So today was a big day for me in my indie-publishing adventure - my 51st and I published some of my writing for the first time on Kindle. Learning how to publish my own writing is a wild ride, often involving me squinting at my laptop screen looking something like this:
Last night I learned how to convert Word files to upload them to Kindle (thank the lord for Scrivener, a writer's programme so utterly useful and adorably easy to use that I might just have its icon tattooed to my bum when the mid-life crisis finally hits). I also learned how to make a Kindle cover, and learned about pixels and JPeGs, and PNGs, and TIFs and vaguely what the differences are. I learned that 72 DPI resolution was the bare minimum and that RGB is better that CYMK. CYMK, as any fool knows, is just NOT ACCEPTABLE.
And there it is - some of my writing, with a cover in just right dimensions, available for anyone to read anywhere in the world. Just a bit surreal isn't it?
It turns out that was the easy bit. My attempt to design a paperback cover has been stuck in the purgatory of the Fonts that Will Never Load, possibly for all eternity:
I swear it's been doing that for 24 hours, in which time I have been to bed, opened up my presents, spent a couple of hours at the allotment, walked into the Covered Market for some baklava and watched Local Hero. I mean how many flipping fonts ARE there to load??
To pass the time while in loading limbo, I tried to upload the audio files onto ACX for Audible, ready for the audio version. If the fonts were purgatory, this was certainly the very pits of hell beyond even Dante's imagination. There were so many things wrong with my audio files, ACX actually produced me an EXCEL SPREADSHEET to list them.
Still, it's quite a thrill to see your own writing for sale on Amazon, quite something to download it onto your own Kindle.
The best birthday present I could possibly have asked for.
And I will try with the audio files again tomorrow. I mean... how hard can it be, right?
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