The Practicalities

One should note that a proper writer would have people to do all this for them, and they wouldn’t take so little time doing what I did. Nevertheless, once decided upon something, I like to get it done and while patience maybe a virtue, sinning is much more fun.

Fun? Maybe I should think again….

First Day – The Cover

A day when I should have been doing other things. Nevermind…

Given that I am not going to be doing any kind of viral marketing, asking friends etc etc (and I will explain why at a later date) I have to rely on someone looking at the book on line and being interested enough to read the blurb.

So the cover is all.

I am lucky in that I have one sister who is an illustrator and another a graphic designer specialising in CD covers. However, I am unlucky in that I don’t feel in a position to ask them to disturb their busy working lives to work, unpaid, for me. But I email for advice.

Can I nick stuff of the internet, change it a bit and claim it is my own? No. You’ll be sued, people aren’t stupid. Oh…

So, for a while I was tempted to dust of my paint pots. But I am the non-artistic one amongst my siblings. So I have a think about what type of image I want, what I want to convey.

And then I dress up: my wife is very forgiving.

A photograph, played with on Photoshop, can easily be made to look like a drawing, and once I have managed to hide the length of my nose with the judicial use of a masking tool, I’m ready to go.

Now for titling.

Font. I found a lovely site, a French chap who has some lovely fonts you can download for free. Here.

I play around, my wife giving guidance, and together we came up with something which was okay.  And if I didn’t have the sisters I have, I’d have left it at that. Instead I send an email: ‘Can you just have a look?’ I ask.

And so it comes back, redesigned, corrected and with an even better font than my researches had uncovered. Cheers, sis.

Next stage, formatting the text…I know you can’t wait.

Second Day – The Text

Gosh, I hate third-party software.

Why can’t I just upload my Word.doc? Why do I have to first learn, then use, then realise I hadn’t learnt properly and go back and use again, some strange program? Computers were meant to make life easier, weren’t they? Somebody should tell programmers…

Anyway, if you want to know how to use ‘Mobipocket Creator’ send me an email and I’ll tell you how not to do it…

But once ‘built’, I have to check everything to make sure it has formatted properly. This turns out to be a good thing – though I thought I had a clean, mistake free copy of the book, I realise I have confused homonyms, left out words, missed punctuation. So I spend a day copy-editing and my eyes and shoulders are knackered.

And after many abortive attempts, I have something to upload.

Of course I should wait: it is eleven o’clock at night, I am tired, and have drunk far too much wine: wait, leave it and look again in the  morning. But do I wait? Of course not. Upload!

And that is it. The Book is now pending acceptance - 24 hours I am told – a bit of a let down now its done. So off I go to bed to dream of selling copies, millions of them, overnight.

Now that would be nice.

Next, Marketing, and how I am not going to do any…