Book in hand

I was surprised how neat it felt to hold my own book in my hand. Probably not as neat as a baby or anything like that but neat none the less. I'm going through it now for corrections and typos and I expect to send those off Monday. I'm hoping it will be available for purchase by weeks end.

A Large Milestone

I sent the book off to the publisher today. Well, actually I uploaded it. Anyway, they'll need a couple days to verify I formatted it properly and then I'll get a proof copy to check. Once that's done the book will be available in print form to order from Amazon and others.

During the process of reformenting it for print I also made some corrections and additions that I'll upload over the coming week. If you already bought it then the updated version (1.1) will be available for free.

I'll also be putting it on bookseller's sites such as Apple's iBookstore and others. I'll be very happy when all this is done so I can get back to writing which is why I got into this from the beginning.

UPDATE: I just received confirmation that proof copies are in process and should be here next week. That means I got the formatting right. That may not sound like much to you but the specs were a bit confusing and I wouldn't have been surprised if I got something wrong. I'm really looking forward to seeing my book in print, even if it is only a proof copy, it's still cool.

That would mean that the finished book could be ordered in about two weeks!

UPDATE 2: Less that four hours from the order confirmation I received a shipping confirmation. That's impressive as these are PoD or Print on Demand. They had to process the order, print the 5 proof copies I ordered and ship them, all in under four hours!

Almost There

At first I had this hope that I could use the same file for both the eBook and the printed book. Alas, such was not the case. I had to create a new file for the book because of the difference of fixed format or static format vs the dynamic format of an eBook. I'm going to go over it over the weekend and send it off to the printer Monday for some proof copies. I expect to have it available for purchase as quickly as I can turn that around. I won't guess but I think it is a quick process. Keep checking here for updates.

Moving Along

After much aggravation I have the book updated and reformatted. Now it's on to having a test print done to see how it looks. I'll be uploading the revised ebook later in the week. Everyone who bought it will get an automatic update. The very last page has a overview of what's changed or been added too.

More later.

So Much for That!

The week just flew by didn't it. My good news is I'm looking into a way to get my book printed by a company that is either owned by or works with Amazon. They do, 'print on demand'. The delay is I have to reformat my book as a pdf which on the surface doesn't sound difficult. I decided that as long as I was going to do that then why not add a few things to the book and make some corrections etc. Things escalate don't they.

I'm going to enjoy the fall foliage along the Blue Ridge Parkway this weekend and get back to it Sunday night.

Have a great weekend.

Good News Coming

I hope to have some good news later in the day.

Stay tuned...


Update: Hmm, too optimistic, make that later in the week.

Now Available At Barnes & Noble!

For all you NOOK fans my book, Yikes, you can see my underpants is now available at B&N.

Remember, you don't need an actual NOOK or a Kindle to read my book. Both B&N and Amazon have free stand alone apps that let you read eBooks like mine, right on your computer screen.

BARNES & NOBLE | Yikes, you can see my underpants! by Francis Hogg | NOOK Book (eBook)

Help is on the way

A number of people have been having trouble with the instructions for getting the Kindle app or using the Kindle Cloud reader. I'll put together a step by step guide in the next day or so that should ease that problem.

On the Nook front, Barnes & Noble still hasn't gotten the book up on the site and I don't know why. I sent an email Thursday asking what's wrong and hopefully I'll get that cleared up soon.

Kindle or Nook? Which one is best?

I went to Staples today and looked at what they said were the new Kindle and Nook. Not the case as it turned out. Then I went to Barnes and Noble and looked at the Nook there. It seems that the Nook Touch and the Kindle Touch are almost the same thing. It depends on where you want to buy your books as to which one to get. B&N also had an older model on closeout for $89 but it's heaver, has a white bezel and less battery life so I passed on it. I suspect B&N may do a price adjustment to match Amazon's new Kindles so I'd wait a bit if you can. Either way I'm sure you'll love whichever one you decide on.

Emails Flooding In...

I sent out the official notice about the book and emails have been flooding in. I hope that's a good sign. :)

I'm still waiting on Barnes & Noble to make it available. I uploaded it last Friday and they said it would be 72 hours at most. Amazon was just 24 hours. Go figure...

Now Available on Amazon

You can get your very own copy of Yikes, you can see my underpants! on Amazon!

I'll have detailed information about how to read it if you don't have a Kindle but the simple answer is to down load a Kindle app for whatever device you have, be it Mac, PC, iPad, iPhone or Android or other compatible device. Then you just register the app with Amazon. Then just click on the buy button on Amazon.com and it will be sent to your device immediately.

This is the Cover for my new Book

It's UP on Amazon!

Not that you can buy it yet... I just got the confirmation that they have it for review and I should know something in 24-48 hours.

I discovered something really nice. When I first uploaded it I noticed it had to convert the file. That made me wonder if it would convert an ePub file and it did! That saved me multiple steps as now all I have to do is export it from Pages as an ePub file, same as for everyone else, and then upload it to Amazon. Very nice.

Now what?

While I'm waiting for news that it's available for purchase I've put up an 'Extras' page here for some things that I had to leave out of the book. Pictures and so forth. It is on the right side of this page. I would have liked to include them in the book but I couldn't verify the copyright and had to leave them out.

Amazon and B&N cover about 85% of the eBook market with Apple a distant 3rd at about 8%. Still, that's a sizable market that I can't ignore. I hope it's a lot easier putting it up there than it appears to be. Hell, only one way to find out. :)

It's UP on Barnes & Noble!

It's been 20 years in the making or 66 if you consider that's how long it took to get to this point in my life. Next up is Amazon which I'll tackle over the weekend. Every eBook seller in the world uses the ePub format... Except for Amazon. They use the 'mobi' format. It didn't sound like a big deal because there are converters that convert ePub to mobi, but guess what? Sometimes things don't look quite the same coming out as they did going in. So I have to take the ePub I uploaded to B&N and run it through the converter and see what didn't come through right. Go back to Pages and make some changes. Export that to an ePub file. Run that through the converter. Load that in the Kindle app for the Mac and see if it made it. If not then go back and start over. That should sound frustrating and tedious and it is. After I upload this to all the bookstores on the net I'm going to look into what others have done and see if there is an easier way to do this.

And it all sounded so simple and easy when I started... :)

I'll keep checking and will announce it here when it is available.