Almost ready to print and distribute to a selected few

I'm almost done (at last) my rewrite of the novel-in-progress. It's still too short (over 30,000 words, but not by very much), it still has a few scenes that I think are a little lame, but the characterizations are more convincing, there's better world creation, and I think the whole thing is more coherent. I've lined up a few writing friends (and a couple teens, too) to read the book and tear it to shreds.

That puts me at the point of printing the copies I need to distribute. As big as an investment of time that I've already put into this project, the copies that I need produce to hand out will require actual moolah. Moolah is not something we have a lot of around in the Klempner residence.

Here's a link to an interesting post on the "MY WRITING LIFE" blog on this topic: http://learnedaboutwriting.blogspot.com/2009/04/printing-manuscript-terror-and-anguish.html

The author writes that even before making copies at a print shop, astonishing length of time and price of ink invested in that first manuscript at home is frustrating. Plus, a long document inevitably requires troubleshooting due to jams, misprints, and the like. Ugh. In this case, do-it-yourself may not be either the cheapest or best option.

I'm thinking of electronically sending my document to the local Office Depot or the like and having them do the entire thing. Time to do a little comparison shopping.

And then I have to reveal to my darling husband just how much I'm spending on a book that I may never even sell.