The Publishing Snag List...

The comedown is real, folks.

Let's face it, we're all knee-deep in Post-Eurovision Depression. The adrenaline-fuelled highs from Saturday night have an energy-sapping binary opposite. And that's today. It's Monday morning, the week after Eurovision season climaxed in pyrotechnic marvellousness. Time to get back to work. So from one rollercoaster ride to another - the old book publishing journey. It's less fun, I'm the driver AND the passenger, and I'm working through the next steps wearing jeans and a jumper rather than spangles and glitter. Now where was I?

This week it's all about getting Assembling the Wingpeople ready for pre-ordering. It's time to pull back the wizard's curtain once again and explain what goes on behind the scenes. The next steps are getting the book to be purchasable via all the usual places. By using a Print on Demand publishing site (Ingram Spark) with a wide distribution model, it takes one click of a button for my book to be automatically available on pretty much all the websites that sell books. The ones you've heard of anyway. So, even if there are no physical copies in Waterstones shops, you can buy a physical copy from Waterstones online. Most exciting is a new website that's popped up in the UK since I last published anything. Bookshop is a site that sells books from an independent shop near your location. How marvellous to know Assembling the Wingpeople will be available there too.

OK. Let's talk progress. The wizard's curtain and all that. So far it feels as is I'm taking three steps forward and one step back. That's not bad to be honest. Boxes are getting crossed off and the goal is in sight. But there's still that pesky backward step that pops up now and then, just to keep me in my place. But first, the three forward steps. Here's what's happened since the last time I brought you up to speed.

1. The front cover is done. It's been submitted and accepted by both the paperback and e-book site, meaning it's going to print perfectly and look great. There have been no technical issues detected that will cause problems. As I've explained before, none of that's my doing so I can enjoy the ease of this part of the process with my feet up.

2. Keywords have been chosen. This always makes me laugh. When setting up a new title on Kindle Direct Publishing (e-book) and Ingram Spark (paperback) both sites want a selection of keys words that might help a reader find the book. KDP provides seven boxes. You might assume that means they want seven keywords and once upon a time, that's what I'd have done. But no. It's clear you should never settle for the bare minimum. Instead I've filled the boxes with as many words and phrases that I can squeeze in. Less is absolutely not more in this sitch. Optimise those boxes!

3. Uploading the interior document. AKA as the book, the interior document is the biggest faff of all. Obviously there's the story itself but alongside that there's the copyright page, chapter list, dedication page, acknowledgements, and author bio. Lots of areas to cock up. Happily, the paperback website went smoothly. The document was uploaded, and after a few moments, I got confirmation it was accepted. Whooohoooo. Again, this means there are no technical issues that will cause a problem. I'm now waiting for the first copy to arrive at my door, so I can check it in the flesh. I can't tell you what a satisfying feeling that is.

So there are my three steps forward. Now for the step back. Duh duh duhhhhhh...

Unlike the paperback site, the e-reader setup doesn't want a PDF. It wants a Word doc. Uploading it seemed to go well. I got the green tick of joy to say it had been successfully accepted with no issues. Then I got the chance to see the e-book as it would appear when purchased. I clicked the previewer button and scrolled through. Here's the thing. E-readers come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. On my previewer, I could switch between a Kindle-view, a tablet-view, or a smartphone-view. I could change the font size on the previewer in the same way a reader could on their Kindle. So that's when I realised the limitations of the Word Doc I'd uploaded. Basically, every time a text or email message appears between characters in the book, the spacing is all over the place. Unless you're reading on a Kindle with a size 3 font (quite small in reality) you'd be getting random spaces, missed lines, and all sorts of nonsense. Not cool. 

The paperback version. All good here.

The e-book version. A tiny example of something
 that's littered through the document.

It's a laborious problem to fix although relatively simple. I need to rejig all the bits of text affected, so they flow seamlessly instead of having gaps. (No excessive use of the space bar to put a time stamp at the end of a line, for instance.) In the scroll through, I counted twenty-nine text messages, emails, or Whatsapps that are affected. It means the e-book version will have differently set-out messages between the characters than the paperback. But as they've both got different ISBNs, I don't think it's a problem. Look, I don't mind if you don't. It's just another job for the snag list.

Apart from that little hiccup, that little backward step, we're still cooking on gas. We're all systems go for an October release date. I'll crack on and work through my list of jobs. And as I do that, and find myself getting frustrated by it all, I'll repeatedly play Zitti e Buoni by ESC winners, Måneskin. It'll channel my aggression and sort out the Post Eurovision Depression too. Just a tip, if you're feeling similarly.

Have a lovely week, folks.