IngramSpark – Story Catcher Publishing

AN INDIE AUTHOR’S JOURNEY: Who Would Have Thunk It?

August 14, 2018August 14, 2018Donna L

I’m delving into the world of indie publishing. Some authors go the quicker route and use a source like CreateSpace or Kindle Direct to immediately get their books out there.

There’s nothing wrong going that route, but I’ve decided to take a different path.

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I’ve spent the past six months caught in a huge learning curve when it comes to publishing. As file after file is kicked back from IngramSpark due to different issues, I have been forced to learn the finer points of indie publishing. It’s been challenging and at times frustrating, but I’m proud of myself for not giving up. I finally thought I had everything straightened out as of last week.

My book cover looked good, except for the fact it was a bit darker than I would have liked. I made some corrections to the interior file and sent it off
Friday, thinking easy peasy…a quick approval from IngramSpark and I’d be on my way.

But of course I should have remembered we are talking about MY life and nothing ever comes easy…

Apparently now my interior file is secretly reverting BACK to 8.5 X 11 even when I’m saving it as a 6 X 9 file.

On its own.

Behind the scenes.

Without my knowledge.

So, here I am back as square one trying to figure out how to change my Word document to a PDF file that will convert to a 6 X 9 PDF file and STAY THAT WAY!!

God help me, I’ve had the patience of Job these past six months, but boy, do I need a break! Anyone out there that can help me?

IngramSpark customer service is fabulous (thanks for all your help, Theresa), but they don’t handle this type of issue on a day by day basis so she really couldn’t help me much.

So it’s back to the drawing board.

I’m soooo stressed over this!

Yep, that’s how I feel…lol…

Ruler by day, a reluctant pirate by night, 18-year-old Princess Ariana fights for her subjects in the waterfall city of Lunadar. In a kingdom surrounded by fairies and mermaids, and ravaged by deadly Drundles, only a chosen few are trusted to guard her daughter, Candra, as the secret heir to the throne.

But it only takes one ill-fated meeting for Ariana to suddenly be plunged into an escalating web of secrets found in her father’s journal, a deadly kidnapping, and an ever-weakening resolve to turn her back on the call of the merman’s song.

With Ariana’s world falling apart and the future of Lunadar at stake, how will she bring her father’s murderer to justice and fulfill a deathbed promise to protect Lunadar’s legacy?

International best selling, award winning author, Donna L Martin, has been writing since she was eight years old. She is a 4th Degree Black Belt in TaeKwonDo by day and a ‘ninja’ writer of children’s picture books, chapter books, young adult novels and inspirational essays by night. Donna is a BOOK NOOK REVIEWS host providing the latest book reviews on all genres of children’s books, and the host of WRITERLY WISDOM, a resource series for writers. Donna is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators and Children’s Book Insider. She is a lover of dark chocolate, going to the beach and adding to her growing book collection. Donna’s latest book, LUNADAR: Homeward Bound (a YA fantasy), ebook edition, is now available from Amazon.

An Indie Author’s Journey: My eBook Is Here! Sort Of…

July 9, 2018July 9, 2018Donna L

I’m delving into the world of indie publishing. Some authors go the quicker route and use a source like CreateSpace or Kindle Direct to immediately get their books out there.

There’s nothing wrong going that route, but I’ve decided to take a different path.

Despite the fact my book cover designer is still having file formatting issues with IngramSpark, she is working to get it resolved so I’m crossing my fingers things will be resolved soon.

In the meantime, my interior pages file was accepted by IngramSpark, which means as soon as the book cover file is fixed, ebook and print editions are back on schedule.

So, how is your ebook here then you might ask?

Well, I’ve decided to go ahead and share my ebook proof with my LUNADAR Street Team. They will get to read about Ariana’s adventures in the young adult fantasy world of Lunadar in advance of the official release, but will have to wait a little bit to be able to leave their reviews.

There will also be a drawing for some cool prizes for anyone who joins my street team and leaves an honest review on a social site like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, personal blogs, etc. once the ebook goes on sale.

Wouldn’t you like to step through the portal and join the growing LUNADAR Street Team? Team members receive a copy of LUNADAR: Homeward Bound in exchange for an honest book review. They are also entered into a drawing for some cool prizes. To join the team, just leave your name in the comments below, send me a message on Facebook (www.facebook.com/donasdays), or drop me an email at [email protected].

“Ruler by day, reluctant pirate by night, 18-year-old Princess Ariana fights for her subjects in the waterfall city of Lunadar. In a kingdom surrounded by mermaids and fairies, and ravaged by deadly Drundles, only a chosen few are trusted to guard her daughter, Candra, as the secret heir to the throne.

But it only takes one ill-fated meeting for Ariana to suddenly be plunged into an escalating web of secrets found in her father’s journal, a deadly kidnapping, and an ever weakening resolve to turn her back on the call of a merman’s song.

