Showcase

Thurs 7th June

On the day of the showcase, we all had to go to college to make sure we got everything we wanted for our showcase including IPad for online work (I didn't use an IPad). Around 4:20 we made our way down down to the Apex hotel. Arriving at the hotel, the room we help our showcase was really nice, it was the perfect size for our showcase, like not too small, so everyone had to be huddle together but not too big that there were big gaps, and how the banners and tables were laid out looked good along with the amount of natural light.

I would recommend that for the size group we had the Apex Hotel was the best place for the showcase.

For my showcase I had everything displayed so that it would be easy to see, I think the table size was just right for the amount of work I had. I was a bit worried that I had a bit more 
than needed to bring but it did show different projects/work I've done from using photoshop, workinh with a small buisness and FMP project. So really mine showed a variety of projects I've done since being on the Media course.

 

From both my mum and nan they were very impressed with the different pieces of work and also very very impressed with everyone elses work. Two favourite was Brandon T-Shirts and Flos Tea boxes.

On the table, a few people like my book cover and even one sat at a table nearby and read a bit of Polly book which made me feel good that someone took an intrest in a book I wrote.

In the other room where the films were presented, it was a perfect size that could even fit more people so if it was just for the moving images group and if it were bigger, you could have more people in the room. I think presenting their work in one long film was a good idea, but I think it would have been better if there was a small break inbetween just to make it eaiser to know when one film end and another begin, because their were two films that I thought were together. 

For me, the highlight was getting an award. Hearing that only 4 people were getting an award I never thought I would get one, so I was very happy and proud of myself for getting one. The funny part was I knew it was me before Ed said my name because once he mention getting ost in Rome, I knew it was me. Also, my Mum and Nan both knew it when Rome was mention.

What I would suggest is that when doing the awards again mention it to the parents before hand so they can be prepare to take photos or video. 

Last vlog

This is the Vlog I recoded of my book thats been printed. Here I will be talking about the good and improvement.

 Link to Final Vlog.  Vlog


Compartment

This Years                                                                       Last years
 

My showcase

For my showcase, I want to display all three of the book I wrote for each FMP. From what I've heard is that it's going to be a white wall or something like that so at this point this is the design that I have pictured in my mind.






The idea what to have my hooded cap from FMP 1 and have that pin against the white wall then have each book somehow display on the wall on top the cape. Then around the edges, I could add other designs I have used for my other FMP's like the pentagram and mask and my Doll, Polly.

I thought for her I could try and find a cheap plastic display case to hold her in because at this moment she's going to be placed on the ground so I thought a display case would be better and give it a better look.

I was also thinking of adding fake trees' to give it more decorative look since it also relates to stories I wrote for two of my Books.

For now, this is my idea, and unless the section changes, I will keep the idea I have and rearrange everything to fit depending on the size or space left maybe even adding on or leaving how it is.

I do have another idea on a layout if it changes so I won't be stuck on where everything should go.

2) video essay

Link to video


Video essay


In the video, I will be talking about the books I've found, the different covers, and what and why I chose as the main themes for the project.

Reflecting on Project 6) 1

Stories 

From the start, I wanted to write a short story book with the theme being horror/thriller. At the beginning I was trying to come up with different stories was a challenge because I had to come up with multiple stories whereas writing a novel it's based on one story with different chapters still relating to the main story. Using google, I looked up other short story books to see what others had done. Most were collections from authors, which was annoying as I wanted to find short stories that authors wrote themselves.

I came across a camp horror stories; it was that book that gave me the idea on have all the stories keeping with the same theme, which would make writing the stories easier as at least with this way I can have the stories all relating to the same theme.

Looking at other short stories, I notice that car journeys were a themed I haven't seen yet, so I decided to make that my themed for my book.

I started with land on the google doc. All I did was write small sentences on what would happen in the story, a bit similar to chapter timelines so that when it came to writing the whole story, I knew what I need to write at the beginning, middle and end.

The other five stories I wrote down in my Idea journal because I had it and wanted to uses it, so I used it for writing my five ideas down for my stories, and it was easier to get too when a thought came to mind.

