One down, one to go

Okay, the corrections have been made to the converted file for The Nostalgia Gambit. Now I need to finish evaluating the copyeditor's comments and make her suggested edits to King of Trees.

Once I get a final pass version of TNG, I will load it into Amazon's Kindle Direct Platform. That usually takes a matter of minutes, once I have a corrected file.

Oops, just realized I also need to write the "back cover" blurb.  Even though ebooks don't have a cover, they still need a description.

It will probably be January before King of Trees comes out.  Once we get into the holiday season, everything slows down.

That's strange . . .

According to my Blogger stats, someone found my blog by searching for the phrase "The Nostalgia Gambit." The weird thing is, my book by that title isn't out yet, and I don't think there is another book by that name. Which makes me wonder how someone knew about the book if they didn't already know about my blog?

Or maybe another author out there is thinking of using that name for his or her new book?  Hmm.

The Nostalgia Gambit is on my Kindle!

Of course, it's only the proof copy. I loaded the version that 52Novels sent me onto my Kindle so I could  do one last final proof, especially to check for conversion errors, which fortunately, are usually very rare. Once I send them my corrections, it should not take long before I will get back a file I can load into KDP.

I will be launching this on KDP Select, so it won't be on other platforms for a few months.

Almost there!

Going a little crazy here

I feel like a juggler who has launched one ball too many into the air. The main level of my house is being renovated, so we're camping out in the basement for several weeks. We're using a picnic cooler as a desk/coffee table, and I'm making the copyeditor's revisions to King of Trees while crouched over my laptop.

At the same time, I'm waiting for the converted file for the The Nostalgia Gambit and the final cover for King of Trees. As soon as I get TNG back, I need to load it onto my Kindle for final proofing; the conversion is generally very smooth, but sometimes quote marks don't convert correctly or it turns out there was weird stuff in the Word file that came through in the epub/Kindle versions.

And, of course, with home renovation, things never go as smoothly as you had hoped. Do the words "termite damage" and "rotten floor joist" sound as scary to you as they did to me?

At least tomorrow the floors should be done, and we will be able to bring the cat home from kitty jail. Now if I can just keep him from walking on my keyboard . . .

The Nostalgia Gambit is out for conversion!

Final edits are done, the ISBN has been assigned, the cover is complete, and I have sent it off for conversion. Now to get going on King of Trees, which is right behind TNG. KoT is back from the copyeditor and I need to start going over her comments/suggestions/corrections.  I will post the cover for that one soon, too,

All this in spite of suffering through a major home renovation and Hurricane Sandy, too! Luckily, Sandy didn't affect my area too badly. I feel so bad for the folks in New York and New Jersey.

Status on The Nostalgia Gambit

The manuscript is still at the proof reader's but it's due at the conversion house next week. It usually takes them anywhere from four to 10 days to give me the file back. Then I have to load it onto my Kindle and do one last proof. Their conversion is usually excellent except for occasional problems with quotation marks or places in the text where there's special formatting.

After I give them the corrected HTML files, it usually takes only a few days to get the corrected Kindle and epub format files back. I plan to launch the book as a KDP Select book, which means that it will be only on Amazon for three months. Amazon only takes a day or so to load a book via KDP, which means the book could be in the Kindle store before December 1.

I'll post a link and add it to the Books page as soon as it's for sale.