With Ariana’s world falling apart and the future of Lunadar at stake, how will she bring her father’s murderer to justice and fulfill a deathbed promise to protect Lunadar’s legacy?”

donna

AN INDIE AUTHOR’S JOURNEY: Perfect Timing

July 2, 2018July 2, 2018Donna L

I’m delving into the world of indie publishing. Some authors go the quicker route and use a source like CreateSpace or Kindle Direct to immediately get their books out there.

There’s nothing wrong going that route, but I’ve decided to take a different path.

This week has been an incredibly busy, frustrating one. My full time job of running a martial arts training facility kept me occupied for at least ten hours each day, Monday through Friday.

I then went home and put on my publisher’s hat to do battle with trying to upload my book cover to IngramSpark’s website. But every time I tried to upload it, Ingram kept kicking it back, saying the file itself was not acceptable.

My very talented cover designer, Kelly Nicole Moore, worked tirelessly (even from another state while visiting her family this week ) to address each error message. First she changed the size of the finished file. Then she changed the type of artwork file she used. It seemed every time she sent me a new file to upload, Ingram would find yet another issue preventing them from moving forward with my production schedule.

Writers who only choose traditional publishing may never get to see the “behind the scene” struggles a publisher has to go through just to push their current project to the next level. Self-published authors get to see it all, have their hands in all levels of creation, and are at the front of the line when it comes to frustration over production delays.

My lowest point came yesterday after Kelly sent me yet another book cover version to try. She was at the point that if her latest effort didn’t work, we would be dead in the water until a miracle came along…or I learned how to use Adobe Acrobat.

Then it happened.

The clouds of doom drifted away, the heavens opened, and an angelic chorus announced the latest file was accepted by IngramSpark! Well, that’s what it felt like when I FINALLY got a thumbs up approval for Kelly’s artwork file and LUNADAR has now gone on to the proofing process. I even managed to find an online coupon I used to waive IngramSpark’s $49 set up fee so it didn’t cost me a penny!

I’m now crossing my fingers…and saying a few prayers…that IngramSpark won’t come across any other issues before moving forward to my print edition release date of 9/27/18.

I’m still having some issues with the ebook formatting but have someone looking at that as well, so hopefully it will all come together soon.

I just need to say thank you, Kelly, for all your hard work and for believing in LUNADAR.

LUNADAR full cover.jpg

So what do YOU think? Did she do a great job on my book cover, or what? Let me know in the comments below…

AN INDIE AUTHOR’S JOURNEY: The Cost of Painful Mistakes

June 12, 2018June 12, 2018Donna L

I’m delving into the world of indie publishing. Some authors go the quicker route and use a source like CreateSpace or Kindle Direct to immediately get their books out there.

There’s nothing wrong going that route, but I’ve decided to take a different path.

After hours…days and weeks even…of reading and editing, and editing and reading once more…I had LUNADAR formatted and files ready to convert to both Print on Demand and ebook file. Here is the path I took,

FORMATING…

I heard many horror stories about the challenges of formatting my own manuscript. Apparently Word has issues when manually trying to format it for ebooks or print on demand books if you are technologically challenged like I am. I decided to go with Book Design Templates www.bookdesigntemplates.com, a formatting software program for everything from picture books to full length novels. The copy/paste feature made it super easy to format my Word manuscript to a PDF file I could then use for the next step in the publishing process.

EBOOK…

I chose to buy my own individual ISBN numbers and Bowker (www.bowker.com) is the ONLY approved ISBN source in the United States. They also provide other editing/publishing sources like Ebook Creator, which I used to convert my PDF file into an ebook file. I read…edited…edited again…reread again and thought everything was perfect when I pushed the send button.

I was wrong.

Shortly after hitting that button I realized I’d overlooked some grammar errors in my manuscript. I tried to retrieve the ebook file I’d sent to Bowker for processing, but to no avail. It will cost me $50 per hour per line edit if I use them to fix my dumb mistakes. A costly lesson in the finer points of self publishing, but far better for me to learn it now, rather than later when I have multiple books to convert. I needed an alternative to creating the ebook file as I couldn’t afford to go the Bowker Ebook Creator service again, and I have discovered Calibre (www.calibre-ebook.com) It was easy to install and we will see how easy it will be to convert..

PRINT…

IngramSpark is the number one distributor in the United States as well as most of the world. They will distribute all Print On Demand as well as Ebooks to over 30,000 online bookstores, brick and mortar stores, and libraries around the globe, as well as numerous ebook options. Once my formatting software program converted the Word document to a PDF format, it easily uploaded to IngramSpark’s request for print. I have offered a wholesale discount to retails interested in taking a chance on my book, and IngramSpark will take a portion of the profit for being my distributor.

I don’t plan on becoming a millionaire writing books, but would like to establish STORY CATCHER PUBLISHING as a strong, small publishing house with a good foundation so in a year or two I can expand my publishing goals (more about THAT later…)