Have you written a book? Does the thought of getting it published seem overwhelming? Would you like a simple, inexpensive solution that will allow you to publish your book quickly, with little expense, and do it in your spare time? Then this is the book for you. Peggy Gaffney has written a simple guide to self-publishing for the writer with a manuscript. It helps the writer to take his book through the steps of getting it published, building his publishing business, and marketing the finished book in all its various forms. The book talks about how books are published, how the new publisher gets his business established, finding a printer, laying out the parts of the book, creating the covers, and adding photos to the book. It also discusses editors and editing, getting your ISBN and bar code, making the book look good, e-books and audio books, marketing, websites and shopping carts, e-zines and blogs and lastly, creating the buzz. Many resources are included to help beginners find their way through the world of self-publishing. This is a basic step-by-step approach for those who want to publish the book themselves.
Peggy Gaffney was the author of eight knitting books of intarsia designs celebrating the worlds of dogs and cats when a group of llama and alpaca breeders approached her to create a book for them, she was only too happy to take on the challenge. As they pointed out, "We've got yarn!" So that is how The Crafty Llama and Alpaca Knits came into being as the ninth knitting book from publisher Kanine Knits.
Peggy has owned Samoyed show dogs since 1968 as well as a variety of cat breeds through the years. A life-long knitter, she has been designing professionally since 1995 concentrating on creating portraits of show dogs as intarsia knitting designs. Toward this end, she has created over 100 patterns in her Portraits of Dogs in Knitting collection which she markets to knitters around the world.
In 2005, Peggy decided to take her design skill in a new direction and create a series of knitting books that would be unique by focusing on the world of dogs. So far, she has created for dog lovers, seven books in The Crafty Dog Knits series. Last year, she was approached by members of the cat fancy and asked to give them equal time by creating a knitting book for cat lover. The Crafty Cat Knits was the result.
Her dog knitting books each focus on taking a single breed per book and creating designs of that breed in action. She realized that this wouldn't work with cats. Though they might enjoy agility, cats don't do 'obedience.' So after discussing the approach with a number of fanciers, she decided to take a dozen breeds and focus on what makes each of them unique. Each breed gets its own design accompanied by an object that figures in the cat's history. The story that explains how each breed came to be is included along with more than 50 photos of cats taken by the author as well as submitted by fancier around the country.
With The Crafty Llama and Alpaca Knits, she dealt with the two well known camelids and discussed the history, what they do and of course talked about the fleece which is of so much importance not only with the breeders but with knitters craving luxury fibers. The book is filled with photos of these wonderful creatures in action.
The Crafty Llama and Alpaca Knits is published by Kanine Knits which is also the publisher of The Crafty Cat Knits and the Crafty Dog Knits series which includes book about: Samoyeds, Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers, Bernese Mt Dogs, Newfoundlands, Welsh Corgis and Poodles.
Peggy Gaffney is now hard at work on a delightful new book that will involve many breeds of dogs and cats both purebred and pets.