When it came to writing the whole story out, some were harder to write than others, even with the ideas I wrote down, it was still too hard to get them written down into a whole story. So it did take a while to get my stories written. Usually, I would write them either on break or at home, so that helped a lot to get most of the writing. When it came close to needing to finish writing them so that I could grammar check them there were two stories left which I ended up not writing because it was taking too long to write and I was having trouble focusing on them to write them. So in the end, I wrote only 4 out of the six stories which I still think is good.

On Grammarley



Before Grammarly, I printed out copies of my stories for me to write out loud and to highlight so that when using Grammarly I will know what to change and also with the help of Grammarly I will also know what to add in to make the story even better.


Self-publishing and printing

When I started thinking about my FMP project I knew I wanted to self-publish, because I had plan that in the future that I would self-publish my book and I thought this would be a great opportunity because here I got teachers to help me and give me their advice and also trying it out so that when I do I'll know what to do.

Why I thought about self-publishing was because it was in case one I didn't get in university I could still try to activate my dream at becoming an author and being that their's isn't much of a chance I'll get published by actual publishers I decided to go straight into self-publishing.

I did do research on self-publishing, even joined a self publishing and book marketing group where I asked questions about what would i have to if I wanted to make some money (again for the future), and the admin of the group who's from the UK said that I needed to sign up to tax self-assessment which did put me off doing the self-publishing part, since I didn't see the point on signing up for my book.

Later on, I was told that I didn't need to sign up since I wasn't getting money out of it, so I went back to planning to self-publishing, but then I got told that I did need to sign up and again got put off it and decide just to print a book off instead.

At this point, if I had decided to carry on to self-publish, I think I would have ended up not bothering only because now I do want to get my book publish in the future so instead I am going to try harder at writing in hopes I will get published. Also, I'll be going to university in September, studying creative writing, so I feel I'll have more of a chance of getting published by an actual publisher.

At this point when I decided to print my book, I decided to use Blurb because last year it was recommended to me, but I ended up using Doxzoo to print my book out which went well, but this year I wanted to try and use a different one and so went on to use Blurb. Using Indesign I started to create a layout for my book, lucky Steve called me over and told me that Blurb provides its layout for their books which saved me the trouble of creating one. One problem was that the system needed updating so I couldn't upload my finished story.

Once updated I made my start on following it information and started creating my book.

Book cover

Knowing that the book cover would be my biggest challenge I decided to create two. The idea was to have one cover drawn and the other using an image. Why I chose to draw is because this was originally was going to be a self-publishing project I was worried about the whole taking a photo on someone properties or not know that the area was private property that I decided that it would be best to draw it to be safe.

The drawing was proving to be a challenge as when it came to drawing the car it needed so much more detail then I thought that I ended up leaving it and focusing on my second cover.

The second cover was the image. The image was the front of my nan's car. I also took some other random photos as well. The idea was to have only front window covered in frost with either a handprint or a pair of red eyes to give it that horror look. It took a while to create the frost effect as I was having trouble finding a video to help me with creating the frost effect on the window with using a black background.

With getting the image how I wanted I could see that it was a letdown and was no better than my last book cover from the year before. The idea was to make an improved cover to show my improvement from each book. This leads to creating a third book cover, this more of a straightforward cover so that it would still look good and achievable to do.

Finishing the third book cover, Nick suggested that my cover could be better and created his cover and help give me an idea. So for this fourth book cover, I didn't create a sketch because it was getting to the point that I need to get this book printed, so what I did was chose another image and using my imagination, created an even better cover.


Book Part 1

Using the layout from Blurb Indesign I need a certain amount of pages. It required six more pages it each time. If I had finished it and it had 34 pages it would add on two more to make 36, So I needed to make sure I used as much of the pages I needed and hoped it wouldn't add on.

When I was finished, there was still a few pages lefts which I couldn't get rid off because it would only be added back on, So I added an epilogue to help fill in the pages.

I found Blurb better than the last book printers I used because it provided the layout for you so that way you know it's right and should be printed correctly.

