Kindling the fire…
I’m such a Luddite. Technology and I have mostly been at loggerheads. I have a mobile phone which I keep in the glove-box of the car for roadside emergencies. I have no idea how to text or how to take pics on the phone or how to access text messages. Not sure that I will ever want to or that I really care, and I rarely if ever give my number to anyone. Personally I find mobiles intrusive because many of their owners rarely observe any sort of etiquette. I have a MacBookPro laptop and I can operate it to my satisfaction, but if there are ‘issues’, I sit and look at this piece of aluminium and think ‘Please give me a pad and pencil!’
Late last year I decided to place my two POD published titles on Kindle as it seemed to be something most authors were considering. All I had filed of the text were two PDF’S, as for some purely Luddite reason I had deleted the original word files. Don’t ask me how or why ? Truthfully I don’t know. This was a major problem because a PDF manuscript doesn’t upload satisfactorily to Kindle. We copied the PDF and pasted it into a text edit word processor which stripped out all the settings and formatting that had been required when the PDF was originally prepared for the London publishers. Then we copied from text edit into word with basic settings.
In addition, the PDF of each of the titles had specially designed graphics between sections of the narrative. Each chapter also had wonderful graphics at its head. Each of these graphics had to be deleted because e-book uploads apparently don’t take kindly to internal graphics. I found that quite sad as I loved those designs but nevertheless, out they went.
Then there was the formatting that had to take place. With each of these translations from one file to another, small idiosyncracies crept in. I made a momentuous decision at that point. I decided that if the text had to be re-formatted line by line, then it should be re-edited as well, even re-written in parts, because there is no doubt that writers improve as they mature. It would be unrealistic not to admit that.
So for the last four weeks I have been re-working the print versions of my novels ready to be uploaded to Kindle. The first is now at the point where it could be uploaded in the next couple of days. We have looked at it on Preview for Kindle and I am mostly confident I have touched each base. The second title is easier to do because the process is more familiar and I am at the halfway mark. I imagine it will be finished by next week.
I also have my own Kindle now. How could I not when I’m submitting my own titles for e-book publication? I’m moving fast into the new world of writing, publishing and reading. So fast it’s at the speed of light and I can barely distinguish the detail.
Do I feel good about it all? I feel happy to have tackled what I have tackled, that I have soldiered on against the odds. I mean seriously, what hope does a Luddite have of stalling the ever-changing world of technology? It’s like a chocoholic in a chocolate shop: no hope at all!
My husband wants to buy one but I still resist… Time to surrender you say?
It’s a personal thing. It was actually my husband that ordered the Kindle. My son wants an i-pad. I am still a print-book reader and will always be, but I do like that when I am tired (like now, after days of working on the screen) I can enlarge the print on the Kindle. I am reading Ann Swinfen’ s The Anniversary, my first e-book. Beautiful book, good text size.
Uh. oh, that’s how it starts. : D
Most of my close friends are avid readers, and they mightily resisted the kindle. They all love it now and don’t understand their previous hesitance. But it’s no surprise really. It’s hard to get excited about something that is so foreign and might upset our comfort. The good news is practicality always wins. I love this article linked below and frankly, wish I could be the person to come up with the app they reference at the end. Hopefully, the link will work.
iPad Record Release
And aren’t we glad the Luddites didn’t win. I like my nylon and polyester. : D
@RAFrenzy The practicality is stupendous. I like that I can carry the OXford English Dictionary literally in my pocket or that I can buy research texts for 99 cents!
Funny about the nylon and polyester etc. To a point yes! I LOVE my stretch denims, stretch this and stretch that. But truthfully, there is nothing like a piece of pure silk against the body, or pure cotton, pure cashmere. And gee, being a woolgrower and farmer , I have to add pure wool!!!
Re the article, thank you so much for the link. Brilliant supposition and as my mother has macular degeneration and is having needles every fortnight into her eyes to stall the inevitable damage, it is exactly why i want to try and train her to use an e-reader. But she is 85 and highly reisitant to change.
I upped the size of my text last night and it was quite brilliant!
