Fishing Trip - Glossy Coffee Table Book

Fishing Trip - An Introduction to Fly Fishing and Trout 

I'd been wondering how to made a tangible version of the book currently available as e-book on Kindle available for its original purpose as a gift to my daughter.  I didn't use FeedARead.com as the internal images with that publisher are black and white/greyscale.  That was why Kindle was chosen as medium to show the trout in full colour.  However, the images had to be reduced in resolution for the book to be uploaded.

Visiting Weardale Studios (http://www.weardalestudios.com), at the Dales Centre in Stanhope, I mentioned my dilemma to the photographer (Liz Laidler) while waiting for my ID pictures for Kuwait to be printed.  She suggested http://www.photobox.co.uk and this morning I logged on, chose the A4 Portrait format and started adding the text and images one page at a time.  The formats are designed really to people to create albums of images from digital photography/scans, but text is allowed so I was able to have text pages and image pages along with mixed media pages of text and image.

It is not cheap, but then colour printing never is.   It is £65 (GBP) with 46 pages including the options  - HQ premium paper or glossy paper, matt laminated cover finish, box sleeve cover, but if you order another copy there's a discount.  Its on Photobox at http://www.photobox.co.uk/creation/2015752398

I do get messages from Photobox.co.uk suggesting the facility for the photobook was going to go in August 2016, but all seems to be well so far.

Consequently, two copies were ordered; Holly got her personal copy, as did the illustrator.  That was two Christmas presents sorted!

Incidentally, a resent search of the internet came up with this  at Angler'sNet.co.uk the kindle version got to #9 in the Fly Fishing top 10 on Amazon.co.uk which is very pleasing to see.

Pleasantly surprised.

When I first wrote the poem "Fishing Trip", it was done while I was working away from home in Abu Dhabi just for something to read to my then 2 year-old daughter.  By the time she had arrived to stay, so many other things happened, I forgot about it and only found it again while writing the second novel "Protective Craft- The Lost Diaries of Richard Buchanan".
By that point, Holly was 4 and I was in Mongolia and had published 3 books on Kindle.  I decided to polish up the poem and add images of trout to make it more interesting for her now she was able to read simple books and was showing an interest in my fishing "exploits", especially the catches of trout.
I needed an illustrator so my mum was again roped in for artist duties.  This had the benefit of "free artwork", but the problem of the paintings only becoming available when she had had the time to complete them.
Effectively, the main text of the book was completed by September 2012, but the illustrations weren't.  While waiting I decided to add the simple casting and fishing instructions too which I could draw on my own.
Eventually, almost a year after since accepting the "commission", the final picture was delivered and the book could be uploaded on to Kindle as "Fishing Trip - An Introduction to Fly Fishing and Trout".
This was not the original hope.  I had hoped that I would be able to find a publisher capable of turning it into a colour plate hardback for children to read, or for others to read to them to get them interested in fishing in general and fly fishing of trout in particular.  The nice thing about Kindle format is that the machine will read the book to the child and Holly has already done this, fascinated by being "in a book" where her father helps her catch a fish.  The really surprising thing about the whole affair is that, after writing it with a target audience of one, copies are being whisked of the electronic shelves at a rapid rate.
Not long now Holly.  I'll be home soon and we'll really catch one together.