Comment 24 for bug 897469

Looks like that only works if you've already installed the package. I used checkinstall http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/using-checkinstall-build-packages-source to install but keeping within the package manager. Then it worked, and the ctrl-c test worked, showing me the doc I had already scanned. Thanks. (I've learnt my lesson for randomly installing from source on my main pc)

For the record I changed the following, as I didn't want a name clash, and the default version was invalid:
tim@atom:~/repo/simple-scan-autosaves.bzr$ sudo checkinstall
...
This package will be built according to these values:
...
2 - Name: [ simple-scan-autosave ]
3 - Version: [ 1.0.0 ]
...

Running, killing and re-running the app shown below for the record:

tim@atom:~/repo/simple-scan-autosaves.bzr$ simple-scan

** (simple-scan:25776): WARNING **: scanner.vala:1024: Unable to disable compression, please file a bug
^C
tim@atom:~/repo/simple-scan-autosaves.bzr$ simple-scan

I've attached the deb file just in case it'll help anyone else.