Dear Fellow Pilgrims,

Another tantalizing update on the Thebaid Book!

As you will remember, since my January 4th post we have been reviewing our new “final book file,” which has the print-ready image files inserted, and the text received back from our professional proofreader. Our job has been to review everything in the final file before signing off on it and ordering the Final Proof Copy, giving us a physical proof to inspect before going to press.

Each week since my January 4 update I have hoped we would be able to press the “Send” button, and order the Final Proof Copy, but each week we (my editor at St Tikhon’s Monastery Press and I) discovered more edits which had to be made before we could take that step!

Most of these edits have been “minor,” in the sense that they involve detailed typographical corrections: adding a space after a period, increasing line spacing to allow the text to “breathe,” plus a few lingering spelling, punctuation or grammatical corrections. Yet at this stage, even these “minor” edits are essential to the professional completion of the book. From my end, I submitted a collection of well over fifty such edits!

There were also some other things we caught, such as a couple of images which had not been replaced with the Final CMYK files needed for the 4-color offset printing, essential for proper image reproduction.

Certainly the largest and most important issue we confronted over the past few weeks was our design for the Table of Contents. For at least a year now we have had in the book design a 2-page TOC spread featuring a strong panoramic image with the TOC text in white. Our plan was to return to it to finalize the formatting as we got closer to going to print, but when we finally began to work on it, we struggled to present the text in a way that was not competing with highly detailed tree branches in the background. The foliage behind the text — though in silhouette — was still far too “busy” to allow the text to “float” off the background. The effect was jarring, and after several failed attempts to make it work, we began discussing alternate designs.

This led to the creation of six new Table of Contents designs and mockups for us to consider, each with a different background image. (We definitely wanted to keep the design concept of the 2-page image spread for the TOC, especially as that is a major recurring feature of the book itself, with no fewer than ten two-page, full-bleed image spreads throughout.)

Well, I am happy to report that we have settled on a very unique and strong image for the TOC spread, and are wrapping up the last of the text and formatting edits. During our phone conference this past Thursday (January 25th), my editor set our goal of ordering the Final Proof Copy by the end of next week, February 2. As you can imagine, this is a moment of great anticipation for us, and we can’t wait to receive the proof copy back and review it before sending the book to press.

I can’t repeat it often enough, and wish to express again my heartfelt thanks for all your support and prayers for the North American Thebaid Pilgrimage and Book Project. Watch for more updates next week as we order the Final Proof Copy, and at each stage following.

Pre-orders are still being accepted, but watch for an announcement soon of the date for closing of the Thebaid Store and the end of pre-orders. See below for details and links.†

Yours in Pre-Press Mode,

zosimas

† Pre-Order Notes:

• Pre-orders of The North American Thebaid book are still available for a limited time at The Thebaid Store.
• Discounts available for multiple copies of both the Standard Edition and the Deluxe Limited Edition.
• The Deluxe Limited Edition (Leather-bound, signed & numbered, with signed and matted print) is available only by pre-order for a limited time. Once the book goes go to print, we will close the pre-order Thebaid Store.
• Signed copies of the Standard Edition (with a signed and matted print) are available by pre-order until the book goes to print.
• The signed and matted 8×10 prints are only available by pre-order bundled with the book, and will not be available separately either before we go to print, or afterwards. There are currently no plans to offer individual Thebaid prints for sale.
• Pre-orders will be shipped before retail channels receive their copies for resale.
• Upon publication, the Standard Edition will be available through the STM Press Bookstore, and through other online and ‘brick and mortar’ resellers.
• Contact STM Press with queries about discounts for resellers and church bookstores.

Dear Supporters and Fellow Pilgrims,

Big News on the Book!

Hot on the heels of my recent update, I received late yesterday from my book editor at St Tikhon’s the new “final” book file, which includes all the 4-color photo files inserted into the layout, plus the corrected texts from the professional proofreader. This is the meat of the matter, and what we have been working towards these many long months, and even years!

He and I are both reviewing the entire book for any quirks that may have been missed. I have already caught several items, some as small as spacing between a period and the start of a new sentence, others involving an odd turn of phrase which can be edited to provide a better reading experience.

We have also made a couple of important final decisions on versions of images to use; now is the time to do it, before we print the proof copy, so we can see how it looks when done in offset printing.

On a personal level, I’ve noticed it’s very helpful that I haven’t looked at the earlier PDF book file since early December, as the book is now rather fresh to me once again, like seeing it with unsuspecting eyes. Not only does it allow me to quickly see issues which need correcting, but it allows me to appreciate the (hopefully positive) impact of the images and the flow of the book.

I cannot emphasize enough how much I appreciate your great patience during this extremely long pre-press process. Now we truly are at the final steps before printing the book itself.

Watch for more updates when we send the book file for the proof copy to be printed (hopefully middle of next week), followed by my report on the results, which will precede sending the actual finished book file to press.

With immense gratefulness to you, and thankfulness to God,

zosimas