Arghhh. And another one bites the dust! I’ve looked and looked at the Kindles and can’t commit. It just seems so, well…wrong?! Handy, cool, streamlined, convenient, but wrong. I felt the same way about cells, DVDs and walkmans. But eventually caved. I mean, how wonderful is it to be able to listen to over 5000 songs while you mow, walk, vacum? Sure makes chore time fly by!
You are to be commended thought for trying new tech stuff. Brave woman. But for the moment, I’m going to get another cup of coffee and curl up with my new book!
Best wishes for success in your newest electric adventure!
No, I am still a committed print book reader and shall ever be so. Bookshops are my solace. I buy all my clothes, shoes etc online but books I need. It’s almost a compulsion to touch them and have them scattered throughout my house.
But I will use the KIndle for my research and for the titles that don’t make it to the Australian shores.
I did laugh in bed last night as I read The Anniversary, (lovely book) holding the Kindle in its little cover as I do a book. I reached the end of the page and unconsciously went to the top right corner with my fingers to turn the page. It was a beat of quite a few seconds before I realised what I was doing!
Ha! Still trying to turn a page huh? I DO like the thought of the dictionary and enlarging the print. Not that I need larger print…ahem.
Yessss, on the feel of pure cashmere, wool, cotton and silk! I grew up in sheep country TX. My hometown had a wool mill where my mom would take me every July to buy wonderful woolen fabric for the next school year. I can still smell the almost burnt aroma. We’d spend hours choosing just the right piece for a wool skirt or a coat. Mother would then take it home and start cutting out and sewing. Later, it was turn. In high school, I took Home Ec where we learned how to work with wool. Went home every day to show Mother what I’d learned so she picked up new skills also. My first project was a skirt and blazer. We even learned to do bound buttonholes…an almost extinct art!
I mostly read on my Android with the Kindle app, and I’ve set it so I turn pages with my fingers, and it sort of acts like a book. I assume the Kindle itself can do that. I usually turn from the bottom right corner, which I understand is not a good habit for readers since it’s more prone to tear pages than turning from the top right. But the kindle app turns from the bottom, so I feel right at home.
I’ve been reading documents, books, etc. on a computer screen more than a few hours a day for almost 30 years, so this is old hat to me. But I still like to read a printed book. and certainly bookstores are soothing. No electronic media can duplicate that — at least not yet!
Regarding the synthetic material. I never much cared for it until I moved to snow country. I adore cotton and silk, but they’re not practical here. I do own a lot of wool, but that fleece made from plastic works well too LOL! and it doesn’t itch.
@NovemberBride, I grew up in Texas too. Haven’t lived there in quite awhile, but I will always be Texan. : D
The wool working sounds wonderful.
There are tiny arrowed buttons on the sides (left if your left-handed, right if your right-handed) which flick you forward or back. It’s very easy and because it is so vastly different to a book and page-turning, I am quite glad. It means that real books are able to maintain their most perfect identity.
So glad you Texan ladies have met! And a member of my clan has a Texan from Houston as a girlfriend.
And my husband has a ‘second’ family in Choteau, Montana where he spent a year at school a long time ago. Montana farmers seem to wear hats as big as Texan and Australian farmers.
Oh, wait. I’m wrong. It’s the Nook app I use.
i do love how a post on e-books and e-readers can take off on such a tangent as covering wool, Texas and hand-covered buttonholes. It makes me think we are sitting round one giant coffeetable nattering away!
I remember my mother binding buttonholes for suits that she made. she was a brilliant seamstress and made all my evening gowns in my more adult years and all my dresses and skirts when I was younger. Once I went into trousers, that was the end of it really!
Such a dying art among those who don’t do it professionally. My mother was a wonderful seamstress too, and I now marvel at what she could do. We would go to the upscale stores, and she would simply examine the clothing, come home and make patterns, and produce some gorgeous outfits. Amazing. I can sew, but nothing like that.
I live in sheep/cattle country (yes, they can co-exist. LOL!), and there is also a lot of farming around here as well. Mostly wheat. I love to see the wheat waving in the late summer. That does unspeakable things to my soul.
Frenz…makes you think of “the amber waves of grain”, right? I didn’t understand that fully until I moved to KS and discovered that wheat really does roll like waves in the wind.
