Monday morning, I got my first sample proofs for BPM from Times International Printing in Malaysia. Everything looked really great, the colors were spot on, and the digital files I had sent them were functioning perfectly. whew!

This is the farthest I have ever had to manage a print job, and as hands-on as I usually am for projects this complex, it's a real stretch for me to make sure everything is being handled correctly and done to my specs. It's taking all my anal-retentive powers to make sure that I dot every "i" and cross every "t", but so far, so good.

On Tuesday, I approved all the 12 pages of color I initially sent them, burned the DVDs with the final full files for the book, and also uploaded all the files (1.87 GB, kids!) to their servers. THEN I got to find out how much it costs to FEDEX something to Malaysia; $115.00! That sucking sound in the background is my Cafe Digital bank account, but it's all planned for...all part of the plan. At this point, fingers crossed, we're looking at 12 weeks from now for the books to be back in the USA. 6 weeks to print, 5-6 weeks to ship and go through customs.

And when I say "ship", I mean ship = boat. Funny that this stuff goes around the world on the highest of hi-tech, and returns on nearly the oldest tech. And so the adventure begins...
3 new pages of BPM are up at my BPM blog as we speak. Go take a look: CLICK HERE!