Hey, guess what?
I just revised my first two “25 Facts” books about house cats right before your very eyes!
A tough decision
A few months ago, I looked over those as part of a general review of all my self-published books while I had some spare time, thanks to the pandemic (per previous updates, I work on a tablet and had been using public PCs for complex Word functions, like image placement and building a table of contents, until they closed the library this spring).
It was difficult, given how much work went into those initial two books, but I had to admit that they needed some serious rewriting.
It’s part of growing as a writer.
I took down the books, though Amazon won’t delete the paperbacks completely because they issued the ISBN. The catalog lists them as out of print.
And, after making a new outline, I decided to do each chapter as a blog post. That’s what all these recent Friday posts on Fluffy have been.
Be sure to read the story behind this photo, taken under the volcano Bromo, at the link. (Image: Le Zenits, CC BY-ND 2.0)
News flash #2: This is the second eBook written here in 2020. The first is/will be on the Decade Volcanoes.
But don’t look for either one to come out tomorrow or next week. You see, I’ve also been learning about book publishing.
A quality reading experience
If you’ve been following these updates, you’ll remember my concern about images. Those didn’t come out well when each “Meet the Cat Family” book document was turned into flowable text. Consequently, I pulled the eBooks on Amazon (though the paperbacks are okay) and used a PDF for the Google versions.
And I went looking for help. It was quite a search, but I’ve had success. In brief:
Raider of Gin, CC BY 2.0
- Image placement on the page doesn’t matter in a book read on mobile equipment. It’s best to literally go with the flow.
- The text boxes I used for those images were what was messing up the eBook conversion.
- An index at the back of a nonfiction book really helps readers.
To make a long story short, I’m going to hold off self-publishing the domestic cat and Decade Volcano books until they can get a table of contents and index — neither one is all that difficult, though the prep for an index involves some work.
It just can’t be done on a tablet.
There are alternatives I’m exploring. And once those are set, I have a connection that will do the eBook for me and distribute it.
Hopefully, this will happen in September.
Blogging per usual
This is still going to be cat/volcano city for a while, though the cats are going to be bonier and much longer in the tooth (sabertoothed cats and cat-like predators of the past).
I would like to get into more topics, like critical minerals and useful geology, but if possible, those will only be occasional single posts. There’s a lot on the table right now.
And once again, thank you for your continuing interest and support.
Featured image: Eric Kilby, CC BY-SA 2.0
Flight To Wonder 