Take me… to the volcano!

My book is on Amazon!!!

WithPerfect_KDP_cover

The paperback appeared yesterday morning. Not only was this exciting all in itself (my book is on Amazon!!!), I wasn’t expecting it to appear until the weekend. I’d even saved the CreateSpace screenshot in my notes so that I didn’t forget about the time delay with my next paperback.

CreateSpace approved

I submitted the Kindle version right away. Turns out that takes 12 hours or less to show up, and it probably took 10 in my case. I wanted the two versions to show up around the same time, so now I know what the time window is.

Tonight I added my book to Goodreads, and managed to do so with a typo in the title (CLarity instead of Clarity). Oops. Even worse, you can’t edit a book you entered – even if you just entered it. At least I didn’t misspell “clarity”…

I will have it available on Barnes & Noble and a few other sites soon. I may have gotten lucky with the one day Amazon turnaround, but next time I’ll have everything lined up just in case. It’s really been a challenge to fit everything in on the weekends and in tiny slices of the evenings during the week. To be fair, I do spend a fair bit of time with my dogs. We even ran a race (the Canine Classic) this weekend with my friend Julie and her two dogs. Here I am with Maisie and Jasper at the starting line.

2013_04_14_001-.5876.-canine_classic

It was cold and windy and I hadn’t run in ages, so while the dogs were fine, I was relieved to discover mid-race that it was a 5k, not a 10k. (They used to have both, and when we were in better shape – and there weren’t 25 mph winds – we used to run the 10k.)

But the majority of my free time has been spent on book/writing-related activities. I’m thrilled to have published my book, and even better – I’m SO looking forward to having time to work on the next one.

And there’s proof!

My proof copy of With Perfect Clarity arrived on Thursday – a full day early!!!

2013-04-04 With Perfect Clarity proof #1 again

This was very exciting, but the downside was that I had to spend all of yesterday at work wanting to go home so I could proof the proof. The fact that I didn’t leave work early either says something about my willpower or my workload.

I did look through it enough to know that I need to tweak the margins. I used the margins that we used in the interior book design class I took a few months ago, and while they looked fine on the computer they are a little tight in print. The good news is that the font I selected for the body copy (Adobe Caslon Pro 12pt) looks perfect, as does the font I’m using for chapter headers (Bodoni Std Book 20pt).

I’m adjusting the margins and will order a second proof, so there’s a little more waiting…but that one should be it since I’m only making minor tweaks. I’m expecting to have to get an updated cover image, since changing the margins will undoubtedly change the page count and therefore the spine width. If all goes well, it will be available on Amazon and friends in about a week.

The best part is that as soon as I finish adjusting the margins, I’ll be able to start working on novel #2!

A little novelty

I’m impatiently waiting for the proof copy of my novel! This is the paperback proof of With Perfect Clarity, which I’ll review to make sure everything looks good before making it available.

I’ll be spending the next few days biting my nails – call me Veruca Salt!!! In the meantime I’ve put up a page for With Perfect Clarity, including an excerpt – all of chapter one is now online.

And just because it’s so cool, here’s the image from the back cover. This is a photo from Butte, Montana; the house on the front cover is in Springfield, Missouri. I love the way the colors on the back cover are muted to match the way the house looks on the front.

back_cover_image