Tag Archives: formatting

Today’s agenda: giving one of my best friends grief and finalizing The Cat’s Fancy for e-release!

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The Cat's Fancy

I love this new cover!

About five minutes away from finalizing the formatting of THE CAT’S FANCY, my first full-length ebook release (which, coincidentally, happens to be my first full-length novel!).

Originally published in 2000, CAT holds a special place in my heart. It’s a light fairy tale about a cat in love with her master, and it was published in a time (was there such a time?) when folks said that paranormal just couldn’t sell! Read all about it here and look for it on Kindle, Nook, and at other retailers soon! (Maybe tomorrow, fingers crossed!)

After that, I have to burst through a bunch of school with the kids, then schlep (in the rain no less) to Austin for Isabella’s pre-surgery appointment. She has a lip revision and nose revision next Friday. There will be much pampering in her future.

But throughout the day, I’m giving Kathleen O’Reilly grief. She said that Game of Thrones Season One pretty much wrapped things up. I couldn’t disagree more. So I’m calling her out. I think she owes me a coffee! You can read all about it over at our Whine Sisters blog.

What are you doing today?

Using Scrivener to make .mobi and ePub files (for Kindle and Nook etc.)

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I recently mentioned how easy it was to use Scrivener to create the ebook files for The Demon You Know, and several folks asked me to go into more detail.

I am nothing if not cooperative :)

So here, for your viewing pleasure, is a video I made of how to set up Scrivener to make your .mobi files (and the ePub is just about the same). Smashwords files must be created outside of Scrivener, but I’ll post a video on that soon, too. (The Smashwords guide is great, but sometimes just seeing the visual helps).

And, of course, I should point out that the sample I’m using for the video is the raw Scrivener file for Dead Friends and Other Dating Dilemmas, which is brand spanking new on Kindle and the Nook and Smashwords. Only 99 cents, folks. Hope you check it out!

Here’s the hyperlink to YouTube in case the embed isn’t working: http://youtu.be/Ibybm0W9Oj0

I hope the video is helpful! I did the cover for Dead Friends on the fly, and will be posting soon about how I did that. I’m learning as I go and happy to blog about the process. If you have questions or topics related to eBook publishing, formatting and/or marketing, drop me a comment and I’ll see if I can address it!

I’m a publisher! THE DEMON YOU KNOW is up at Amazon!

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Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than electrons on speed…it’s digital publishing!The Demon You Know cover art

All kidding aside, I had no idea that the short story I posted yesterday would go up so quickly! But I’m so very glad it did.

So here’s what I learned since my last post:

1) Amazon processes its content fast. Best to have a blog post and any web updates ready to go (ahem) before you hit the publish button. The site for publishing isn’t blatantly labeled on the Amazon site. The url is https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin

You, yes you, can own your very own copy of The Demon You Know. Just click here!

2) The process is super-easy. Just follow the steps. I was pleasantly surprised.

3) The only potential problem I saw was that I included a cover in the .mobi file I created using Scrivener. I was afraid that since Amazon wanted me to upload a cover that I’d end up with two (not a huge crisis; I like my cover!). But apparently the software is smart; I only ended up with one cover. And Amazon took a higher pixel level than the Scrivener software, which is a plus.

In the future, I could leave the cover off the .mobi file I create, but I like having it for gifting and for sending Advance Copies; so I’ll keep it. Look for my E-publishing With Scrivener post coming soon!

4) I can’t speak to the ease of publishing a file other than .mobi. Amazon uses .mobi (or some version thereof) as its format. Whether the story would look clean had I formatted in Word, I couldn’t say. I like Scrivener, and I’ll be sticking with it.

5) I’m still pondering the question of pricing. I think 99 cents is about the perfect price point for a short story (hey, it’s cheaper than a cuppa coffee!) but I’m on the fence about pricing original material and backlist books. Will ponder more here later, but if anyone has thoughts, please drop a comment below.

I’ve also decided to add tips and tidbits and whatnots to the end of my various posts. Today’s is an ePub tip!

ePub tip of the day: Include hyperlinks in the foreword and afterward. As an author, I think this is an awesome way to give readers easy access to related material. As a reader, I love the convenience. (I recently bought the first three Inspector Pitt books by Anne Perry in Kindle and read them back to back by following the Kindle links). Sooooo handy!

I’ve also included a link to a dedicated webpage for the Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom Series (the page, albeit, needs to be updated, but it’s live and it’ll be prettied up soon, hopefully today; in the mean time, it gets readers to my webpage so folks know where to come to learn about what’s happening with Kate and the gang!)

So there you go! If you visit the Kindle page for The Demon You Know (and I hope you do!) please click on the “like” button if you like me or the title or the series or if you’re just feeling charitable to the world at large. And if you’ve read the story, I’d appreciate a review.

Got anything else to add or ask? Drop me a comment!