First I'd like to thank everyone who wrote with their opinions of coil v. hardcover. I've definately decided hardcover is the way to go with libraries and societies, and I'll let family and friends make their own decisions. Bossard has a copy of my book already and will be sending it away themselves for hard cover binding. Thanks also to those who made suggestions of how to embed fonts and create PDF files. I actually tried CutePDF and Adobe's five free PDF, but neither would work. As I said, I dunno if my document is too large or what. I didn't know how long it takes to upload files into PDF format so I wasted 4 hours one night waiting for Adobe to finish the project and it was still working so I left it running overnight while I slept, and in the morning it was still working on trying to convert it. And I figured after 12 hours it wasn't going to load. I tried again twice, but with no success. I then went to CutePDF and tried with similar results. As I said at one point I had Nerd put it in PDF format and they did it while I waited, so there was definately something wrong with my program or the size of my document. It shouldn't take 12 hours. The problem was my publisher rejected it because the fonts and photographs weren't embedded. So then I downloaded tons of things off Google to embed the fonts, but nothing worked. Perhaps I'm just that computer illiterate. :-) After Don Clark offered to put my book into PDF format, I wanted to make absolute certain that the fonts were embedded first. PDF doesn't help if everything's not embedded, and my publisher rejects it again. I downloaded several things off the internet on how to embed the fonts and well, they didn't work either. Yeah, Google and I have been best buddies for years! ;-) Unfortunately, I don't know what's wrong or why my computer won't seem to do things that it's supposed to be able to do -- when things go wrong blame the computer, not the operator. ;-) After spenting several hours downloading tons of programs (PDF and Embedding) and filling up my computer memory, my husband said I've tried long and hard enough, and suggested I just take it down to Nerd, have them embed the fonts and put it in PDF format and get the book done. He's proud of my accomplishments and my efforts and said I deserve it. :-) So that we did, it should be done on Friday. Hopefully when it comes back I will be able to upload it to Lulu and there will be no more hoops to jump through, and I'll be totally done with it, still seven days ahead of schedule. :-) Linda It stormed today in Gallipolis, but Mercerville, just 14 miles from the city square, is as dry as a bone.

To Linda Trent and all who responded to her query: Thank you for sharing your publishing experiences. Many among us plan to do what you have accomplished but few actually follow through. You and others provided useful information to help make critical decisions. Thanks to you and all who participated in the discussion. Experience counts! Carolyn Dawson Hayford At 05:39 PM 6/25/2007, you wrote: >First I'd like to thank everyone who wrote with their opinions of coil v. >hardcover. I've definately decided hardcover is the way to go with > Carolyn Dawson Hayford, 2302 Windham Road, Charleston WV 25303-3021 304-343-3828