For the past several weeks I’ve been working on a new project–non-fiction for a change. For anyone who doesn’t know, I typeset ebook and paper books for people who self-publish, but I’ve had several people express an interest in being able to do this for themselves, most notably an author with nearly twenty out-of-print books she’d like to make available to her readers again.
I’d been considering writing a manual on how to do this in which I would help authors avoid mistakes that almost every indie-writer makes when they do the typesetting themselves. The project came together pretty fast, and I’m pleased to say that my new book, POD Like a Pro: An Author’s Guide to Typesetting and Formatting a Book for Print is now available as an ebook. I just ordered the proof copy of the paper version, so it should be available on Amazon by early April. The book covers EVERY step from setting up the page size to picking fonts, getting your headers and footers straight to making your text line up properly at the bottom of the page. It includes lots of screen shots of the tool boxes in Microsoft Word so you can be sure you’re making the right adjustments and exactly what to do. The book also includes a full glossary of printers’ terms you might come across on POD websites or while getting quotes if you plan to do a large printing to get into stores. The ebook can be purchased for Kindle, Nook, or from Smashwords.
While I was putting off the final edits of the book above, I wrote a short story this week (5,500 words) which is also available online. Holding On is based on a story idea I added to my extensive files of ideas years ago and it was a ton of fun to write! Here’s the blurb:
Since high school Abigail has always known what the man of her dreams looks like: tall, with brown hair and blue eyes. But she never expected the man she’d been having a relationship with in her sleep to walk into the espresso bar where she worked—with another woman on his arm.
Lance has no idea Abigail isn’t just a figment of his wild fantasies, so finding her in the flesh is a dream come true—literally. If only he could get his unwanted date to unlatch her claws from his arm. When he leaves the shop that afternoon, it’s with the intention to return in a few hours, but when a business emergency comes up and then the shop is gutted in a fire, he’s left with no way to contact Abigail, and no mater how hard they try to remember when awake, their dream conversations never seem to get around to that.
It takes months and some heavy ingenuity to find Abigail, but when he does, will she still be waiting for him?
This is also available on Kindle, Nook and from Smashwords.