Sunday, November 14, 2010

The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!

Some time ago, I wrote a novel.  Like me, it's unusual.  Like any first-time author, I submitted it to several agents and publishers.  While widely complemented, it was still, sadly, turned down (cross-genre works being notoriously difficult to find an agent for – that's my story, and I'm sticking to it).  The book, the characters, the idea of being published have not left me alone to die a graceful death. No, they have been repeatedly (and, yes, metaphorically) slapping me in the face for several months now. In order to get them to keep their hands to themselves, I have decided to publish on the Amazon Kindle store.


I thought, in my innocence that this would be a simple task. Find a font I like for the cover and print it over a pattern of jaguar fur, maybe superimpose a photo of a lacquer box (not that I know how to do that, but
still . . .).  Upload the entire deal and voila.  *sighs*
It's not that it's difficult to publish on the Kindle store; it's just that my computer skills – once so up-to-date and showy-offy – have become sadly elementary. I'm sure that if I could understand the directions Amazon offers, I could follow them. Unfortunately, I find them less understandable than Russian.

Fortunately my soon-to-be daughter-in-law is a programmer and is going to save me! WOOT! She can convert to the necessary HTML format to give me an active Table of Contents. She can work with graphics to get an up-loadable JPG file. Not only that, she has agreed to marry my son. Dana, I love you!

Ahem, back to my topic.  Have no fears that this event will slip by unnoticed. I promise to announce on all possible venues when my thriller (nuclear smuggling in Russia) with paranormal overtones (Shamanic spirit animals) is released. You're gonna love it!

3 comments:

  1. Good luck with the venture. Have been wondering about doing things this way myself. Will be interested to see how yours goes!

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  2. Publish your blog At years end...it's been done before!

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  3. Anonymous, I don't understand what you're saying. ??? (ann)

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