This may be a case of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted, but I’ve spent more hours than I care to admit trying to figure out how to turn Pearls My Mother Wore into an e-book. I know, you’d think I’d have this done by now, but nay ( ; ) It is so not as easy as you might think. Granted, I’m not great when it comes instructions, but those handy drill-down links are about as helpful as tax code. Oh, how I long for the day when you could just call somebody.
First, I wanted to start by getting Pearls on Scribd.com. Scribd seems to be the cool alternative to Amazon, plus it makes the document uploadable to several different e-readers, not just the Kindle. Early on I had doubts about my ability to decipher their friendly website. On their home page, I clicked on “Guides and Manuals.” That’s what I needed, a guide for how to precede. Turns out, that link was to the section that sold guides and manuals for activities such as auto repair, scrap booking, crafts and gadgets. Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling to the bottom of the page, I discovered more links. Ah, “Scribd 101.” A cartoon illustration said “quick and fun.” The next screen gave me four choices. Choice one, “Uploading.” That had twenty-five clicks through descriptions of all the wonderful applications a Scribd account could offer. Choice two, “Introducing Scribd Readcast.” Readcast? That didn’t sound like what I was looking for; I wasn’t going to make an audio book. I looked anyway. Readcast had nine pages about all of the various book clubs that are on Scribd. Choice three, “Scribd Developer Tools and APIs.” Sounded techy and intimidating but turned out to be more about what the system could do, not how. Their illustrations of book pages with angle wings flying in the clouds were nice though. Choice four, “Scribd in HTML5.” That was sounding even further beyond my grasp, but alas, no. There were 22 more pages of what the system could do, not how.
The next choice was, heaven help me, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs.) When I discovered that there were 168 documents of FAQs, I decided to e-mail for help. I asked if the company had any human advisors available. I sent that email on April 5th. My reply came back on April 14th, saying no. Apologetically, Jerry at Scribd Customer Support did supply blue links to all the unhelpful pages that I had seen before. Refusing to be daunted, I persevered on my own. Long, long story short, what I ended up with was one item for sale that was my book cover, and another item for sale that was the book text. For the life of me I could not get the two to blend. I deleted the whole mess, and I’m now awaiting a reply from my second e-mail for help. To be continued.
Scribd illustration
I then attempted to tackle Amazon and make Pearls My Mother Wore available to Kindle readers. That was easier but still crazy making. I’ll spare you the blow by blow, and give you the helpful trick I learned. When I published the paper book version through Lulu, the printer was given a jpeg file for the book cover picture and a pdf for the book text. The pdf wouldn’t load properly at Amazon, so I had to use the original Word doc. Fortunately, Amazon provided a Preview option. My Word doc was all over the place with alarming gaps, big blank spaces between chapters. I basically had to reconstruct my entire Word doc, but the nifty trick I learned was to use the “Show Formatting” option. In Word, I opened my document, I clicked on “Tools,” then “Options,” and in the “View” tab I looked under “Formatting marks,” and I check marked “All.” That trick showed me why all of that blank space was happening. I also had to insert “Page Breaks” at the end of each chapter. After finessing some of the font sizes and bold type, I had a document that seemed to work. My upload is currently pending a Kindle/Amazon review, and they say it could take twenty-four to forty-eight hours.
One of the reasons why I’m putting myself through this torture is because next Saturday I’ll be participating in an event at the Roseville library, just north of Sacramento. I wanted to be able to tell the audience that Pearls is available electronically. The five-hour event will have eight diverse, self-published authors coming together to share about their work and their decision to self-publish. I’m scheduled to speak at 3:00. If you happen to know anyone in the Sacramento Area that might me interested, please send them this blog link and have them contact me for details. It will be free to the public with refreshments and door prizes. It should be a great time and an opportunity for me to meet many new people. The other authors include:
My Sonoma pal Tami Casias, presenting her young adult novel “Crystal Bound,” about a girl who inherits metaphysical powers on her 16th birthday but can only use them to do good.
Bryson Kilmer, “Point Hope,” an arctic treasure hunt of the heart.
Bob Quinlan, “Earn It: Empowering Yourself for Love.”
John Marchel, “K.I.S.S. Guide to Gambling.”
Mort Rumberg, “Codename: Snake,” about a Jewish assassin during WWII
Cara Weiss Wilson, “Dear Cara: Letters From Otto Frank,” involving her 20 years of correspondence with Anne Frank’s (Diary of Anne Frank) father.
A.K. Buckroth, “My Diabetic Soul,” a personal testimonial of living with diabetes.
Technically, it’s been a challenging week, but I haven’t given up. Every time I feel like I’ve accomplished something new in this wild publishing arena, I’m proud of myself, and that feels good.
Have a great week, and I’ll post again next Friday.
Hi Rita,
I’m glad to hear that “The Barn Door” wasn’t a turn-off. I tried to describe some of the frustrations with out being annoying myself. I could sure use the exact book you suggest I write. Oh boy, that would be an accomplishment.
And thank you for noticing that I try to keep my typos and goof-ups to a minimum. I’m always relieved when I catch one before I’ve hit the “Publish” button.
First – I want to say that I read a lot of blogs, on-line mainstream media, on-line reports, and op-ed pieces, and it is disturbing how many miss-spellings, typos, and grammatical errors are published. I am guilty, too, and get upset whenever I notice an e-mail I sent with a stupid mistake, So here’s the compliment: your writing is a joy to read, and part of that is not being distracted by mistakes. So if it ever seems like a big job to edit your work, just be assured that at least one of your readers notices and applauds you.
Secondly – There is quite a bit of info available by Googling how to write and publish an e-book, but I see nothing for the writer who wants to do what you are doing. It sounds too boring for you, but it would be a big service to other writers to publish an e-book on the mechanics you are learning. You would earn a few dollars (possibly many dollars, actually) and get your name out there in Google Land. Also, you have a knack for explaining obtuse technical detail. My eyes usually glaze over when I read this stuff, but not when you write it. Interesting.