Who would’ve thunk that making a living at writing would involve so many hours at deploying computer and IT skills that you never wanted to have in the first place? Please. Give me back my typewriter!
Over the past week or so, I’ve spent hour after hour after hour after HOUR wrestling with websites and online service providers and getting almost no writing done.
And, if you enjoy watching the abhorred writer’s mind work, here’s a CLICK! moment that just struck, right this very minute:
Day or two ago I was thrilled to discover Amazon’s new DIY cover-building tool. Would that or would that not free one of an enormous amount of hassle? Well. No. it just occurred to me that you can’t assign an ISBN until you have the cover art. If you build the cover art on Amazon and store it there (presumably preventing you from downloading it until after you’ve uploaded the MS, if at all), then you can’t assign an ISBN TO THAT DOCUMENT!
Well. I’ll have to see if you can build a cover and download a JPEG or PDF of it. Otherwise it’s back to trying to build the p0rn covers in Powerpoint. It can be done, but the result will probably be less than optimal.
But what that will mean is…YES! More dorking around online, more time spent on trying to figure out something I never wanted to know to start with and shouldn’t have to know (I are a English major, dammit, I are NOT a artist!), very likely to no avail. In short: MORE WASTED TIME THAT SHOULD BE SPENT ON WRITING.
Today I want to try to upload the cookbook direct to Amazon, without benefit of an ebook builder. Supposedly this can be done, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
A cookbook of course contains many lists of ingredients. Lists pose a formatting problem when it comes to converting to .mobi and ePub files.
For that reason, I’m not trumpeting publication of this thing yet. Because I don’t believe it’s going to get published today. I suspect I’m going to have to go back to the e-book builder guy, pay him to do the conversion right, and wait several MORE weeks while he does it.
At this rate, everything I write will be published posthumously.