Yesterday’s Songs Transformed is getting close to completion. I’m working on the introduction, which traditionally is one of the last things you write. It deals with the relationship of the book to Tomorrow’s Songs Today. TST is about filk music. YST grows out of my interest in filk. It puts the rewriting of song lyrics into a bigger context. I expect a large part of my audience to be people interested in filk, people who love the idea of replacing old lyrics with new ones. I also hope that other music lovers will get enjoyment out of it.

YST will be more free-wheeling than TST. It won’t be a history, but a tour. I’m starting with a quick look at the ancient and medieval worlds, then jumping into English-language songs from the Child Ballads onward. My discussions of the songs include lots of asides and personal opinions. When I’m talking about pro-confederate parodies of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, just saying that they happened seems inadequate. It’s important to understand why people (re)wrote the lyrics they did. Understanding songs helps in understanding how people thought.

Fonts are starting to occupy my thoughts. Times New Roman is boring from overuse. I came across an article on “Picking Fonts for Your Self-Published Book. It favors “oldstyle” fonts, and I’ve tried out Minion. It looks good at first glance. Maybe you could say it Gru on me.

At this point, I’m looking for a cover artist and copy editor. This book isn’t going to be crowdfunded, and I’ll be producing it on a smaller budget than TST, so I don’t think I can afford as great a cover this time. Still, I’d like to find a graphic artist. There are a few people I’m thinking of to tap for the copy editing. If you’re interested in either of these, please let me know.

My plan is to publish the book on Smashwords, as I did with Files that Last. I’ll publish a coupon code on this blog to reward people who read it. Odds are good of getting it done by the end of the summer.