08:09 – I should finish the lab session on simulated DNA gel electrophoresis today and get it off to the reviewers. Finish in the sense of finish writing it. I haven’t actually done the lab session yet. I’ll do it this weekend, when we’ll also be shooting a lot of images for it and other lab sessions. That leaves only the introduction, which is in progress. It looks like we’re actually going to make the 31 January deadline.
Not that things settle down much after that. In addition to a flow of of queries and edits, I have to get the kit contents finalized and purchase orders cut for components. The biology book hits the bookstores in April, and by that time I want to have 60 finished biology kits in inventory and ready to ship, along with components in the pipeline for many more.
The next project is a complete re-write of the forensics lab book that we finished a couple of years ago but was never published. I want to rewrite that book around a custom kit, which will make it much more accessible to home schoolers and hobbyists. I’d like to have that book complete, at least in PDF form, and kits available in time for summer session, although realistically it’ll probably be in time for autumn semester.
Farther out, but still on the horizon, I’d like to do a second edition of Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments, this one kit-based. Two kits, actually. One for first-year labs (the current chemistry kit) and one for second-year.
It’s going to be a busy year.