Jefferson’s Masterpiece Goes to Press

HUZZAH! Jefferson’s Masterpiece was sent to the publisher yesterday afternoon. (Huzzah was a popular 18th century word to express joy, encouragement or triumph.) I should receive a proof copy in a couple of weeks.

I missed my self-imposed August 20 deadline because we decided to do another read-through. We did some minor edits, substituted a few of the images and tweaked the cover.

I also settled on a title for the appendix – Declaration of Independence Library.

Next week I will not send a blog. The next one will be on September 6.

I sincerely appreciate your interest in my book,
Dennis

Jefferson’s Masterpiece Is Almost Ready for the Publisher

My self-imposed deadline to have Jefferson’s Masterpiece ready by August 20 is just a few days away. Beverly and I are working towards uploading the digital file (pdf) that will be used to print the 184-page book to the publisher’s server on schedule.

I am very pleased with the cover Beverly has designed. First, she designed a deep red logo for Jefferson’s Masterpiece with a font that looks 18th century. Then she designed the image that is composed of a number of elements. For the image background she overlapped the first two pages of Jefferson’s handwritten draft of the Declaration of Independence. Next, she used Charles Willson Peale’s portrait of Jefferson for the foreground – only his image; the background of the painting was deleted. Beverly then added a narrow black bar at the top and a wider version at the bottom. The bar at the bottom includes the subtitle: “The Story of the Declaration of Independence for Young Readers” and my name. This is printed in a gold color that matches Jefferson’s vest. Then a horizontal gold line that separates each bar from the image was added. Finally, the logo was placed above Jefferson’s head and below the top bar.

Hopefully, this cover will attract the attention of book buyers’ – young readers, parents, educators and gift shoppers.

It is very satisfying to know this project is almost complete – at least the research, writing and design phase. Now comes the marketing phase.

Again, I thank you for spending time with me today,
Dennis