and out spilled the Moon Realm Series in all its ebook and print goodness. I have been very happy ever since.

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Cover Reveal for the Print Edition of THE DRAGONDAIN

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Click the image directly above or HERE for a larger image.

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Copyright © 2012 by Richard Due. All rights reserved. Gibbering Gnome Press,

A Division of Ingenious Inventions Run Amok, Ink^® The Moon Realm^®

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The Dragondain are coming!

The first two chapters are almost ready as a free preview.

Illustrations by Carolyn Arcabascio.

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Copyright © 2011 by Richard Due. All rights reserved. Gibbering Gnome Press,

A Division of Ingenious Inventions Run Amok, Ink^® The Moon Realm^®

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THE MOON COIN Adds New Content for eReader Devices and Apps

New Content for eReader Devices and Apps!

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Amazon introduced a new Kindle format with the release of their Kindle Fire, called KF8. It allows me to do things I couldn’t do when The Moon Coin first debuted in September of last year. With KF8 I can embed fonts and add fun formatting features that heretofore were only available on the iPad. If you already own The Moon Coin and you want to get these new features and content, just email kdp-support@amazon.com. Include your Kindle account email and tell them that you want to re-download The Moon Coin. They’ll email you back with instructions. It’s completely free. The new content (cover, map, and character pages) is available for all the Kindle Reader Devices and Apps.

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If you have an iPad, simply open the iBooks app, hit the edit button, tap on the old version, hit the delete button and then download it again. Very intuitive. I didn’t even have to google that one.

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The update has gone live for the Nook devices (Barnes & Noble), too!

First up: it’s got a new cover!

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DropCaps at the beginning of every new chapter! Yay! (For the Kindles, this feature only works if your device supports the new KF8 format.)

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This map of Treling, which was made for the print edition, is now available for all eReader devices and apps , and if you have the iPad, Nook Color, or Kindle Fire: it’s in color! Whoo-hoo!

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These character pages were another addition planned for the print edition that’s now included with the eBooks. And if you have a Kindle Fire  or iPad, then you’ll get to see the character names in sporty SmallCaps! These are the features that make typesetters drool, people! 🙂

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Free Sneak Preview!

Six chapters formatted for ePub, Mobi, or PDF.

Please share these files with your friends. Enjoy.

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Copyright © 2011 by Richard Due. All rights reserved.

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Gibbering Gnome Press, A Division of Ingenious Inventions Run Amok, Ink^®

The Moon Realm^®

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Blue-lines!!!

Some pics of the blue-lines the printer sent me:

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Technically, these are digital proofs, but they’ve been made to look exactly like traditional blue-lines burned from negatives, which I think is really cool! (Although dang hard to read!) Each page is a separate piece of paper, double-sided, formatted, and paginated exactly as it will appear in the book—except, of course, the light blue will be replaced by black ink! 🙂

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I love the Gibbering Gnome Press colophon (that’s the little silhouette thingy above the press name) Carolyn designed.

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This map of Treling is new for the print edition.

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The pages with illustrations are on normal paper so I can spec the color.

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Paperback and eBook now available:

Amazon and Second Looks Books.

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Click HERE to Read Reviews of The Moon Coin.

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Copyright © 2011 by Richard Due. All rights reserved.

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Gibbering Gnome Press, A Division of Ingenious Inventions Run Amok, Ink^®

The Moon Realm^®

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Typesetting THE MOON COIN: The Print Edition

These are some screen shots from CS Indesign 5.5.

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When I was working on the eBook version of The Moon Coin, I was very limited in what I could do. Since then, Amazon has introduced a new Kindle .Mobi format that promises a slew of new features, including embedded fonts. After I finish evaluating what that means for users of older kindles, I may adopt that new format later this year. Similarly, Apple has recently introduced iAuthor, a new proprietary software program to build their ebooks. It also promises a slew of new features.

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First up, a presentation shot.

Click HERE or the image directly above to enlarge.

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Here’s a detail shot of the graphic elements in the header.

Click HERE or the image directly above to enlarge.

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Here’s a detail shot of the graphic elements in the footer.

Click HERE or the image directly above to enlarge.

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