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Post your writing woes here. Stay on topic please.

*Insert eternal scream painting here*

I wish I was American/English speaker. English why did you choose today of all days to desert me?

I’m sure you’re fine Alexis. Lol

R.L. wrote: "I’m sure you’re fine Alexis. Lol"

No. The words, they are not coming.
Some days, I wake up, and the English it just flowss.
And then other days, like today.. it’s just bleghhhhhh.

Keep writing though. It’ll be easier to edit something than to have a blank page. You. Got. This.

R.L. wrote: "Keep writing though. It’ll be easier to edit something than to have a blank page. You. Got. This."

Thanks R.L!

American/English speakers have the same problem. ;) Like R.L. said, you can always edit later. Good luck!

Erica wrote: "American/English speakers have the same problem. ;) Like R.L. said, you can always edit later. Good luck!"

I’m going to listen to music and let Taylor Swift inspire me.

Solid plan :)

Alexis wrote: "*Insert eternal scream painting here*

I wish I was American/English speaker. English why did you choose today of all days to desert me?"

Walk away from it for a little while and do something totally unrelated. When you come back, chances are things will start flowing again.

What I find intensely annoying is the time it takes me to get anything, and I mean anything ready to my standard. I've spent over half an hour on a mailchimp newsletter for Missing Remnants and I'm still not ready. How hard can it be? It's only an email.

I know. I'm just annoyed I can't get the thing right first go. Or even fifth go!

I've sent it now. Hopefully it's OK. I also haven't put a subscribe to my newsletter thing anywhere. What's more, I don't know where to put it or how to do it. #UghThingsToDo

I just aim to be coherent!

I'm looking at Bargain Booksy-do they allow pre-orders? I can't find anything that says they don't or should I wait until it's released?

That's fair enough. As it'll be less than their top limit for a "bargain" book, I may wait until then. I'm still not sure what to price it at.

In the current climate, I wonder if anyone knows.

D.J. wrote: "In the current climate, I wonder if anyone knows."It is odd that most will happily pay for a cup of dreadful coffee and not especially nice cake while complaining that books (often costing less) cost too much.

Agree with you there Evelyn. It’s one of the things that annoys me the most. That and the fact in the current economic reality I can’t justify the expense of a professional editor no matter how reasonably priced they are. One person’s reasonable is another person’s aspiration.

I am so very tired I've just edited my book on D2D when I didn't need to. All I needed to do was edit my profile to update my website. Ugh. I've got to wait now until everything copies over again. I hope that doesn't mess anything up. It shouldn't do. Just-ugh.

Feel for you, D.J. I know that feeling of not needing to do something and then worrying that I've messed everything up.

I think I needed to do it anyway. I used the D2D mobi download for KDP, so I had to go through it to get the new website included in the back. I think.

Last week I asked Facebook to rename my Amy J Hamilton page to DJ Cooper-Author. I asked them twice and they refused twice saying that I'd cause confusion to people. I argued that it would be more misleading for people who already know me to get another request to like a second page and that I was still an author but using my own name. I created another page. Last night they emailed me to say that they'd changed the name on the original one. Now I have two DJ Cooper pages. That's after they refused twice and after I appealed twice.

I've since found out from a colleague that I can merge the two pages but I'd need a clear head to do it. That's not happening today, that's for sure.

Those sales will pick up once your BookBub thing goes live. I can only dream of such achievements.

This is me:

First, create a website.
Second, days later: secure the bloody thing. Why aren't these things automatic? As far as I can tell https://djsworld.co.uk is now a secure site. I hope. Who knows, it says it is.

Book files for Amazon updated AGAIN! I don't even know if I needed to do that.

If I knew things, I'd be deadly!

Very nice, Debz.

Thank you. It’ll do. Graphics from Alexis are a huge help.

I need “sign up to my mailing list” things and other stuff I have yet to google.

Whoa, don't wish that on the planet. #Doomed

Ah if only you could hear some of the conversations I have with clients on the subject lol.

