For The Want of a Nail, The Shoe Was Lost
Book Review and Formatting Notes
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Author: Chris Gregory
Genres: Autobiography, Memoir, Trade Skills, Crafting
Terminology:
Farriers shoe horses.
Blacksmiths shape and form iron.
Chris is a farrier and a blacksmith. You do not have to be a farrier to be a blacksmith, but if you want to shoe horses (i.e., be a farrier), blacksmith skills are required.
From the For The Want of a Nail book blurb:
Chris has done clinics and shod horses on six continents, as well as almost every state in the US.
Book Review:
Chris really nailed it! (hah–yeah, I know… bad pun!) But, farriers should write more books. Seriously! This is a book that the men* you know will want to read too, especially if they’re interested in horses and smithing.
Author Chris Gregory
In For The Want of a Nail, Chris discusses how he began shoeing horses and became a blacksmith and a farrier. He highlights the people he’s known in the business and the lessons they’ve taught him. He also shares his adventures in teaching others to shoe horses, and some of the mishaps that happened. Chris is also a family man and his faith permeates his writing although it is never in your face.
The book is an entertaining read, with plenty of large color photos. I also really enjoyed Chris’s sense of humor.
This book also has added relevance given the increasing societal instability that we’re currently seeing around us. We may find ourselves needing more farriers and blacksmiths in coming days. It would be good to see more young men going into this field as a profession.
Formatting by Krystine Kercher
Cover Design by Jonna Feavel. I really love the cover. Don’t you?
Formatting Notes:
One of my publishing clients is Dan Mawhinney** at 40 Day Publishing.
Dan asked me to format For The Want of a Nail for Chris. As a formatting job, it was pretty straightforward. I encountered no endnotes and no challenging photo layouts. I centered all of the captions under the photos too, so that made it easier.
One part of my job as a formatter is to ensure that any photos included in a book are of a sufficient size and quality to print well. For this book, I resized most of the photos and edited a handful for better quality as well. When images are damaged in some way, I do what I can to touch them up without destroying the integrity of the photographic record. In this case, there was one image that gave me a serious challenge. See the scratches on the right?
This is the only copy of this photo that Chris had–and he really wanted it in the book. The resolution was pretty good, so I had some leeway to work with in repairing the damage.
I couldn’t remove all of the scratches, but I reduced them to where they’re hardly a factor. The photo turned out pretty well, didn’t it? I am delighted with the result.
Additional Notes:
*Market studies show that most men don’t read books much at all anymore once they graduate from school. Even when they do read, men and women tend to gravitate toward different subjects. And, most readers are women. So–we need authors to write books on subjects that interest men and men need to be intrigued enough to pick up their books and read them.
**40 Day publishes a variety of books and literature. Contact Dan for a quote.
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