Richard Freeborn

Fiction and Non-Fiction

Month: February 2025

A Quick Update

February 17, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Just a few sentences this week as I have a lot happening that I’ll share more about over the next few weeks.

The paperback author copies of Ceres to Vesta arrived yesterday and I saw I’d misaligned the title a little. I’m surprised Amazon didn’t flag it as a potential issue, but ultimately the responsibility is mine, so back to InDesign and fix it. That’s one of the great things about publishing independently, I can fix problems like this in a day or so.

And talking of InDesign is a good reminder that a couple of weeks ago I mentioned how I was struggling with the layout for a paperback cover. A little bit of time, and some judicious use of search engines and I came up with the answer. You start with a three page spread at 8.5″ x 5.5″ page size, then use the Page Tool to resize that second page until it matches the spine width you want.

I’ll try it in the next week or so with the next short story collection – Where Infinity Begins – and let you know how it works out.

A Punch in the Mouth

February 10, 2025 / / 0 Comments

I was going to write this week’s blog on a separate subject, then changed my mind after watching the Super Bowl last night which reminded me of Mike Tyson’s comment which is the title of this blog.

Firstly, congratulations to the Philadelphia Eagles on an emphatic victory.

I had mixed feelings about even watching the game. The teams I follow or have an affinity for, either didn’t make the playoffs, or were eliminated early on. That said, there was a part of me that leaned slightly toward the Kansas City Chiefs, mainly because whatever Patrick Mahomes has done is constantly compared to the achievements of Tom Brady. Three Super Bowl wins in three years would definitely set Mahomes apart from Brady, and the Chiefs from those other teams with extensive winning records – Lombardi’s Packers, the 70’s Steelers, the 90’s Cowboys, and the Patriots.

The first sets of plays in the first quarter brought to mind Mike Tyson’s comment. Tyson’s comment came in response to a question about his opponent having a plan. Tyson replied. “Everyone has a plan until I punch them in the mouth.”

That was how I felt about the Chiefs. The Chiefs had a plan for the game. The plan worked until the Eagles punched them in the mouth. And then the Eagles kept doing it.

While I doubt any of us writing or reading this blog have been, or will be, appearing in a Super Bowl, we all suffer setbacks during our lives. Some are minor. Others more serious, akin to Tyson’s punch in the mouth, set us back on our heels, or put us on the floor. I believe it’s how we react to these situations that define who we are. If you can pick yourself up, dust yourself up, make another plan, and move forward again then you improve the chances of getting what you’re striving for.

I’m sure there will be some long and hard conversations in Kansas City over the next few months, but don’t be surprised if they’re back in the Super Bowl next year in San Francisco.

First Deliveries

February 3, 2025 / / 0 Comments

The first of the short story collections I mentioned last week is now available on the top retailers. The book is titled Ceres to Vesta and contains five stories about the asteroid belt.

I came close to missing this weekend because I changed my cover design tool mid-week. For the past few years I’ve been using Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher for my covers. When I was designing the cover for Ceres to Vesta I wanted a sans serif science fiction like font. The Affinity products didn’t have a font that looked right, so I did some searches and found what I was looking for. The font family wasn’t free and I was okay with that until I saw the price of a commercial license, and the fairly low usage count that went with it.

Before I clicked the buy button on the font family, I recalled a comment someone made a year or so ago that you get a commercial license for all the fonts available for Adobe InDesign. So I flipped open a new browser tab and did some research on the Adobe site. The annual license for InDesign was only slightly more than the license for the font family and also gives me access to the thirty-thousand fonts in Adobe Fonts, so it ended up being an easy decision.

I then spent nearly two days working out how to do some basic tasks in InDesign that generally took ten minutes in Affinity. After some heavy use of the Google search engine, I had the color, layout, and spacing the way I wanted.

The eBook covers were easy. The paperback cover not so much. InDesign doesn’t like the Amazon cover templates – or if it does I haven’t worked it out yet. I’m on the ground floor of knowledge when it comes to InDesign, but I’m glad I made the switch, and if I reach my publishing goals for 2025 then by definition my InDesign skills will improve.

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