I would say the only problem was the spin of the book. It's blank and white which I should have added the black to make it look better, but hopefully, it will look good once printed.






Book Part 2

   
The book now here I can see that it is small and very light. I know that because of the way it looks that I chose the right size because anything bigger would have been even thinner fewer pages and something you couldn't call a book.

Looking over the book it looks great, the colouring looks great, the font styles are different but it all works well, and the size of the fonts is perfect, I think that there big enough for people to read but not too big that it takes up the whole of the page.

Screencast 3

Here is the link to my 3rd Screencast.

Screencast for Assessment 4

I will be talking to you about my schedules update, my book cover change, and where my Book is at this point.

Product

At moment Book is being printed at this moment, so I've received the book I will produce a picture below.

  



Getting the book onto blurb was a bit of a challenge because first once I was finished with everything I need to link the files up on the Blurb book creator on InDesign.

It also has the information on what Types I'm using and size.

Next when I would go to upload it would say that there was something wrong with pages 3 and five about too much information. Now I could carry uploading or cancel and find the problem, not wanting to go wrong I cancelled and back over the two pages. Finding the problem and fixing it, I went back to uploading and before sending to the blurb website I was able to get a quick preview so looking over those I kept seeing a mistake, like too many pages and also a name mistake and the worst was that I put in two the same story. So for the Forest story, I put the land story in twice, so that was a close call.

Once everything was right, I loaded it onto the website, went to cart; I added ten books. With 10 I get 10% off which was £19.53 which was the same price for nine books with no % off. Adding on shipping brought the total up to £35.53? I paid and should be getting the printed copies in 4 to 5 days.


Arrived

Opening the package the books were a lot thinner and lighter then I thought it would be, I knew I hadn't gotten a lot of pages, but it does show that I chose the right book size. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able even to call it a book.

Looking at the front and back of the book it looks excellent, the font is easy to see, the colours red, black and grey go well on the back page. The font size is just the right size to be able to read it.

The front, again the font is easy to read I like the shadow effect, it's easy to see the sky and branches.


The inside I chose the black and white, cream Uncoated and I like it, it goes well with the black writing, and I think it goes well with the theme of the book. Also, the reason I chose the cream uncoated is that in my last book I used the white and I thought about changing it and went for that one.


How the writing is placed for me is a mixed review, because I don't mind it I think it looks good, but then my mum comment on it saying that it was too near the edges for her like, which then made me re-think about. The font looks great, and the size is just right, to me, it's big enough for anyone to read and not too big that it takes up so much of the page.

The fonts used for the titles look amazing I think it goes well with the horror-themed.

Overall I am delighted with how it came out; it look's fantastic. Very pleased.

Final blog from reflection and comments

For my FMP I have decided to write a book. The theme of the book is that it is a short story book with the story themed being Horror/thriller. Along with the stories all relating to car journeys or road journeys. Throughout my project, I would say my main five strengths were: Coming up with the road journey story ideas because it became easier when I had a themed it was easier to come up with some ideas for my stories. Coming up with sketches of the book cover, I had an image I wanted to be the main focus for the cover so what I needed was to build something around it. Research - For the self-publishing, I was able to find different links about self-publishing and also find a group with other people who want or who are self-published authors and that meant being able to ask questions and getting a response from actual people. Knowing who my audiences our - I had and knew who I was aiming my book towards and even had an Idea of where and when would be best to read the book. I would say keeping up with my deadline, at this point everything else that's left to do can all be done before my FMP deadline date (10th May) So I would that keeping up with my deadlines is a strength. My five weaknesses are: Photoshop drawing - In my mind outlining the car I wanted should have been easy but once I started it I found out it was a lot harder to do then what I realised it also needed more detail and the colouring it didn't look right, it just wasn't going to plan. First started coming up with story ideas - Without a theme, it was difficult to come up with the story idea, form this I learned that having a theme for the stories helps a lot to come up with story ideas. Cover (being more prepared) - Again with the covers, both had something that I needed help with but had trouble finding information or a video link to help with my idea. So in future, if I have a book cover idea, look for a link that has what I want instead of starting it and hoping to find a link that has what I need. Question - I still feel like I need to improve when writing out a question and to make it more understanding. InDesign - Even though I have used it before of my other FMP's, it still Adobe that I need more improvement on.

