Yesterday and today were committed to 1. inputting corrections to the e-book that I caught while laying out the paper book, and 2. uploading the interior manuscript and cover for the paper version to Amazon.
It took two days, and it wasn’t like #1 was the problem. Amazon’s changed the old CreateSpace platform—I don’t know if it’s any less fiddly than CreateSpace, but it’s fiddly in a different way. You make a PDF this way, and it works just fine, but if you make a PDF that way, all is lost.
I did a PDF of the cover and uploaded it—and the software oriented it vertically rather than horizontally, which of course was confusing for all concerned. There was no way to adjust that in Amazon’s software that I could find, so I decided that the best way around was to upload a PNG file into Amazon’s “Cover Creator” program, which worked…except Cover Creator did the whole 90/10 thing Amazon tends to do, where 90% of their software is really intuitive and easy to use, while 10% is completely opaque.
Case in point: I decided after previewing my cover that I wanted to adjust a few things, so I needed to swap out the PNG file (which was the entire cover) for a new one. Well, good luck figuring out how to do that! The very simple, easy-to-use interface had nothing telling you how to do that, you couldn’t go back to an “upload my image” page, and it was all saved so that shutting everything down and starting over helped not at all—the old PNG file was, to all appearances, there to stay.
Finally I found instructions on a completely separate page that wasn’t part of Cover Creator—and all you have to do is click on a certain part of your image, and then this super-easy, super-clear drop-down menu will emerge from hiding and you’re back in The Good 90% of Amazon. I mean, I’m grateful that they’ve got The Good up to 90%, but one unintended side effect of the 90/10 contrast is that it makes you feel really stupid—this tool is so easy to use, once you’ve unearthed it from its secret tomb.
Anyway, I’ve ordered a proof (always always order a proof!), and assuming that looks OK, the paper book will be up on Amazon sooner rather than later. (ETA: Well, Amazon’s proofs are definitely cheaper than CreateSpace—you can splurge on expedited shipping, but I didn’t, and it was less than $10.)
After that, I have some non-book stuff that needs attention, but then I’ll get back to writing Trials until Tribulations comes back from the copy editor. I do still intend to do large-print editions, but I’m a little layout-out’d at the moment, and I’m going to have to do more with layouts once Tribulations returns.