Jumping Through the Hoops.

Back to the twists and turns of self-publishing a book. When I decided I would self- publish my novel, Parson Campbell’s Breakthrough, I determined I would not invest cash in a stash of books to be parked in some storage locker (I have no garage) until sold.

I decided to go with CreateSpace, an amazon.com offshoot that publishes on a print-on-demand basis at virtually no up-front cost to the author IF the author produces a manuscript already formatted for the page and already proof read. That, of course, is a big IF.

It took some doing, and I thought I would be blind before I finished the proofing. Each time I thought I had perfect copy, I would read it through and find more typos. At last I am through that hoop. There may still be errors in the finished book, but I hope very few, and with the print-on-demand system I won’t have to wait for a second edition to correct them. If I upload an amended file to CreateSpace’s computer, the next book printed will be a corrected copy. Neat!

In the midst of all this there was the question of a cover. Before I was quite aware that CreateSpace offers cover templates that can be adapted by the author, I sought an original design. My son Mike enlisted the services of Lindsey Archer, a young designer in Memphis. While I was still proofing my text, she produced six cover designs among which I could choose. All were good, nothing “cookie cutter” about them, but one stood out. When I knew my final page count, which affects spine width, she e-mailed me a cover file to upload to Create/Space.

End of process? Not quite. There always seems to be one more jog in the road, another hoop to jump through but the book is now in sight. We'll get there yet.

(To be continued.)