At the very beginning of this week, I made my ISBN decision.
I had to, because I needed to put the ISBN on the copyright page in the interior file before I uploaded it. What I decided to do was get the free CreateSpace-issued ISBN (option 1 from my June 3 post). I'm not a publishing company and I decided I wanted the additional marketing options more than I wanted to create my own imprint.
The trouble began when I tried to turn my interior file from a MS Word document into a PDF. (I needed a PDF to upload to CreateSpace.) Everything I had read made it sound so easy! "Just go to the print command, hit the PDF button, and tell it to save as PDF!" Wow, should take about ten seconds.
Two days and much aggravation later, I succeeded.
The problem? I was using a custom page size in Word (5.25" x 8", my trim size, in other words, the actual size that my book will be). When I did the ten-second procedure, it made a beautiful PDF--with my 5.25" x 8" text centered on the top of an 8.5" x 11" page. And it made my single interior file into multiple PDF's, one (as I finally figured out) for each "section" of the Word document.
This was not okay.
It took me much research, delving through the CreateSpace forums (where I found that many other people were having the same problem but no one seemed to have the answer), Googling like mad, and trying things out, before I figured out that 1) I had to disable my printer before making the PDF, because otherwise the default page size for the printer (8.5" x 11") was overriding my custom page size, and 2) I had to learn how to use Word a little better and set up my custom size page while doing the Print>PDF conversion, plus tell it to print as one document.
If any reader really wants to know exactly what steps I took, I can post it (and I did post it in a CreateSpace discussion thread), but otherwise, I'll just say, "Whew!" When I finally hit the Save to PDF button and the file came out in the right size and in one piece, I cheered.
Then I uploaded it to CreateSpace. CreateSpace has a program called the Interior Reviewer, which looks at your uploaded file and tells you automatically if it sees any formatting problems. It found one problem in mine (but didn't tell me what it was), so I tried to open Interior Reviewer and see what the problem was, but Interior Reviewer needed a more recent version of Adobe Flash Player, which I then tried to download but couldn't because my computer's processor is too old. So I was totally stymied on that one, but thank goodness for the library. The next day after work, I got on an internet computer at the library, which has more recent software than I do, and was able to use Interior Reviewer.
Turns out that the error it found was a margin problem on the title page. No problem, I fixed that easily! (Btw, Interior Reviewer is such fun to use. It takes your file and makes it look like an actual book, with turning pages and all, much like an e-reader does, I suppose. I don't have one so I wouldn't know.)
Then I fixed the file, uploaded it again, and success! No problems. It was supposed to be reviewed by CreateSpace reviewers within 48 hours; I haven't heard anything from them.
Then on to the cover. If you've read previous posts, you might remember that I've been playing around with cover design for the last month or more. I went back to the internet this week and took one last look around for images on iStockphoto.com and hey, there were some images I had missed. These had the same model who was in the photo I previously liked, in the same costume, but in different poses/scenes. Apparently several photographers were at that photo shoot, and I had only seen the photos from one of the photographers before.
So I downloaded some more comps from possible photos, mocked up some covers in PowerPoint (I tried in Pagemaker, but it didn't recognize my fonts. I wasn't sure how to fix that and I wanted something fast, so I used PowerPoint), and sent them to some family members to critique. I'm starting to get feedback already, and it's very helpful.
For this coming week, I'd like to make a final decision on a cover photo, and buy it. (Gulp. That sounds so... final!) I also need to work on the back cover layout and text.
Gee whiz, this book might actually be done someday.
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