The main idea was to write a short story book and to self-publish it. Why I decided to do a short story is because I thought it would be a good start with a short story book than a novel and save the novel for when I decided to self-publish and to also get money out of it. The main reason was for my future. I know there are little chances of getting publish and even getting into university, so I thought why not just self-publish and why not start now where I have teachers to help and give me advise and opinion, so that in the future when I self-publish a proper novel, I'll know what to do.

My inspiration was from Amazon self-publishing with the stories of others who self-publishes and doing well. This one women Rachel Abbott, who unlike the rest actual wrote about how at the beginning she was selling a few copies a day or a week and maybe eight at Christmas, unlike the rest who went straight in and told about their success, she spoke that at the beginning it was doing ok and then how it went up and became more popular, and that's what I liked about her it showed that with time it will slowly become a success and not getting peoples hopes up in thinking they'll become a success quickly.

Another author is Amanda Hocking, a woman who made a million dollars from self-publishing her book. This shows that you can be a success with self-publishing and might even get picked up by publishers.

Like I said the plan was to self-publish, which I was all for, I had signed up to Amazon self-publishing, I also sign up to another self-publishing website (With this I could get actual printed copies) and looked link on how to make a success on Self-publishing. But then I started looking up to see which is better traditional or self and doing this did begin to change my views and gave traditional another thought.

Another experiment I did was with the book cover. I found sketching them easy, but designing them was another subject. It was harder to do then I thought, and it ended with me creating two more, leaving me to create four book cover. So for me, it showed that I should try to do something more straightforward in the future. The similar type of media I'll be comparing is my book covers.

This is the closest cover I could find. Similar's are the road with trees on each side of the road. Both are using dark colours with some light. Differences are the stories and the book type. Mines a short story, with road journey story themed, whereas The road is a novel set around the post-apocalyptic with the main character of a father and his young son on their journey. Also on the cover, I have a person (motion blur) standing on my cover whereas The road is just that, A road, with the tree,'s on either side. I feel like even those it goes with the title that maybe they could add the back of the father and son to show them walking along the road as that is part of the story. One of the key areas of development was the stories. Starting with a theme, leading with titles along with keywords and short sentences, to the writing all out, next proofreading and grammar checking. Another is the book covers. I think this was a good development because it started with two sketches, then moving to photoshop, to a new design and back to photoshop to another photoshop cover a finished cover. I think that because there were a few challenges in designing the cover, which lead to new sketches and a new cover it was quite a development from what I thought would be easy, turned into more of a challenge, but I've come through and created my book cover even if it wasn't what I originally thought it would be it still looks good, and to me that shows quite of a development.
The first time I showed my book cover to my mum 

The first time I showed this book cover to my mum, she thought that it was ok, but it could have done with maybe the front of a car. That did make me feel a bit sad since I liked this one.

Nick, he said that I could do better and that the red line is the white line in the middle of the road didn't look like that because it's close to that one line. Again a bit sad, but he did show me design similar to what I wanted then left me to create a new one. On my survey most liked my cover, the only comments had both fonts the same and others like the glow effect.

I think that development could be trying to see if I could sale one, this would show if it's looks and sound good that someone might be interested in buying it. 

Final Book cover

   

