So here it is... and you've probably seen it already, but it's still quite exciting to me! Especially since release day is less than a week away!!!
So here is yet another example of 1 task on a list of to-dos that took days and attempts beyond, apparently, my counting abilities. The book cover alone was a tremendous undertaking, and after the proof copy it was still too dark. But since Dear Hubby is now a professional on Gimp (to be a professional- master in anything you must have 10,000 amount of hours applied... Well, so he's ALMOST one!), The fix and reload was a quick and satisfying one.
Then came the manuscript... I will spare you. But I am sure that Bryon is ALMOST a professional formatter (I guess that isn't a word) as well. He dug so deep he was up to his neck in HTML. A master at inserting images, a wiz at adding the prologue—What? yeah, a chapter got up and came missing somewhere along the line. He got pretty good at spelling Epilogue and removing added quotation marks, like where did they come from? And best of all, he probably can upload it onto the three POD (Print on Demand) companies with his eyes closed! I proudly say that I was his lowly apprentice and am literally horrified by the thought of having to do it myself.
Somewhere along the middle of the miry clay of publishing, I decided it wasn't even worth it. I was spending way too much time on this, and it came close to taking the heart of it right out. I was so done. It was Bryon that said, Let's keep going. Yes, the end eventually comes.
If you secretly would like to write a book and want to self publish, here's my advice:
Do it. But start with a perfectly formatted piece, use the tab button, don't use the enter key and spacebar to make paragraphs. Don't do custom design, not for your first try. Don't try to rig it together, that may work building a barn or cooking from scratch but for mercy sakes, have the right programs and suck it up, and don't do everything for free. You don't need to spend a lot but start off with compatible programs and up-to-date instructions, like updates that came out yesterday, not 4 years ago. You ever followed the signs to a yard sale that happened 2 weeks ago? Who has time for that! Don't hurry, deadlines keep you moving, but they are not worth it if you keep making mistakes trying to push through.
I sent out my ARCs Saturday, and even that was a balding experience. Needless to say, I couldn't do that by myself either. A 10-minute fix 2 days later with a fresh brain and I could have.
It sounds like a terrible nightmare. It wasn't; I don't think we had one fight, a snapping, yes, many of those. It was a team effort. And I think it's done at last. I even plan on doing this again in a few months!
So if you read my book, and I hope you do, please know that those typos you found are very special and strategically were placed to let you know that 2 humans wrote and published their first novel.