And my mother and I did the same thing. We’d copy whatever we saw. She could (and still can) take different dress patterns to make a new unque one; the collar from one, the skirt from another, sleeves from another. I used to go in, try on, then go home and sketch it out for her. That’s how we made my wedding dress. I was never sure how ethical it was, but it was the only way I had clothes. Cheap! My friends used to tease me and ask if she made my underwear too. She did when I was little! I can still remember my first storebought dress; Montgomery Wards, shift w/huge zipper up the front made of madras plaid cotton. I sew some still but not as much as I should. With 4 granddaughters, I need to kick it into high gear!
Sorry, Mes…totally off topic, but you’re right. Wish we could have a cup of coffee and “natter away”…new word for me!!
One more thing. Have you noticed the lack of fabrics in the stores now? Our last privately owned fabric store closed this past year. Wally World and Hobby Lobby are our only sources now. Sad.
Once a Texan, always a Texan! YeeHawww!
i absolutely don’t mind going off topic at all. In many ways doing such a thing gives the e-life a humanity it might otherwise lack.
As to the disappearance of fabric shops, yes. i have noticed it: even in this tiny little outpost of Tasmania in far off Australia. we had the most wonderful fabric shops in my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. It was as much a joy to go into them as to enter a bookshop now. As an embroiderer, my favourite fabrics to embroider are pure silks and fine woolen cashmere. The woolen cashmere I can get readily from a mill in another state. But the loss of silk supply is a sadness. There are simply no specialty shops and one must search the net and then it is very difficult to buy just the quarter or half metre that one requires.
To bring the topic full-circle again: I do wonder if the bookshop will indeed eventually go the way of the fabric shop. Purely because people will no longer support it in favour of cheap and easy e-reading. The same way that a plethora of cinemas have disappeared or the drive-in movies because of TV/DVD’s etc.
Amazon has done a lot to kill bookshops before the Kindle, but the Kindle may indeed be the death knell. That is my only qualm about ordering books online. I do try to also support the local bookstores, but they are SO expensive. It’s ridiculous how much some of the books cost. $30-35 for a novel? I realize the authors should get paid, but some of the books are absurdly high. I have no problem paying $20 or even $25, but there is something about $30 that just hacks me off.
I also think that demanding someone’s new work for less than $20 (for a printed book) is unreasonable for a consumer. But I know a lot of authors are going that way.
Mostly I wait for print books to be in the library. Then I read and if I want to keep, I go buy.
I hate the $30 mark as well. If it is one of my favourite authors, i console myself with the thought that I shall be placing the book as part of my library collection. But if its a new author, unknown, I sometimes wonder what a reasonable price should be.
Being an unknown and releasing my first (former print) novel onto e-book via Amazon, I have set the price at 99 cents American. Terribly cheap, and I will only secure 35% royalties of that, but my theory is to try and make a name for myself and to move the sales if possible. An opening special, if you like.
After that, the price may stabilise at about the $US2.99 mark.
Those new authors I know who have released from print to e-book have found that their e-book sales are outstripping their print sales by huge margins. I shall watch my own sales with interest. As I said to @Sinjoor and @AnnieVickery last night (morning your time), I am relying on Gizzie’s Girls to be my sales team! It’s a wonderful and energetic group of readers!
Well my kindle sales have seriously outstripped paperback. It seems to be the way of the future, my dear.
I uploaded tonight. It will be available in 24 hours they say. Hmm! Scared witless.
I downloaded Kindle for PC under the instructions of Smashwords… but I really CAN’T read on my PC screen. Maybe the Kindle is different, kinder on the eyes…
Best of luck, and see you in the Kindler Bestseller List in a few years! 😀
Hallo Barb,
i find the Kindle screen quite easy to read, not at all a strain, particularly as I can change the text size and the number of words in any one sentence. They are suggesting it (and any re-reader) has application for people with eyesight issues, so i am anticipating it being a good back-up to the real book.
I can’t read on my laptop screen for any great length of time without eyestrain becoming a real issue so i appreciate your difficulty. if you are loading your own stuff to smashwords though, you really should invest in an e-reader, as it gives you a whole different feel as to how your novel should behave on an e-screen.