Last week, I decided to epublish an illustrated story I'd finished. Kindle made it sound so simple. I thought, even a computer illiterate, like me, could do it.
On Monday:
I found Kindle's epublishing site: Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), awesome!
https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A2J0TRG6OPX0VM Its page had 3 tabs. I read, clicked and reread everything. Any techno lingo I didn't know, I researched (I asked my family or Googled it). It was an intense exploration day.
On Tuesday:
I had the grand idea of releasing my ebook for epublication on Friday, my birthday.
I began preparing my text for the book (that's formatting in techno lingo). Everything needed to be converted to JPEG. What is JPEG? My photos and illustrations were on tif and png. How could I convert my illustrations and photos into JPEG?
I saw that there was a place for making a book cover for my book. Hmmm, JPEG again? I also needed to add a title to my book cover. I had learned how do that when I had played around with GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), a free web download program.
The Kindle directions for the book cover were easy enough to understand. I succeeded and had a nice JPEG ecover for my book.
On Wednesday:
I learned to convert all things to JPEG. I downloaded my story into Kindle's KDP. The download was successful! I did a preview. The skeletal shape of the book looked pretty good,
except the book was in black and white and none of my images showed up. Heartbreaking! What could I have done wrong? I had followed all the instructions. Would the images show up once I had published the book? (I was on "save draft" book mode.)
I went back to my story. I tried to fix the errors I found in my ebook story. I submitted the story again. No luck.
On Thursday:
I gave up thinking my story would be in ebook form for my birthday. My husband suggested that I pay someone to transform my story for electronic publishing. I gave it some thought. Surely, if Kindle gives the public instructions on how to epublish a manual, it's not impossible. I researched some more. I watched videos on how to use Microsoft Word. Maybe I was becoming techno savvy (maybe just a little bit). Research, research, and more research.
On Friday:
The day of my birthday I had tunnel vision - all things were Kindle. Then, Hubby called.
"Why don't we invite our parents out to dinner to celebrate your birthday?" he asked.
"No. I don't want to. I'm too immersed in this Kindle stuff." I answer.
"How about lunch with our parents on Saturday?" asks Hubby.
"No. I mean, I can't think. I don't know. I can't think right now. Okay, but not lunch. A brunch. Okay?"
"At what time?" asks Hubby.
"Look. I can't talk. Sorry. I'm all wrapped up in this. Sorry. We'll talk when you come home for lunch. Love you. Bye."
After the call, I realized I needed to walk away. I needed a break. When lunch time came, Hubby took me out to lunch. I talked about everything but Kindle. Went to my favorite eating place. We had a nice time together. We set the time and place for the birthday brunch.
Once home, I researched some more until... (to be continued)
Tomorrow's Blog: Finding the Holy Grail of epublishing on Kindle.