Gorbman.comMerida, Mexico and Seattle, USA General Blog plus reflections on publishing an ebook, plus photo gallery

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 I’ve been on the Wordclay site today. Wordclay is the print publisher (for self-publishers) that is affiliated with Smashwords, the eBook publisher I’m using. Wordclay isn’t nearly as writer-friendly as Smashwords, unfortunately.
I tried to upload my manuscript, but it got stuck and I’ve emailed them for help.
Formatting for print is different than formatting for eBooks. For an eBook, [...]

Or, should I say,
My Self-Publishing Dilemma
Publishing my own book on eBooks is one thing, but publishing it in print is another. So many people have told me that they’d like to read my book, but they can’t stand reading on a screen, that I kind of want to have a tangible book to sell them.
My [...]

I just sent my book to an eBook distributor called Smashwords (www.smashwords.com). It was easy to follow the instructions and work with their style guide. My book is in their premium category (accomplished by formatting it according to guidelines) and will go on Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Sony. They also publish to Amazon, but [...]

The only remaining problem I have is how to get the html-based link onto my site so people can click on it and buy my book, which pays me 15% of list price per referral. I get all the way through the process, on my Amazon Associates account, but it does not locate my book [...]

I’m having a couple of problems with Amazon’s Digital Publishing Platform. I proofed the book and made a few changes, but I can’t get the new version uploaded and I’m worried that I’ve screwed up the currently posted version. There is no way to check without going to a PC that doesn’t have the book [...]

Now to figure out how to market this book. I’m going to send the Amazon link to several 2012 websites who have agreed to list it.
Beyond that, I’m wondering what’s involved with Barnes&Noble, Google, etc. Today I was looking at a site called Smashwords. If you upload your book to their site (for sale), they [...]

My book is online on Amazon. I have a few problems I need to address to them.
When you type my name into the search box, it says Do You Mean xxxx? which isn’t what I mean, and my name should be in their search database. It does find the book, however.
I can’t download Deadly Awakening [...]

I feel ill. I did it. I sent it off to Amazon Kindle books. I’m sure it’s full of mistakes and places that bear improvement, but it’s gone. I got an acknowledgement saying the Kindle Operations Team was reviewing my submission. These reviews are done so that Kindle buyers will have “a more positive buying [...]

Right now, we are waiting for the typesetting to be done and then we can post the book.
I heard a rumor that Amazon will no longer be accepting unsolicited manuscripts after December 15th. They must be barraged with submissions. Every day the publishing blogs are saying how print publishing is becoming a dinosaur and electronic [...]

I’m looking for opinions on the graphic cover for Deadly Awakening. It was done by Josh Gatcke, who is now working on page layout. Thanks.

After several proofreads, input from seven readers, and extensive re-writing, this thing is, I think, done. I sent it over to Josh yesterday for “typesetting.” If he agrees, I would like it in Bookman font.
I added a bunch of photos to it. I figure, it’s electronic – why not? Mostly shots of Merida, the Hotel [...]

November 27 – I have about half of the reviews back. I am eternally grateful to people who have spent so much time on this and given my project their very best efforts. And it’s doing the manuscript a world of good, too. They are finding everything from errors in logic, to confusing points, to [...]

I went to Office Depot and had them print and bind copies for the readers. It was an exciting moment, to get those copies. I’m sure the guy doing the copying thought I was weird, because when he brought the first one out to me for approval, and I couldn’t stop reading it.
It came out [...]

I kind of finished the book yesterday, and started inputting my own proofs that I’d done on hardcopy. A group of wonderful people have agreed to read the manuscript and critique. I’m not going to make major changes, but I’m sure there are a lot of errors.
Unfortunately, my contact at the Washington State Crime Lab [...]

Today I printed out the whole book and was quite overwhelmed by it. I went through it with proofs and edits, marked it up, added continuity, etc., but I don’t know…seeing it printed made me queasy.
First of all, I think it’s too short. I could read this in a little over three hours. It’s only [...]

I had a call from the Bowker company today. Mike Ruhl, who is a product manager there called to apologize for the trouble I had on their site the other day and to tell me the design of the site is under review. He also said that on the day I was attempting to get [...]

Before you publish on Amazon, you need an ISBN number for your book. (International Standard Book Number). Any published book needs one of these numbers if you want to market it at all. It makes the book uniquely identifiable. To get one, you have to go through R.W. Bowker, the only agency licensed to issue ISBNs [...]

Writing and electronically publishing a novel
This will be an ongoing discussion of my process in writing a novel and getting it onto Amazon ebooks, which I think is what I want to do. Many people have been very helpful to me in this project, including Lorna Gail Dallin, Don Batchelor, Dan Brown, Richard Pauli, Lennie [...]