Now when I showed this cover to my mum, she liked this one. She said it's more eye-catching, she like the shadow effect on the title and she also like the van that's hidden away in the background. She also gave some opinions like the colour of my name, it was red, but she suggested trying black to help bring my name out. I also created a survey with book covers to see which would read/pick up to look at and so the three people picked out this one, which shows that even though people did like the old, they would all choose this one over the past cover. This did make me feel happy knowing that I created an even better cover than before, that people like a lot more and not making much comment about it.
With the book in hand, It looks great, thin and light but a good size book. There were a few things that could have used improving which was how high the writing was when a continuing sentence was on the next page it was quite close to the edge. Now I didn't have a problem with it, but my mum on the other hand did and has now made me question whether it does look ok. So that's mixed reviews. Another which is what I pointed out is that on the cover you can see part of the white line from the spine which does annoy me a bit but it's not a big issue. As for improvements, I think that maybe I could have done better with the stories. What I could have done was try a little harder at writing the last two stories or replaced them with different stories so that I could have accomplished the six short stories liked I had the plan. So that's one improvement I could have done. I think for the cover what I would have like to have improved on was the road. In the road you can see some smoke effect, what I wanted to do was create a mist along the road, but the closes were the smoke, and even then I think it could have looked a bit better, but I'm happy with the way it came out. On the first part of my statement of intent, I talked about creating a separate blog for self-publishing, and what you need to do, that was something that I created an opening but never really started. With writing the stories, creating the book covers and writing out blogs for the brief, I didn't get time, so that was something that I ended up not doing.

I did use my FMP schedule I had created. As I was getting closer to the end, I started to add empty blog links to each section needed, That way I didn't have to go to blogger and create and link each time. This way I could go straight to my schedule and press the link and get started. Another good thing was that using a schedule; I could colour code it and also add little notes which helps me know what it is that needs finishing on the blog that is orange. Green = Finished, Orange = Midway , Red = Not done

For the audiences I would say I have achieved my target, I think teens and adults who are into horror/thriller would read this book. For added resources, I did write down that I might need a graphics tablet, but at the end, I didn't use one. And last were the questionnaires. I think I did achieve on most of the surveys I asked, On the ones I didn't active was because the people or company didn't get back in contact with me or answered my questions. When I did the pitch, I found that it wasn't so bad. I think it was because instead of standing up and presenting I got to sit down and was able to present it in a more calming way and didn't feel as nervous as I would have if it were the other way round. I think it went better because it felt more like a chat then a presentation, I didn't need to feel worried and I felt like I could say everything I needed to say because I wasn't as nervous whereas if I were standing I think I would have left words out just to help speed it along. The feedback I got from Nick was that for the stories I need more than one deadline for all the stories, that I should get my target audience to read the stories and see what their feedback are, and what they might have wanted. I think next time I could have improved by doing more practising beforehand, that way I won't mumble some words when talking.

Product assessment

For my book cover I created a survey asking others if they thought:

My Audiences were both Female and male (Mainly people who like thriller/horror) and the ages being between 16-40, Would you say by looking at the cover it reaches that target audiences?

Price was £3 would they pay this much? If not how much wold they pay?

What's do you like about this cover?

And lastly would they buy the book?

Replies

   




For me, this shows success on my project everything looks positive. One option was that not have the figure showing and just the road which is not a bad comment and useful feedback. From a previous survey similar to this one I did with the last cover I had someone answer maybe for would they but it but now it's all yes. This show that they cover it very important because it could be what gets someone at least pick up your book, if not you won't be selling many books.

Book in hand
What could have been better - comments my mum made.

The spine is white, could have been better if a different colour.

Sentences are too near the edges at the top.  That was something she did not like.

The good's 

The cover looks good.

She liked the barcode on the back of the book.

I do agree with some of mums comment's about the spine, it was small so that I couldn't add the title, but the spine could have looked better.

Another thing what I would have done differently is that on the cover you can see the white line from the spine which shows on Indesign that I didn't get the cover close enough to the edge of the spine. Otherwise, everything looks great.

Modifications identified

This is what I did before sending off my book. 

This was the first cover (the one I was going to use for my book).


Now, this was the third book cover I sketch and designed in photoshop. The idea was that because the other two were turning out to be a challenge to get the finish I came up with this design as a simple cover. This way if the other two didn't get the finish I would have another design that I knew could get finished.

Using a questionnaire, I got people to comment on the cover and mainly what could be changed is the font matching and maybe adding a motor vehicle front on the cover. In the end, Nick looked at my cover and said that I could do better and that also because it were for my FMP, my last one and showed me a quick design similar to what I want and it did look better.

So going through my photo's I found a better image for my book cover and came up with my newest cover.

