Publishing paperbacks continues

Image by Piotr Wytrążek from Pixabay

Thursday

After two late nights on the trot, I had a lie-in on Thursday. But even when I got to my desk, I still couldn’t get going. Despite trying several times to get into work mode, I just couldn’t.

So I gave myself an official faff day instead, and I went through all of my self-published paperback books. I removed them from ‘extended distribution’ on Amazon, and started to publish them on Draft2Digital.

I love the designs that D2D uses and I want to keep using it so that I remember all of its quoibles, like how to get it to present headings that I want rather than what it wants.

Because I’m creating a manual contents page, I also had to learn how to do dotted leader tabs in Word. The D2D auto-contents includes things like the copyright page and the title of the book, and those don’t really work.

Yes, I create the books in Scrivener where I can export them to print or ebook or .rtf format, but D2D likes a Word (or .rtf) document and converts it to .pdf. Amazon wants the .pdfs.

Draft2Digital doesn’t automatically distribute print books to bricks & mortar stores, and it doesn’t currently print author copies in Europe. But it does make the print books available through Amazon US and Ingram.

If you would like to buy a paperback from your favourite book store, you have to physically order it. I could also contact the stores and ask them to stock my books. But as I don’t have that kind of knowledge, I’d have to hire someone to do it for me. 

Once these books start to earn their keep, I might consider buying a bunch of my own ISBNs and doing it all properly on Ingram Spark or something. At the moment, I can’t afford that, and so I use the free ones that come with the publishing platform.

Here’s how Thursday went:

• removed 4 paperbacks from Amazon’s ‘extended distribution’ program
• published Twee Tales Too in paperback on Draft2Digital
• reworked Word files for Night Crawler and Diary of a Scaredy Cat paperbacks
• loaded reworked Word files into Draft2Digital for Night Crawler and Diary of a Scaredy Cat paperbacks
• created pdfs for Night Crawler and Diary of a Scaredy Cat paperbacks & printed off for proofreading
• started today’s blog post (308 words)

Words written today = 308 words

Friday

I did intend to catch up on Friday with the ghostwriting, but we had builders here taking out the old patio sliding doors and putting in a nice new double-opening patio door. The poet did the early shift, letting them in at 8am.

The poet was also working from home, but as he was in video meetings, it was me who had the distractions for the rest of the day. And I got madder and madder as the day progressed. Every time I settled down to do something, there was another interruption.

Once the door was in, the poet nipped out in his dinner break to get a new curtain track for the patio door and a curtain pole for the other window in there, and when he finished work, he hung some curtains we already had over the new doors. There was a vertical blind there, but I don’t like vertical blinds in a domestic situation.

I started the day reading a few articles on Medium, and I got the urge to write an extra writing prompts story. This wasn’t the usual weekly writing prompts story, it was half-article half-prompts.

By the end of the day, I was ready to submit the story to a publication on Medium that had only just accepted me. The editor also asks for a quick email to let him know that we’ve submitted something, so I did that too.

At the end of the day, I did all of the gubbins on Draft2Digital to get another paperback almost ready for publication. And I split the outline for ghostwriting gig #6 into chapters and loaded it onto Scrivener.

Here’s how Friday went:

• wrote and submitted Topical ideas for writers to think about now for publication in July 2022 (1,092 words)
• emailed editor to let him know I’d sent a submission
• reworked Word file for Twee Tales Twee paperback
• loaded reworked Word files into Draft2Digital for Twee Tales Twee paperback
• created pdf for Twee Tales Twee paperback & printed off for proofreading
• split outline for ghostwriting gig #6 into chapters
• loaded outline for ghostwriting gig #6 onto Scrivener

Words written today = 1,092

Weekend

I didn’t work at the weekend, but we did go out on Saturday to get the shopping, and the poet fitted the new curtain pole for the other window in the dining room. He hung those curtains too (fortunately they match), and he put the tiebacks up.

At about 11:00pm on Saturday night, the story I wrote last week was rejected by the original publication I’d sent it to. I’d already decided that I was going to withdraw it, as he was taking so long. But I topped and tailed it and sent it to a different publication straight away from the phone.

I decided to stick to about 3 publications outside my own on Medium and removed the ‘big’ one from my list. I was only ‘dipping my toe’ in any case, just to feel the water. Overnight, Is it okay to bend the facts to suit a story? was published.

On Sunday we went out for a short walk around a local lake. While we were out, my other story, the one I’d written on Friday, was also published. That means that my 3 favoured Medium publications outside my own are:

1. Gardening, Birding, and Outdoor Adventure
2. Writers’ Blokke
3. Feedium

And my own 3 are:

1. Words Worth Writing
2. Words Worth Reading
3. The Alphabet Adventurers

The rest of the day was all about the football.

This week

I have two Regency romance instalments to ghostwrite this week. The plan is to do 2 chapters of Book 6 on Monday, 3 on Tuesday, 2 on Wednesday, and 3 on Thursday. Then submit it on Friday.

I did want to do 3 chapters a day and 1 on Thursday, but as I have other stuff to do on Monday and Wednesday, I’ve had to rejig it. (The poet’s car’s MOT on Monday and the cat is back at the vet on Wednesday.)

Then I want to work on Book 5 on Friday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Depending on what else we’re doing, I might do a chapter or two at the weekend to relieve some of the pressure.

What are you up to this week?