How Has 2020 Been Treating You?

How has 2020 been treating you as a writer? With the pandemic in full force globally, and politics raging here in the U.S., it has been a bit difficult to focus on writing projects. At least it has been for me. I write two monthly professional newsletters, do the occasional blog, and the occasional review, and have two writing projects in mind - one of which I am actually working on, and should have up on Amazon by the end of the year. I had hoped to have a short, book-length cozy mystery out for Christmas, but that is;t going to happen. I will write one in December of this year, but it won't be published until November of 2021. I will do that each year - write a short Christmas-oriented mystery to be published in the coming year.  

For those of us that self-publish, that venue is still available. For those that had books being developed by publishing companies, that might be another story. The pressure around us can easily lead to writer's block, loss of productivity, frustration, and anxiety. We may be dealing with working from home (unless we already worked from home, as I do). We may be dealing with other family members being home, and their energy interrupting our focus on work. We may be dealing with family crisis due to COVID-19. We may simply be frustrated at not being able to get a haircut, to have dinner out, or go see a show. 

We cannot travel for research, so we have to depend on the Internet. Sometimes we cannot keep our daily routines. We are not able to meet people, to interact, to have the experiences that feed our creative nature. Do we want to write about the pandemic? Personally, I do not. I may reference it in stories and books years from now, but the shock is too fresh for me to want to write about the pandemic while it is happening.

Entering 2021 we will see multiple vaccines becoming available for COVID-19. We see a new administration in the White House here in the U.S., and we see ourselves adapting to a "new normal". Whatever that "new normal" is, we will experience it and write about it. The year 2020 hit everyone hard - we need to incorporate its lessons, reprioritize our lives, and move forward.

(c) November 2020 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited without written permission from the author.

 

Publishing With Amazon KDP

I just finished writing "Invisible Me", with my friend and co-author Brad Tesh, We took our time, so this has been a year-long project. Brad and I both enjoy writing, and we were very happy with the subject we chose to write about - our spiritual self. The editing was not even too difficult ... just time consuming, even with two pair of eyes. Then it came time to submit. We both have books up on Kindle and the former Create Space, now merged as Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP Publishing). We knew that it was going to be a bit trying ... but it ended up being more than a bit trying!

The submission process to KDP goes something like this:

• Upload a formatted manuscript.
• Create a cover.
• Define keywords and categories.
• Decide if you want to use your own ISBN #, or get one free from KDP. (E-books don't need ISBN numbers, print books do.)

KDP has great software out now that will format a book for you. It is called Kindle Create, and is free to download. This I did appreciate, as the last time I submitted I was running in the dark and praying a lot! With Kindle Create you can format for three basic types of books: (1) text heavy, (2) image heavy with complex formatting, and (3) comic or graphic novels of low complexity. With next to zero techie skills, I managed to get our essentially text-only book up without too many problems. We did include pics with our bios, but they loaded easily. 

Kindle Create has three formatting themes to choose from: Classic, Cosmos, and Armor. Elements can be formatted by type: Chapter Title, Chapter Subtitle, chapter first paragraph, Book Title, Book Subtitle, Author Name, blockquotes etc. The system is easy to use, and we only had to make a couple of tweaks with it.

Now, the book cover - that was another story! Brad basically did the work here, with me just adding in the text for the back cover. I have to say, he did a marvelous job, and I had a meltdown! (Only one meltdown for the entire process of the book, so that is good! Perspective, people!) You can choose to upload your own cover, or you can create one with the imagery KDP provides. We choose the latter. We ended up with a slightly different cover for the print version - basically because the cover would not play nice! 

"Invisible Me" is up on Amazon in e-book format, while our print version is being "reviewed". (Now why don't I have a good feeling here!)

I am happy that we choose to self-publish (we did look into other options), and my hope for other writers is that if they want to self-publish, they check out the KDP system. (It has its issues, one of which is do not choose "auto fit" when adding text to the back cover - it doesn't work! Set the font size that you want o use.) But, overall, our book is up, and we did it ourselves!

(c) March 2019 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited without written permission from the author.