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...is finally here. I expected it to be out by June 30th, but that didn't happen. After a little bit of a delay with my computer getting zapped in a tornado storm and me having to redo the eBook format, my YA suspense novel, Kings & Queens, is finally LIVE and available for purchase at Amazon (Kindle) and Barnes & Noble (NOOK book) for $3.99.It was a pain to get it to look the way I wanted, and hopefully, it's right now. But, I do not own Microsoft Word, so that will present a problem in the future. I'm on a limited-use trial of Word on my computer and it wants the dang code. I think I have 5 more uses. I tried converting my file from Works and it completely disregarded styles, including the indents I set, and smashwords will take Open Office files that have been converted, but they DO NOT prefer them and tell tales of various horrors.
And marketing??? Well, I just wrapped up my tour with Teen Book Scene, which was a blast, and have been hesitant to fill out more dates until I at least had the eBook up. But really, I'm gonna need the paperback on hand too before I can go fish for YA book blogger reviews. Not all, but most bloggers only accept paperbacks. For the ones who do accept eBooks, once my book is LIVE on Smashwords, I can offer coupons and they can get it in any format they choose. And I'm still waiting on that.
I'm not sure when my paperback will be out, but hopefully by the end of the month.
The Kindle Indiependence Day Giveaway wrapped up. Congrats to the Grand Prize winner, Lilibeth, who won the FREE Kindle and all 17 Kindle books by the participating authors. If you haven't yet, you can still subscribe to the Kindle Indiependence newsletter to stay abreast of book news and upcoming contests. Just go here.
Once my dizziness ends and I find ground, I'll start compiling a blog tour. If you'd like to host me, let me know. That would be great!
~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.
Just a word of encouragement on the formattig for Smashwords. I don't own Word, either. I used one of the Open Office clones (for Mac) and had absolutely no problem with getting my novel accepted. You need to follow the instructions from the style guide, but use the equivalent menu options in Open Office. The most important thing is to use the "invisibles" feature and check for indents and other formatting errors, and to adjust line spacing so that you have slightly more than the normal "1".
ReplyDeleteSmashwords is the only place I've uploaded my book (will add B & N soon). I looked at my book in HTML, PDF, ePub, and mobi formats and it looks fine in all of them
Thanks so much for letting me know! That's great and very helpful.
ReplyDeleteI think OO.o will be fine for this, CV. I know my buddy Bryce uses it exclusively and he's had no issues at all. You've done your due diligence in formatting, and I think it will be fine.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! I'm very excited for you. Be sure to keep us other indie eBook authors up-to-date on what you do for marketing. :)
God bless and I hope you sell a gazillion copies!
So exciting! Glad your blog tour went well, and that you were able to save your files from the storm.
ReplyDelete:) Ang
I wasn't able to save my files, had to redo them from the PDF. But at least I had that. I didn't get all positive reviews in my book tour, a couple of them didn't even finish it, but for the most part they were pretty favorable and I had fun writing the other posts. I'm still waiting for my data to be recovered, IF it can. My tech isn't having any luck yet. He opened it and it showed nothing on the desktop and that's where the most important files are.
ReplyDeleteOkay. That's good to know. I think if I do everything in styles, even the front matter, that it should look okay in OO. That locks everything in and writes it into the HTML code. I love Open Office. The draw program doesn't always produce perfect PDFs, like it messes up gradients, but other than that, I love it. Thanks for the support and props!!!
ReplyDeleteMy buddy says when you convert the file from OO to HTML it comes through much cleaner than Word documents. I just can't get the spacing between paragraphs and line spacing and whatnot working for me in OO. But then, I don't really have to; I write in Word, and use Mobi PocketCreator to meke the .prc, and voila! -- an eBook. :)
ReplyDeleteIf you need help do let me know!
Thanks for checking on that. In Open Office, I'm pretty sure if you set the spaces in the paragraph box instead of with a return it will stick and write it into the HTML code. That's what I had to do in Word. I've been using Word for now, but it's just a trial. It's good to know I can use OO later.
ReplyDelete