A modicum of common sense is often spoken. I’ll give you that.

Logic and truth are often unpopular.

Now, I know not many people have used the KDP paperback publishing thing. I requested a proof-copy of Missing Remnants last night. I was told I should expect an email within 4 hours providing me with the link to pay for my copy. The instructions were to pay within 24 hours of receiving the email. Admittedly I did this in the early evening of UK time but nowhere did it state 4 business hours.

Needless to say I'm still waiting for my email.

I was able to transfer some of our novels to KDP- all my illustrated books won't transfer- The trim size is off- They told me not to worry about it. I have them on Ingram- so they won't be out of print- I may just lose the reviews on the paperbacks- if that makes sense?

It makes sense, Carole. Doesn't make it right! Compromises all round.

Yes Alex, it is annoying. I'll give it a few more hours and I'll see about ordering another one. After all, I haven't paid for this first one yet.

At 2.45 pm BST I submitted another request for a proof copy of Missing Remnants. Even if Amazon's four hours to send the email is during US office hours-I should get something before I got to bed tonight...

D.J. wrote: "At 2.45 pm BST I submitted another request for a proof copy of Missing Remnants. Even if Amazon's four hours to send the email is during US office hours-I should get something before I got to bed t..."

I use both Ingram and Create Space - Amazon. The problem with the Amazon is that they refuse to print proofs in the UK and I once waited over five weeks for one. Ingram do print proofs in the UK, but you can't order until you accept and if there is anything wrong it costs money to revise. Catch 22 anyone?

So despite Amazon allowing me to order a proof in the UK and listing the UK marketplace to order one from they won't uphold their end of the bargain? Why offer it in the first place? That's just mad.

I also think I'm right in saying I can't finish the PB ahead of time and schedule it for release on Amazon at a later date. If I click publish, I have a suspicion it will be available in the usual few hours.

It's a bit of a con really. Amazon must have manually put my proof copy of Missing Remnants in my basket, I've just received one out of three of the emails I should have generated. The proof is £2.83 or similar. The delivery is £2.99. I've set the full book price at £5.99. The only positive thing about this is the fact that I don't have to wait to publish a paperback to check it over. However, it's only me and one of my friends who has ever bought a paperback copy of one of my books. More observations for future Medium articles.

Lol. I almost made twenty quid for April! Who am I to complain if people feel compelled to applaud my various witterings. (Don't underline the word 'witterings' at me Goodreads, it's a perfectly acceptable English word https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dic... :-)

I am wholeheartedly motivated by money!

Word is a nightmare for ignoring UK English. I think my latest issue is the paperback template from KDP. I just had to ignore all the squiggles that weren't there in my original. Damn thing.

I think someone at Amazon has switched something back on. Having received an answer to my query email just after my first 'buy your proof copy now' email turned up, I have received another 'buy your proof copy now' email. So not four hours then. Over twenty-four! As long as I know what to expect.

It drives me nuts but I can’t be bothered to try anything else.

I never can find the right thread! I know we were talking about getting into paperback somewhere - but where?

Anyway, this seems like the right thread for what I hope will be helpful and if someone tells me where the rest of the group was having this conversation, I'll cut and paste this across.

Right! I am putting my four eBooks into paperback. Createspace might not be around for much longer so I've chosen Amazon's new fangled way of doing things.

My suggestion is not to use the templates - they tied me up for days on end and I came out with rubbish. Eventually I found that I could start in Word (which my eBook was written in). I just copied my Word copy as a Save As and named it 'Hide in Time for putting into print'. From there, it was easy to follow the instructions Amazon has hidden on its site, and it all worked acceptably well. There were a few hiccups but nothing too bothersome. NOT LIKE THE TEMPLATE VERSIONS! Yes, caps, yes shouting. Don't do it!

I've now ordered a proof copy. Of course, I may have to come back and say that was rubbish too. But I am confident that, at most, it will only need tweaking.

Remember - IGNORE THEIR TEMPLATES. I can't begin to list all the reasons why.

