Tuesday 27 November 2012

Book Update - France In America


My regular readers already know I went on a pretty long ride on my motorcycle across America. It was 21,475 glorious miles of getting to know the country and its people. The journey was a tremendous experience, as I visited 27 different states and witnessed many of the great places America has to offer.

What started out as a simple blog journal of the ride eventually led to the decision to write a book about the road trip and I am pleased to report that book is almost complete. To give you an update, about a month ago, the writing was finished, the photos to be included were chosen, the maps were all drawn and editing was completed.

I then travelled to Thailand to undertake the next stage in the evolution of the book – to create the layout of the book by deciding exactly what goes on each page. Sizing and locating each of the many hundreds of pictures in the best place within the text isn’t easy, so I needed the help of people with considerable experience in this.

My brother Tim lives in Thailand and it was to him I turned for help. He runs a communications company, Inis Communications, that writes, edits and publishes documents to help global health and development organisations achieve greater impact through high quality publications. Tim had helped me with guidance and advice about writing the book and I now needed his help again. Here are the two of us, working on the book....


Tim and his team made the task of creating the book layout very easy and it was a pleasure to watch experienced people at work. At four hundred pages this is a big book, and they worked their way through it with the ease that only experts can. The main graphic designer, Benya, did a terrific job and produced a layout I am very happy with. This is Benya discussing the cover of the book with me....


Many, many thanks go to Tim and his whole team for turning my words and pictures into a fantastic-looking book. I am thrilled with the end results.

You can find out more about the book here.

More updates will follow. The next stage is another area of complete mystery for me - choosing the right printer. Now, just how do you go about that.....?

Next week, I will tell you about fulfilling a promise I made......

Tuesday 20 November 2012

My New Motorcycling Website!


Today, my new motorcycling website www.garysfrance.com was launched.

Containing information about different aspects of motorcycling, the site has sections about my forthcoming book, touring guides, my videos, a competition (win the latest GoPro camera), a bit about me, reviews of motorcycling books, other people videos I like, plus a whole load more.

I hope you find just a little bit of time to go take a peek.