Picture me — I’m warm, a little too warm. Hot, really. I wipe a trickle of sweat off my forehead, before it runs into my eye. My heartbeats thud in my throat, choking me. I can smell my fear: it’s like burned mushrooms, and with my thudding pulse, it brings on the nausea.

I didn’t know. No one told me, specifically, although I don’t know whether it would have made a difference if someone had told me. I’m stupid this way, you know? I think I can do anything. I don’t believe I have limits.

I should never have tackled the first-time-for-me formatting of five NONFICTION books for print and digital distribution at once.

I’m smart, though, and I’m educated. I’m determined. I’m an endurance athlete, a writer, for God’s sake. Why would formatting daunt me? Why? Why, indeed, foolish one, prideful one. Why, indeed.

Day eight. I have accomplished — almost — the ebooks. They were difficult, and I shed tears. I thought they would test me. I did them first, because I wanted to get the hard part over with.

Had I but only known. Print formatting. Print was to be my Waterloo. I’ve tried the CreateSpace template. I’ve tried Book Wizard. I even tried to do it myself using Word. Finally, I settled on Book Wizard. I was almost happy. I had books that paginated correctly, that looked professional, whose sections flowed without demon possession one to the other, that printed on the correct pages, in the correct orientation. And then I tried to upload to CreateSpace.

I wasted days — DAYS — of my life that I won’t get back, only to discover that my (purchased just for this exercise, for $323 dollars totale) Adobe Acrobat won’t convert my Book Wizard documents to PDFs. “Macros disabled” it mocks me, over and over. I enable them. It ignores me. I enable them again. It gives me the finger. I Google for solutions, but it’s an endless loop on a racetrack to hell, and I’m eating my own exhaust.

I decided to go with the free add-on PDF converter. It worked. Eureka, I screamed. My joy was short-lived. It wouldn’t embed my fonts.

Help me, help me, someone please help me,  a voice cried. Was that me? Had I sunk to this level?

Yes. Yes. Yes. YES. YES! A million times yes!!!

 

So, that’s how it’s going at my house.

 

Yes, I’m feeling a little dramatic.

 

Yes, it really is this bad.

 

Alas, I must get back to it.

 

Pamelot

 

 

 

p.s. Be first to hear about new book releases, 1-2 times a year (don't worry, I won't use your email for anything else)! <-- click here

Do you want to get these blog posts in your inbox?
If so, enter your email address here:

Delivered by FeedBurner