My boyfriend's 30th birthday is today, and I wanted to make him something special. He loves ghost hunting (despite not believing in ghosts; go figure), and he's got tons of books on the subject. But for some reason, although he's lived in the Bay Area for years, he didn't have one about San Francisco. He said there just weren't any good ones. So I wrote it.

Unfortunately, because I am a procrastinator, I had to write the whole thing in a week. I did a little preliminary research on self-publishing and found blurb.com, which promised an easy template wizard and a quick turnaround time. So I got cracking. I decided to write about 30 "haunted" locations in the city (it being his 30th birthday and all), so I started off with a ton of research--books, newspaper articles, personal interviews, ghost tours, etc. There's a two-page bibliography at the end of the book, in fact. So once I had my locations narrowed down, I searched Flickr for appropriate photos that were available under a Creative Commons Attribution license. By strange coincidence, I ended up using photos from two people I actually knew in real life: Dave Schumaker and Dan Gies (hi, guys!).

So then it was time for layout. As someone who considers herself an artist, it pained me to only have a few hours to pull together the design of the book. I feel like I could have made something a little cleaner and more interesting if I'd had more time, but that's what I get for starting late.

Finally, after countless hours, I submitted my 64-page masterpiece at 3am last Wednesday, then waited for the FedEx truck with bated breath. The final result is just as professional and well-made as I hoped, and I totally recommend the service if you're looking to do a similar project. You can even sell your book online if you want, but since some of the photos I used weren't licensed for commercial use, I had to pass.

If you're dying to read it for some reason, the whole book is available to read online for free, right there. Enjoy!