The Birth of a (print) Book

    As far as book-births go, preparing THE CRYSTAL CURSE for its print version was a breech birth! Or -- in Edvard Munch's rendition -- it was a SCREAM.

    You’d think after the lot I had done before, it should have been a piece of cake…well, sometimes the best bakers forget the yeast…maybe it was “the curse.”

   However, at last, The Crystal Curse is now UP and running (I am just waiting for the “Look Inside” to appear on both Kindle and Print versions); and KHAMSIN (in its drastically reduced state) is already selling well. With the upcoming promotions through BookGorilla and ENT, I am hoping for “hot cakes.” (What is it with these bakery metaphors today?)

    If formatting for Kindle, the Nook and iTunes are different animals with bookmarks and hyperlinks, this print version turned out to be as cursed as El Hanash, the crystal snake.

    Sized at 6x9, different font, different line spacing, mirror-margins, correct pagination – the computer’s page 1 doesn’t start at the book’s Page 1, alternating headers, main Parts must start at the odd page—you get the idea. I had wrestled and tweaked for the last two days.

    Finally, I was happy with it and uploaded the print manuscript to CreateSpace, Amazon’s Print-on-Demand arm. One last check on their screen: Oops, a tiny mistake. Three asterisks to denote a scene change were not centered…Corrected my manuscript; clicked SAVE so I could re-upload.

    “No can do,” the computer said.

    “What! Give me a break!” (Or "kak," as Cornelius, the South African in The Crystal Curse, would have said.)

    “There may be a problem with your hardware,” the (fairly new) computer blared (just so I would get it). I did. When I finally managed to open my document, it had turned into complete gobble-di-gook. No recovery. If my house had more than one story, I might have jumped out the window.

Instead, I contacted the good people at CreateSpace.

    “Boo-hoo-hoo. Can you PLEASE e-mail the Word version I just uploaded back to me?”

    “No can do.”

    “Boo-hoo-hoo.” (Or "mat" as Alexei, the Russian in The Crystal Curse, would have hissed.)

    “Don’t cry, lady. I can make it so you can down-load it yourself from your dashboard. Will that work for you?”

    “You bet-cha!” (CreateSpace has not let me down yet when I boo-hoo-hooed before with one or two other problems—always my own doing).

    I dried my tears and saved the darn thing six times all over the place. Usually, when I make corrections/changes, I save that version as a new (dated) document. But for three asterisks? Who knew?

    I sure will - for Book 5!

* * * (those were the culprits)