Monday, December 5, 2011

OLD DOGS, NEW TRICKS

Well, I apparently have taken the first step on my path to fame and fortune.  My efforts to format The Solarium have resulted, after weeks of swear words salted with hot tears, in my book being offered by Amazon.  Two friends have downloaded it, unfortunately at the point when it was published indentless. I’m hoping that reading whole chapters as one paragraph doesn’t make them as annoyed as I get when I try to read Kafka.  But for $2.99, maybe they’ll be willing to struggle a little.

I managed to get a Kindle helper to put the indentations in for me after I had tried to do it myself five times over three days.  I think my pathetic email got to him. Seeing them magically appear lifted the heavy cloak of obsession that I had worn for week.  The sunlight almost blinded me.

The job isn’t finished, of course.  I now need to let more than a couple of friends know that the book is out.  The social network awaits my hesitant entrance.  Since I write in this blog about once a month, not five times a week like some writers who know where they are headed, even the concept of tweeting, facebooking, and searching other folks’ blogs for an opportunity to insert my URL sends me into a communication coma.  All I want to do is begin my next novel.

No, I’m lying.  All I want to l do is get someone else to take care of all this stuff so that I can take long walks again without falling over curbs worrying about whether I should have priced my book at $0.99 and  what is a URL anyway?

But I do have to admit that seeing my story in print in a computerized pseudo-book was a powerful ego booster.  The miserable hours spent getting those indented words onto their fake pages morphed into what I began to call a positive learning experience.  I resisted the urge to continue editing the book, an urge felt by even the most successful of writers when they first see what they have produced.  Instead, full of hope, I moved on to Graffiti Grandma.

I’m quite sure this hopefulness is a sign of senility.

This time I am working with LuLu which is somehow connected with Nook and iBooks.  The formatting  and language are completely different.  The fine print has given me a permanent squint. I forget to eat. A familiar obsession burgeons, the swear words billow, the need to Christmas shop fades.

The Solarium resides at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006NTSM70

Jo Barney Writes
www.jobarneywrites.com

2 comments :

  1. Wow. I was wondering why I hadn't heard from you lately and now I know why. Congratulations, though, on getting your novel into print.

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  2. Hi Jo--great post and I congratulate you! I just finished the 2nd round of text changes and I REALLY don't want to do that again! soon mine will follow yours to Amazon, I hope...and maybe someone will buy it? (the next hurdle to jump)

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