Book Progress

Visible Mantra: Visualising and Writing Buddhist Mantras (the book of this website) is making progress. I have given it to a proof reader (for the English parts). I've mentioned to my friend who can read Sanskrit in various scripts, as well as Tibetan and Chinese that I'm hoping he'll proof read the mantras for me. And finally I've commissioned an artist friend, who has often done work which incorporated syllables and mantras, to design the cover.

I have some difficult decisions regarding copyright material. I use quotes on the website, and though I'm always careful to cite my sources and link to them, this is not sufficient for a book I intend to sell. I will either need to pay for the use of copyright material, and I'm uncertain of the cost; or I will have to find a way of getting that information across that is not an obvious breach of the law (mainly to ensue that I'm not sued!).

Work always progresses more slowly than I imagine it might, but I want to have the book definitely finished for the Triratna Buddhist Order Convention in August, 2011. I plan to have a book stall at the convention with three books for sale.

My other publishing project - Nāmapada: a guide to names in the Triratna Buddhist Order - is going through another fiddly proofing/editing cycle, but should be finished by the end of October.