Wednesday 2 November 2011

My ebook journey

Sorry I've not been here for a while but have been v busy working on my ebook, and it now out. Here is my story. Once I had finished the story and was happy with it, I then formatted it according to Smashwords Style Guide. I then went onto their website and uploaded it with all the details for it, inc blurb, synopsis, cover etc. Great, it's done I thought. Then I remembered I hadn't assigned it an ISBN no, so back to the site, assign it a number and upload it again. Good, that is that. No, I was wrong. Later that day I suddenlty thought, oh no, I have uploaded the wrong version. I'd put on the unformatted version. So back to Smashwords I went, and put the right one on. Hurrah. That was last Tuesday and you can find it on Smashwords here:
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/julieday40. I checked all the formats and they are fine. Next stop was Amazon, although you can download to a Kindle from Smashwords. I wanted full exposure of it to everyone.
So yesterday I went on Amazon and followed Freda Lightfoot's guide (thanks Freda), on how to do it. All was going well until I got to uploading the cover. It wouldn't recognise it. I went out of Amazon and when I went into it again a third time, the cover was there. Hurrah. Next was the book file, but I couldn't work out how I could save the prc file which Freda had mentioned. Puzzled, I went away. I came back with an idea - to save the copy I'd downloaded to check the mobi format. It worked. I then went on to put on the price of it, the royalties and all the other stuff they need to know. I have read that it takes 24 hours to go live on the website but it's not on there yet. Shall look again either later today or tomorrow. I am so excited about this. Have been round and about, putting postcards on buses and trains and at events I've been to, advertising my ebook The Railway Angel. Shall be reading more on how I can promote myself online. Watch this space.
I'm now working hard on my next ebook, this one a romance with a touch of magic.

2 comments:

Christina Jones said...

Congratulations Julie - all that hard work has paid off. And the cover for Railway Angel is fabulous! Did you design it or did smashwords provide it? It really is amazing - and I wish you every success. Cx

Julie Day said...

Thanks Chris. The cover was designed by a Smashwords author. I can't do anything as techie as that.