What it took to get this far...

I'm getting some questions about how long it took to put this book together, that's a really tough question to answer!

The very first drawing I ever did for it was probably when I was about thirteen years old. That drawing is not part of the final publication but it did lead to further development of ideas and after many iterations we have the current version of the witch. (A very early version of the witch appears on the page that begins "and before you know it...")

I have drawn and redrawn most of the pages in the book over the course of more than twenty years. There is simply no way I can say what it actually took to make this based on ALL that truly went into it.

Instead, as a basis for estimation, let's look at the time it took to complete the pages that were started in 2014, specifically the wolf. I made probably a dozen concept drawings before choosing a pose and style to use. I'll estimate about ten hours for the concept phase for this page (including a very unique tree). Coloring the image and creating the background actually took about twenty hours (yep, all that fur and all those stars and every point of light on that tree are drawn). It took approximately ten more hours to finalize it for the second edition (which is why I suggest you start with images that are a lot larger than you need if you ever attempt something like this).

I can create a full page illustration in about three days with a solid plan, I did not have a solid plan so I estimate this particular page took about 40 hours, including experimentation and a lot of time trying to get the right 'feel' for the image to get it ready for the second edition.

There are 13 full page illustrations (including the cover) plus 27 other pages, some of which took a day or two in and of themselves. Let's say it took about a week to do all of the formatting and to set up the pages that are primarily text, and about one more week to get the crafts section together. Conservatively, that's 15 weeks. I said earlier the wolf took about forty hours total to get it ready for the second edition. Knowing that the wolf was one of the most straightforward pages in the project I'm going to add @50% to the time for the other 11 pages and the cover. This should help account for time spent learning how to get the book ready for publication. Most of the additional time was spent reworking images for print, improving the illustrations, and a considerable amount of time spent reformatting from the original 9x6 to the current 8.5x8.5 format. My math may be a little inaccurate here as I am @12 hours into today's work, and since my days are usually at least that long I'm going to go easy on myself and just use the number I think is right.

I started in earnest around mid December 2014. The book was first published in print the first week of April, 2015. A span of  about 14-15 weeks. I have to include some time for all of the work that went in to it before I started driving toward publication.

My best estimate? It took about 21 'normal' work weeks from concept to published second edition, tallying approximately 840 hours. Knowing what I now know about the publication process and the significant difference between preparing for print versus preparing for digital distribution, I think I could create something similar in about 12-15 weeks. I hope you'll agree that it was time well spent!

2nd E-Pub edition...

After a lot of consideration I've assembled and submitted the 2nd edition e-pub with the following differences (from the print edition).
The cover is only the front cover image (no back cover).
The copyright page has been altered to be accurate to the e-pub information (removed print ISBN and LCCN info).
The dedication page has been removed (there is no way to fill in "who this book is for" in the e-pub.
The crafts section has been removed (the images in this section can't be easily extracted for making crafts with them).

The e-pub is in landscape format, it uses the 2-up page display (2 pages at a time).
I have enrolled the e-pub in matchbook so if you purchase a printed book you can get the e-pub for less than half of the usual price.

When you're at Amazon make sure the description reads "second edition" as the first edition e-pub is still available at Amazon (I've made the price higher on the 1st to encourage people to get the 2nd instead).

This officially completes the publication process. For those of you who have been following along; the LCCN and copyright certification arrived together on Monday. If you have a project you're working on this should give you a good idea of how long these registration procedures take to complete (copyright took @2 months, LCCN from start to finish @15 days).

I will continue to post news about IMBH here, including merchandise updates and special events as we approach the actual holiday. We're also planning to do at least one book signing event this summer in Keene, NH at Comic Boom!

Thanks again to everyone for all of the support and encouragement, it feels great to be here!

Published!

The process is complete! It took a little longer than I expected to obtain an LCCN, or maybe it did not, but no notification was received when it became available. Regardless, the book is now complete and is available through the createspace sales channel. It will be a few more days before other sales channels become active. When they do I will make a second edition e-pub available through the Amazon Matchbook program. It feels great to have (mostly) completed this project, I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Ordering through createspace is the best way to show support for authors, the royalty rate is higher than other channels. Bookstores and libraries can order through createspace direct at wholesale prices - while this doesn't generate hardly any royalty I encourage any such organizations to use this channel to help spread awareness of this title.

Thanks to everyone who supported me throughout this effort, it means a lot to me and my family to have seen this through to completion.

May the spirit of Halloween accompany you throughout the entire year!