Going nuclear - redux III

Well finally, the upload went through and the conversion process also sailed through in about an hour.  Smashwords could really do with a progress bar to let people know something is actually happening.

Anyway, it appears to have passed the vetting process and so now I await the manual vet and hopefully a premium listing. I will let you know, the clock is ticking.

That is the good news.  The unhappy bit to relate is that I really dislike the appearance of the epub version, but maybe that is because it is formatted for e-publishing and I am a bit of a traditionalist, I like paper books.

That will mean that I will shortly release a paperback version on lulu.  One is almost tempted to make it a redux version, putting in some extra text that I had previously edited out.  I am just thinking out aloud here.

Going nuclear -redux II

Back at base after a nice break from work.  I had thought I would get some writing done, but in the end very little happened on that front.

Anyway, having finally had some feedback from Smashwords on what needed to be changed to get on to the premium catalogue, I made the corrections.  Books come in two basic formats, block paragraphs for non-fiction which have a trailing space after each paragraph or first line indent, normally used for fiction, which do not have a trailing space.  That is fine, my problem was that I mixed both styles using a first line indent with a small trailing space.  Unfortunately, it is only at the manual review stage you get told this is the problem.  Until then you are left mystified.  Anyway, I have now removed all trailing spaces so fingers crossed it will work.

The only thing is, at the moment, Smashwords just will not accept any uploads from me (been trying at various times of day and night) for the last 24 hours.  All that happens is that you go to re-upload, select file, hit the button and then wait.... an eternity is seems. The first couple of seconds there is a lot of up/down traffic as you would expect, then it goes to zero... and stays zero.  You have no reassuring message saying percent uploaded or anything just a 0b/0b message.  If I am doing nothing else, Safari sometimes comes back with the "line dropped" message.

I have been looking around to see what other's say.  So far nothing like this from others.

All a bit frustrating when I think I am close to having the formatting right.  Sod's law in fact.

Going nuclear - redux

Finally some feedback from smashwords on what hoops I have to leap through to get into the commercial market, it is partly a matter of trailing paragraph spaces (they don't like them if you have an initial indent).  That is easily fixed.

The other "problem" is the infamous "paragraph 7a" issue of incompatible headers.  I am going to have to wrap a towel around my head for that one.

But we will get there, honest.

Meanwhile, I am having some further thoughts about what comes next.  I will let you know when I know myself.

Going Nuclear

This is really a specific smashwords post.  the aim in life with an ebook is to get it onto many lists as possible including fusspots apple.  So do that, you have to pass through their autovetting process which is a complete style fascist.  Well for good reasons, bad formatting does look dire.

The problem is you think your formatting is perfect, the machinery does not.  So you are in a "you used a leading paragraph return together with an indented first line" purgatory.

Sigh, I always use a block paragraph at work but decided to conform with the indented first line paragraph style used for fiction.

Back to the drawing board!