This is the fourth and final cover I have designed, I did sketch a design because I did it on the day and because I had planned on sending my book over that week so I needed to start it there and then. I have to admit that this one does look a lot better and am very happy with it.

I also surveyed with both covers and asking people which would they read/pick up to look at and so far three people have marked that they like my new cover.

Cover 1 - newest 
Cover 2 - old 

Screenshot 2

Here is the link to my second screenshot.

Screenshot

I will be talking about my schedule update and my book cover

Digital copy

The reason I didn't link it in my blog because of what it said in this email.


So I thought it would save it just link it to my brief so that only teachers could see it and no one else.

From the PDF it looks like I got a lot of blank pages but I think if it was laid out like the pages on Indesign it, it looked better and like that the blanks are black to other pages.

Other than that I am pretty happy with it.

(It looks like I won't be able to link up a digital version as it can only be seen throught my Blurb account) It looks like I can only hand in a copy of my book.

Create an event

At this point what we do know is that it will be held at the Apex Hotel Bath, on the 7th June at 5:30. How much the cost? We've gone for a budget of around £700 and the idea on how to raise this is by starting crowdfunding on Kickstarter. The idea is for prices starting at £3 we offer the person something in return. For £3 is a sticker and the price goes up the offers increase. A good one I think is for the £10 you get a sticker and at least comp drink x2, what I suggest is because it was mention that the drink being wine but I think it should be optional like for people who don't like wine they could have a soft drink as part of the comp drink x2. The theme? Once person suggests the theme being masqueraded, which is not a bad idea but I don't think it would go with the showcase. I think the theme will be hard because everyone got different themes like for me I have books and the themed gothic, horror, paranormal that's for my area. As for one whole themed maybe with setting up, keeping peoples project close to similar like moving image in one area and depending on the theme/genre they did for their project order it so that similar one stick together and the same with publishing like me I've done a book and so that should be next to someone who's done something with writing a magazine or news article and again order with the themed they did. As for the theme for the entire showcase, I would suggest the seasons/Holidays since they're both very similar. As an example, my project books, relating to horror and for me season would relate to Autumn or the holiday Halloween. So for the different section, there could be a display case's with each season as a way for guest to see where is where. That way It shorts it a bit and guest will get a chance to see everything. For the film department, they could look up genre's relating to their project and see when their usually release or they could decide or create a survey on when they might watch this sort of film or documentary. This way guest could choose one of the season's and see what students had done in that area. But this might work depending on the number of students' has a project that's more in one season than the other. Who to invite? Ideas for who to invite would be family and friends. Maybe inviting people who are also in the same industry and getting students talking and perhaps even getting some tips from them. Another could be trying to invite teachers from university, but that's a maybe. Better would be inviting teacher from a university that students will be going to in September. It could be tricky to do if most students are going to university further away, but it's just an idea.

Development

Stories

It first started with google doc then my journal that got me started with writing down ideas for my stories.


Next came writing the keywords/title for each story. The story Land I start on a google doc and then went on to use my journal which helped me to come up with the ideas for my stories. How this work is that each word represents each story, it's a way to write about it but also making it the focus of the story.  Story 3 and six didn't happen because I did start writing it but I was having trouble trying to complete it, so I left it at four which is a good amount.

Next was adding small sentences and some keys words. This is very similar to a creating a chapter timeline, but with these stories, they don't have chapters, so instead, I did the keywords/titles.

 Part of story 4



Next was actually wring the story up on google doc, then Grammarly

Google Doc




Now all stories placed on the Blurb book layout on InDesign.





Book cover

Started with two sketches for the first two book cover Ideas.




But when I released that they were hard to design I came up with another sketch. This one is a more straightforward design so that it's guaranteed that I would have one that I could design if the other two didn't end up working out.



And on Photoshop I design the simple book cover



























However, when Nick saw it, he said that I could do better and showed me a simple design which looked even better. So using a different picture (I took the photo) I redesign the cover and also added an image that I used on my first FMP. Because I created the cover on the same day, there is no sketch.


New book cover which I will be using                                             



Everything is all laid out on InDesign ready for printing.