‘Gosh, it’s real!’ That was my lovely wife’s reaction when she saw the first digital proof of Thomia, which arrived from the printer only yesterday. I didn’t have to ask what she meant, because it felt just the same to me. After more than a dozen years of dwelling in virtuality, either in my head or as a string of bits and bytes inside my computer, Thomia has taken physical form at last. It’s a moment to savour: there’ve been a few printouts of the manuscript over the years, but they don’t count. They weren’t the book.
Of course, this isn’t really the book, either; as anyone experienced in book-making and printing can tell quite easily from these pictures, there’s a lot of fixing and adjusting to be done to the proof before the presses can start rolling (which will be next week, I hope). Still, we’re nearly there. How do you like the larger size? I think it makes the book much easier to read, and gives it a certain added gravitas, too. Unfortunately it does make a difference in terms of overseas postage and packing costs – registered sea mail remains the same, but all the airmail charges go up. In the case of the United States, they now exceed the current retail price of the book! All the more reason, say I, to get your copies delivered to some friend or relative within the Greater Colombo area (where delivery is free) and make your own private ‘shipping’ arrangements with them. To view the table of revised postage and packing charges for Thomia, please click here. Those of my overseas customers who’ve already paid postage needn’t worry, though; I will honour my original invoice to them. New overseas customers will, unfortunately, have be invoiced at the new rates.
I leave you with my best wishes for 2025 and a couple of photos of the inside of the book. If you haven’t yet ordered your copy, you can do so on the Thomia order page, joining the Thomia Updates Group on WhatsApp or simply by emailing me at gallebuck@yahoo.co.uk.
Happy New Year! Richard
Comments