Volume 12: Jan 1, 2019 - Jun 8, 2019
Volume 12 contains 293 pages and 24 posts. The front cover features my husband Frank and me in our pair of quilting shirts which we wore visiting quilt shops during our Country Heritage Quilt Tour: People Places & Quilts in Summerville, SC; Sew Much More in Savannah, GA; and Cinnamon's in Jacksonville, FL. Posts on the three quilt shops are dated 3/27/19 for SC, 3/28/19 for GA, and 3/29/19 for FL. Featured on the back cover is Oh, Boy a baby quilt I made for my daughter's nephew. The post for the baby boy quilt is dated 2/21/2019.
The Dedication for Volume 12 reads
Volume 12 includes shopping expeditions at three quilt stores in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida during a week long Country Heritages Quilt Tour. Sewing projects were small: one baby quilt, Block of the Month projects, two dresses, and many pillowcases. Went to a local yarn craft show so knitting posts are prevalent.Here is the Table of Contents for Volume 12.
– Diane Chambers
With a dozen books under my belt, it is time to be retrospective and generate an overview. I claimed that when I retired I wanted to use the creative right side of my brain instead of the logical left, but the left keeps clamoring for attention. So here are some statistics on the hard copy books I have created for my DianeLoves2Quilt blog. One of my guidelines was to keep the number of posts per book at 24, since more than that causes the Table of Contents to spill over to a second page. I have kept that goal for the previous three books.
However, I am realizing that it is the overall page count, not the one extra page in the Table of Contents, that should concern me more and merit my attention. These twelve volumes are far from being uniform in thickness and weight. In fact, once the page count reaches the three hundred or four hundred range, that book is quite heavy to browse comfortably. It is difficult to sense how many pages will result from a collection of posts. Volumes 11 and 12 did well on holding to a limit of 24 posts in the Table of Contents but nevertheless, at approximately three hundred pages each, they are awkward to hold easily.
I needed a better way to determine when it is time to create another book. My present method hinges heavily on when Blog2Print is hosting a sale. But there is no reason I cannot create a book when I have accumulated enough substance – not too much – then wait for the sale. My post lengths have been averaging 10-12 pages. Not all of that is writing: I have lots of pictures. I can estimate for me that an adequately sized 220 page book will be reached after 20 or so posts and not my 24-post Table of Contents guideline.
I plan to make more volumes of DianeLoves2Quilt (DL2Q) but armed with this knowledge, I aim to make them more uniform in size and less unwieldy to peruse. Seeing that I write around 50 pages per month and based on past history, a good self-imposed guideline for me is to create and publish an additional blog book roughly every four months, or three times a year. It looks like I am ready to create and publish Volume 13. Then I will wait for a sale to purchase!
- Refer to Volume 1 post for overall tips
- Do not add captions to blog photos (explained in post for Volumes 3 and 4)
- Keep number of included posts at 24 or less for one page Table of Contents
- (*new*) For page quantities around 220 maximum, limit to 20 or so posts
- (*new*) Rule of thumb is that every four months should result in a good sized book
- Photo format for best cover layout are, in priority order: square, portrait, landscape
- Include comments in the book and maximize the photo size
- Opt neither to reposition nor resize photos to minimize pages; keep formatting same as when posts are published online; be sure to select Snapshot and not the default Compact when determining page layout options.
These are links to discussions of making my previous volumes and reminders about what covers I selected:
DL2Q Volume 12 posted 02/23/2020 cover choice Waves-N-Whirls
DL2Q Volume 11 posted 03/04/2019 cover choice Tree
DL2Q Volume 10 posted 07/05/2018 cover choice Brown Swirls
DL2Q Volume 9 posted 06/22/2018 cover choice Polka Dots - green
DL2Q Volume 8 posted 06/27/2017 cover choice Polka Dots - blue
DL2Q Volume 7 posted 06/27/2017 cover choice Polka Dots - pink
DL2Q Volume 6 posted 06/27/2017 cover choice Red Swirls
DL2Q Volume 5 posted 12/16/2015 cover choice Green Swirls
DL2Q Volume 4 posted 03/18/2015 cover choice Plum Flowers
DL2Q Volume 3 posted 03/18/2015 cover choice Flowers - yellow
DL2Q Volume 2 posted 04/14/2014 cover choice Flowers - pink
DL2Q Volume 1 posted 04/17/2013 cover choice Blue Swirls
OH WOW am I behind on my commenting! At least my lack of commenting dovetails nicely with the novel Coronavirus becoming "a thing" in the US, and therefore i have an excuse? I love that pic of you and Dad that you chose for the back of the book. I honestly think "when Blog2Print is hosting a sale" is a GREAT time to order a book, but I can see how if you want more consistent sizing you'll need to reconsider that. Granted as your data clearly shows, "consistency" can be defined by multip metrics, not all of which are entirely correlated. But it does look like just going to for the sales does give you book sizes that aren't *too* wildly varied. I'm entertained that VOl. has by far the most posts but is nowhere near the widest volume, by the way. And i like the cumulative collection of tips. Maybe I will use them, someday...
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