Fun Times with Formatting
(a view from the trenches)
Welcome (back) to Write and Grow with Anna – a friendly place to learn and develop as writers — and hopefully have some fun!
Today, I thought I’d share some news from “the trenches.” I have just spent the last hour and a half wrestling with a process I thought would take five minutes!
Self-publishing isn’t for the faint of heart, you guys. Today (if you asked my advice) I would probably turn to you and say, “If you have the money, hire a publisher!”
As you may know, I self-published my new book, Hope Diamond, on Amazon in November. Great. Yay. HERE
I’ve used Amazon before, and I know how it works. It’s my “comfort zone.”
HOWEVER — it’s not always best to stay ONLY with Amazon, so I’ve had a long-standing goal to “go wide,” which in self-publishing means to not only do Amazon. In my case, I decided to upload my book to a platform called Ingram Spark so that it can be available to other retailers (such as Barnes and Noble) and libraries, which for some reason prefer it to Amazon.
So OK. Cool. I made my Ingram Spark Account and uploaded everything a couple of weeks ago (took about an hour) — except the cover, which I knew needed other specs than Amazon’s. So OK. I contacted the cover designer and got that cover.
So TODAY — I was just adding that cover and away we go, right??
Nope. The platform didn’t like my font style and the pictures in my interior content file. (In other words, the book itself.)
Wait. MY file?? What’s wrong with my file?? I used Atticus, the world’s most bestest $147 book formatting program. It worked great for Amazon, made cute flowers for the front of each chapter and everything.
GRRR.
So, I went back into Atticus and made an alternative file. I took away the cute flowers at the front of each chapter and the cute heart pictures I was using for scene cuts. I took out some of the offending photos.
My cute book became plain.
HONESTLY, you guys. You think you have it all figured out, and then you have to do it again.
But anyway, Ingram Spark now says I’m fit to be congratulated, and they’ll send some proof or something for me to look at in a few days.
I should take on a good attitude, right? I DID reach a major goal today. I DID upload my book to a potentially wider audience. Yay me! — as one of my foster children used to say.
But the plain version. :(
If you know anything about me, you know I like cute, sparkly things. I was originally going to make the cover of this book pink with sparkling diamonds falling from the sky (until a wise friend nixed the idea and gently reminded me I’m an adult.)
That’s my story today, my friend. Just wanted to share from deep in the bowels of the self-publishing cave.
As I wait for the proof copy, I think I’ll go console myself — by actually writing something!!
Warmly,
Anna
Today’s questions for you:
Have you ventured into the technical sides of self-publishing yet? If so, how did it go?
Which aspects of the publishing process do you think you’d like to turn over to someone else? (for me, it’s cover design, for example)
What do you think of this story? Scary? Not too bad? To be expected?