Tag Archives: Widow Woman

Road Trip-Day Whatever

2 Replies

Who cares what day it is? I’ve been stuck in the ditch for a week now, so time is losing all relevance.

Can you tell it’s not going well? Writing this from a deep well of frustration. I went back and, I thought, fixed all of the formatting problems, followed KDP’s publishing guide step-by-step, went back to the beginning and uploaded my shiny, clean, sparklingly new file…and it STILL is telling me I don’t have a cover, I don’t have a TOC, I don’t have an NCX file (whatever the heck that is). I can see the cover thumbnail is there! I can see and use the TOC in the preview! What do you mean I don’t have them? Plus, it’s listing 47 pages of HTML errors, which is a foreign language to me (not one of the 3 I speak, unfortunately).

This is so disheartening, because I am so close, I can almost taste it, but technology is just dangling the tantalizing spoon in front of me, taunting me for my lack of technical skills.

Grrr!

All right. Veni, vidi, vented…Back to the drawing board. Getting very close to just saying screw it and turning it over to a pro…

But I want to do this myself! she wailed.

Send me some good mojo, folks, we’re heading for a bumpy landing!

Road Trip, Day I-Don’t-Have-Time-To Count

What’s that old saying, “Two steps forward, one step back?” Well, that’s my route today.

Step Forward: Finished the formatting (first pass, as it turns out–see Step Back below) this morning! Yay, me!

Step Back: Did spell-check of whole document and was aggravated to find several problems. Really, Julia? What the hell is “fotlooseeeeee?” Think I must’ve nodded off and hit the keyboard. Grr. But…

Step Forward: Inserted ISBN number (after a brief clarification call to their Help Desk–surprisingly helpful!) Now I’m official!

Step Forward: Converted file for Web-htm (yay!) and worked my way through Kindle’s KDP publishing steps, including description, cover image (beautiful!), contributors (thanks, Connie) and so forth, right up to uploading my book and downloading the Preview Your Book feature! Yay! Hang on…

Um…wtf?

Table of contents alignment did not convert properly, nor did my margins!

Giant. Freaking. Step. Backward.

Sigh.

Will have to sit down now, try to figure out what happened in my original doc, resave for Web, etc., etc., etc. Tomorrow, since I’m out of time for today.

But hey, at least I got to see what it would look like before it went live, which was awesome, and which means I’m getting closer.

Step Forward.

Step Back.

Step Forward.

Step Back.

Now, everybody–cha cha cha!

Stay tuned, it’s getting closer!

 

Road Trip, Day Fifteen-More Or Less

Leave a reply

Here it is, folks–the first public viewing of the cover for Widow Woman! I could not be more excited at the work my designer, Alan Pranke, did on this.

So many things are starting to roll (quickly) into place: the cover’s done; I’m closing in on the last couple of chapters of formatting before preparing to upload; I’ve got my ISBN, I’ve created a fan page on FB–I’ve even had a preliminary chat about a launch party!

Everything is starting to seem so real and so very imminent that I’m alternating between exhilaration and hyperventilation.

But today, for a few hours, I’m going to go A.W.O.L., for a very good cause: my dear friends are sponsoring a kick-butt neighborhood carnival to benefit the Miracles of Mitch Foundation, and I’m volunteering to help. It’s a terrific organization that provides meaningful, real support (groceries, mortgage support, special sibling camps and more) to families with children fighting cancer. So for the next few hours, I’ll be running like crazy–dunk tank (good grief, no, I won’t be in it–it’s a family event, after all), inflatables, games, prizes, silent auction, an outdoor movie screening and more. Last year, we raised over $5,000; we’re hoping to top that this year!

No matter what’s going on in your life, you should always take every opportunity that presents itself to be involved in making someone else’s life better, even if it’s in the most insignificant ways imaginable, but this event–well, it’s a biggie, so I’ll be there tonight because I do, I really do–I believe in everyday miracles. 🙂

Road Trip, Day One-and-a-Half

Leave a reply

The road in question here is, of course, the road to publication of Widow Woman. I’m aiming for within 30 days. The “1/2” is because technically, today is already Day 2, but I didn’t get much done yesterday, so I’m not counting it. It’s my party, I’ll lie–er, fudge–if I want to.

So where am I? Got the title page, copyright page, dedication, acknowledgements, and TOC completed and formatted and slogged through the first 8 chapters. Not as far as I’d hoped to get, but at least it’s forward progress.Ugh. Necessary evils suck.

Also made first contact with the designer I’d like to create my cover for me–shared my ideas with him and am greatly encouraged by his feedback. I toyed (briefly) with the idea of designing the cover myself, but a) completely lack any ability to translate visually what I see in my mind–duh, writer; and b) everything I’ve read stresses the importance, particularly for e-books, of an eye-catching and professional-looking cover.

I look at it this way: If I put an extra space or two somewhere in the formatting, you’ll bitch about it, maybe ridicule me to a few of your more supercilious friends (come on, fellow editors, we’ve all done it) but I think (hope), if you’re finding the story compelling enough, you’ll get over my egregious mistakes and keep reading. But–if you’re not grabbed by the cover, you’ll never even pick it up (or click on it)–it’s just too important a factor to trust it to my own mischief-prone hands.

That’s where I am! More updates to come–keep those comments coming!

P.S. Tomorrow, I’m dropping the “1/2”–it’s still my party and I can.