This weekend I finally decided to enter the jungle of self-publishing head on and get In The Flesh uploaded to the various distributors for the Android (Kobo), the Nook (Barnes & Noble) and iPads/iPhones/iDevices of all sorts, which meant iTunes. Since I was doing the full tour I decided to take this opportunity to correct the cover art for my POD (print on demand) version, this of course meant wading into the formatting bog of Createspace.
So with editing machete in one hand and FAQ’s in the other, Google my faithful guide I set forth into the tangled undergrowth of formatting and uploading, verifying and proofing that I knew from previous attempts to penetrate the labyrinthine depths awaited me. True I had been defeated before by clunky, if not impossible to follow interfaces and failures of proprietary software to verify and validate but this time I would prevail.
To my surprise Barnes & Noble had updated and simplified their self-publishing interface and my ePub uploaded with nary a hiccup. Unlike last time when the same file type crashed and crashed and crashed, leaving me no choice but to retreat, defeated and discouraged. My confidence bolstered by this unexpected reprieve I moved on to Kobo. To my growing delight, once I found the way to login to where I needed to (which took an hour but now I know how to find it so it’ll be a piece of cake in the future), the upload of my ePub went as smoothly as a cat drinking cream.
This left my self-publishing nemesis, iTunes. I went ahead and downloaded iBook creator and spent two days loading my novel into it. This should produce the kind of file iTunes will accept. It did produce a gorgeous format for my novel and I will be putting all of my future work through it for that reason alone. It took some doing and some tweaking of the cover art but it seems to have worked. I’ll know in a day or two.
So, gentle reader, as you may have noticed I now have links to In The Flesh for the Nook, Droid and Kindle. This is very exciting. The formatting of the POD version is such that the print copy will cost $17.99. It is a trade paperback. I couldn’t get it down to paperback size.
Also, because that is not enough exciting news there is more involving War In Flesh. I finished the editing, formatting and uploading around 11pm Saturday night and no sooner had I pushed the last “submit” button then inspiration struck. I spent a couple of hours writing an entirely new first chapter for War In Flesh and it is excellent. I even got started on a new second chapter Sunday. As always I hope you enjoy reading what I’ve written. K.