For those of you who keep "to-do" lists, how many of you have had an item on there that just keeps on repeating...?
My to-do list is in a spiral bound notebook, and I just keep adding to it. When I get something done, I cross it off, and then when that page is all done, I fold it lengthwise so that I don't have to look at the tasks anymore, and I can skip by it quickly to get to pages with un-done tasks.
Releasing the 2nd Edition of My Highland Dance Notebook has been on that list a very long time. Through 2-3 spiral books actually. I distinctly remember transferring the task into a new book at least once, maybe twice.
I don't remember when I started the 2nd Editions, but it would have been after the French editions were released (oh my....I don't think I even blogged about that!) which was 2022. As of the end of summer 2023, I was definitely working on them, and had email communications with Caroline Angus of Angus Academy of Highland Dance. She was advising me on the some details of the revised books, especially with how to handle the Reel of Tulloch dances. Since my daughter didn't reach the Premier level, and developed an injury during her Intermediate level, she didn't do many of those and I just didn't understand them. (true confessions: I still don't!).
I had an email from Caroline sitting at the bottom of my inbox, marked unread (but it had been read), as that's how I keep track of email tasks I need to attend to. It was from the end of August 2024. (!!)
Every time I had "free time" during the year--summer, March break, Christmas break, I would turn my thoughts to jumping back into that revision process and getting it done. But it didn't happen. I was working nearly full time, still homeschooling my youngest child. One daughter got married and a granddaughter came along...they moved in with us while my SIL was working on a university degree. Then, the biggie...a baby joined our family in the spring of 2025. A bit of a long story, I won't go into it, but understandably, this side gig, on top of my two other music teaching jobs, was definitely not at the top of the list.
So this is why I'm SO excited to finally announce that it's done. They are coming. I hope!
I have just a bit of uncertainty about this, because the KDP rules have changed a bit since I published the original series, and the French translations. As I was taking each book through the submission process a few days ago, I noticed a new check-box: Low Content. I read the guidelines and was reasonably sure my books qualified as low content. But how demeaning that sounded! To me, low content are the notebooks my youngest daughter whipped up and submitted on my account when she was about 14 years of age. Certainly not the kind of effort I've put into these books. Yes, they have repeated content for many sections of the books. Yes, their content requires the user to write it in. But these are specialized. They are targeted. They have a specific purpose. And I've worked darn hard on them!
For the 2nd Edition, I recreated all the manuscripts in Canva. I've fallen in love with Canva the last few years, and pay yearly for the upgraded version. My first edition books were made in Word. It was often super annoying and difficult to make edits and changes to those manuscripts. Canva made it so much easier to change a detail on one page, then delete all the rest in that section, copy the new page and duplicate it fairly quickly. The entire series got a facelift in Canva and I love how they look. I created new covers, although stuck with the original base photo for each one. I think those dancers are too recognizable to change. My back covers got a complete overhaul though.
Despite all this work, after chatting for a good part of an hour with a KDP specialist, I had to acquiesce and click that box. I didn't really have a choice--I had unknowingly submitted the first two books without doing that, and I got an email from KDP saying that there was an "error" to fix.
I also learned that the 'low-content' setting now prohibits me from making them a series. :/ I don't like that, but I'm hoping it won't really affect the user experience. Also, there won't be that "look inside" option for the new books. Again, I'm hoping that anyone coming to buy MHDN is already familiar enough with them that not seeing the innards would not be a problem. That's also why I have this blog, and the website.
Oh, and speaking of the website---it's also brand-new as well! I decided that everything needed a facelift, and I do love making websites on Wix...so after a few days of working on that, it's nearly ready to launch. I just need the links for the new books...
And that leads me back to my "hope" term used above. One other detail new to the low content rating is that KDP can now take as long as 10 days to approve my manuscript. :/ I start back to school (orientation) next week, and will have to start tackling my curriculum plans for the year, so I was hoping to have this all dropped this week. It's just Monday, so that could still happen!
The new proofs should arrive by Wednesday, and then I'm hoping to redo my photo shoots, and the video I made for the original books. Everything will be brand-spanking new.
Now you can see why I'm so excited! It feels SO great to have this task off that endless to-do list. And I'm so excited for my users to learn about the new editions, and hopefully love them as much as the originals.
WOOHOO!