Good luck everyone.

Anna Faversham wrote: "I never can find the right thread! I know we were talking about getting into paperback somewhere - but where?

Anyway, this seems like the right thread for what I hope will be helpful and if someo..."

I'm sensing some resistance to the templates! Did they become a problem the moment you tried to use one? Or did all seem fine until you uploaded your book? I've manged to get my book into a template ok, but I don't want to fall at the last hurdle.

Good luck with the proof copy, I hope it looks ace.

Can't wait to see them.

I managed the templates ok. It was my D2D graphics I had problems with. But it looked good in the end.

If you've mastered the templates so far, then I'd suggest you keep going.

Things started to look strange fairly early on and then I got fed up of pasting each chapter separately and then finding that they'd chosen a font for me that made my book come to 600+ pages. It really has about 280. Or had I pasted it two and a half times? Or what?

I only know that I am not going to be using them ever again. You've no idea how many times I deleted and downloaded another template. I had visions of Amazon banning me.

And once I was working without Amazon's templates, I loved formatting for paperback. Amazon have made it quick and easy once you've found their instructions. I should have printed all of them instead of just a few. The useful bits were scattered. I live and I learn but oh so slowly.

But we each work differently.

Thank you, Carole. You are a great, probably the best, encourager!

;)

My books are illustrated and I gave up on MS word, A) Because it's difficult to position graphics and B) because MS word has an irritating habit of changing between US and UK English as well as suddenly reformatting everything in sight.

I use Scribus, which is a free open source program that, for any one who remembers it, is better than Page Maker. There is a learning curve, but once mastered you can typeset manuscripts to professional standards including fixing type sizes and spacing that don’t exist in word. You can also make text flow round images.

If you have illustrations please remember that to print colour they must be CMYK in TIF format and a minimum of 300 dpi. B&W also TIF need to be minimum 600 dpi. I know that e-books use 75 RGB jpeg, but that will not print successfully. Scribus has an excellent conversion to PDF and checks the manuscript for typesetting errors before export making sure you have a perfect upload.

Incidentally the benefit of templates is that they give the precise margins, bleeds and page sizes that you can use to set up your ms in Scribus. Plus CS and Ingram have cover templates generated from your description giving spine width etc. Hope this helps.

The margins and gutters etc are why I used the templates. But it did take some fiddling this time round. I am so pleased I don’t do illustrations!

Yes, D.J., I'm with you on the no illustrations!

I only publish (so far) on Amazon, Evelyn, so I stick with them.

Hmmm. Somehow the website All Author got hold of my details and said I could enter their cover competition. OK great. I signed up. Then I find it appears you need an author profile rather than a basic reader profile. OK fair enough. However, on balance it seems I need to pay money for an author profile in order to use their free cover competition. If I've got that wrong, let me know. I've paid out for quite enough author things this month!

D.J. wrote: "Hmmm. Somehow the website All Author got hold of my details and said I could enter their cover competition. OK great. I signed up. Then I find it appears you need an author profile rather than a ba..."

It is truly amazing the ways there exist today to separate indies from their money. And what benefit to you, pray tell, would derive from winning their competition? How many more books would you sell? How many more people would even click on your Website URL.

I used to think that winning a book competition would result in at least a few sales, but my experience over that last nine years, sadly, indicates even that is a false expectation. The awards are great for posting on one's Website and other advertising venues, but the fact is, they do little if anything to stimulate sales. Your marketing and sales dollars (pounds) are better spent in venues where you can meet readers person-to-person or, as I have learned, running discount Kindle sales on Ereader News Today (ENT).

Theodore wrote: "It is truly amazing the ways there exist today to separate indies from their money."

Yeah, buyer beware. I've often wondered about all these awards people plaster on their book covers. To be honest, I think that looks a bit amateurish and have always suspected it probably does little to nothing for sales, unless it's a major award like a Caldecott. But I'm the voice of supposition in this, and you're clearly the voice of experience.