08 August 2009

Oh yeah. One more thing that happened this summer...

It's not a dream come true or anything, but guess whose master's thesis is published and way, way overpriced online? Just go to whatever site you normally visit for books online (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.) and do a search for Mother's Forgotten Garden: A Cosmic Remembrance. Your search just might produce a work by c.d.zim (with an apple on the cover). Ehh, it's a first step anyway. Mostly I went through it to get a sense for the publishing process. I guess I could've gone through some place like Lulu.com, but I didn't want to pay any publishing costs.

Out of the blue one day, I got an e-mail from some acquisitions editor with a publishing company called VDM Verlag that mostly publishes scientific theses and dissertations. She said she came across a reference to my thesis in the FAU library database, and she thought it might be suitable for publication through VDM. I though, What the heck. My thesis would most likely just sit in the FAU library anyway. This way, VDM pays the publishing costs, my thesis gets published in paperback form, and I still retain the rights to my work. If I want to take the overall work or any part of it to another publisher, all I have to do is alter 20% of the word count (which I would want to do anyway, because I have since re-read some of it and wondered what I was thinking).

Anyway, like I said, it's a first step. It's definitely no superstar publishing deal, but at least I got to see my book listed online... for a list price of ten times what it's worth. Yeah, real encouraging for a budding writer.

Oh, and if you're actually interested in reading my thesis, but you don't have $96 to spare, just ask me and I'll e-mail you the pdf.

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