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Kindle Edition

22 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by Ed Mahoney in Novel

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Amazon Kindle, Ingram Spark, Magnolia Cafe, Town Lake

girls-at-trail-of-lights-1

This post details my travails at publishing an electronic book format.  Specifically the Amazon Kindle edition, because based on their marketshare, the .mobi format is all that matters.  I’ll juxtapose this dry material with photos from our Christmas vacation to Austin over the last couple of days.  These two are of the girls at the Austin Trail of Lights from last night.

ellie-with-rachel

I planned to share some of these details to help others publish an ebook.  I held off until I was fully successful.  By fully successful, I mean having a Kindle edition available at Amazon.  This took four weeks from the time my print editions were available.  My ebook was available on the Apple iBooks store immediately, although not without errors.  Apple was my first problem.  Before even describing my issues, I’ll advise you to simply pay an ebook coder to do this for you.  But if you enjoy a technical challenge, by all means, follow my errors.

 

The first problem is there are virtually zero instructions for how to export your ebook.  Ingram Spark is my publisher and they provide two different files with a few instructions scattered throughout the docs.  The tips are in a narrative format rather than a checklist, so it’s easy to miss key instructions.  My book design software is Adobe InDesign, chances are it’s your’s too.  The export routine will provide multiple tabs of export options.  I got through it by reviewing YouTube videos.  The best one, because it tells you tips for the layout design as well, is this 24 minute video.  Trust me, I watched dozens.  It’s one of the few that explains the Adobe export options.  It also tells you how to rasterize your text pages.  It doesn’t say this, but making a photo out of text is a clever trick to get around font license issues.  I had those problems too.

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You only really need to publish eBooks to Apple and Amazon.  That’s where most are sold. I figured out I had issues with Apple by downloading their free sample.  Ingram Spark doesn’t do much in terms of monitoring errors from distributors.  Turns out my issue wth Amazon was that Ingram Spark lost my contract agreement.  They made me sign four, a print contract, an ebook contract, a specific ebook contract for Apple and another for Amazon – which they lost.  They offer separate contracts for Apple and Amazon because those sites have mature tools for writers to self-publish directly.  I probably should have chosen to work with them directly.  Because I didn’t, it was difficult to get Apple and Amazon to talk to me for support issues.

There’s so many things.  I’m still working out issues on my ebook with other online retailers.  Comment if you have specific questions.  These last two photos are of brunch today at Magnolia Cafe and a run around Town Lake.

 

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A Runner’s Year in Review

31 Saturday Dec 2011

Posted by Ed Mahoney in Storytelling

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Tags

Amazon Kindle, Austin Marathon, covered calls, Moab Half Marathon, Zilker

Zilker Tree2011 wasn’t really about me.  I had an 18 month old nephew survive a heart transplant.    He’s now 24 months old and I suspect Little L will dominate the next decade, and that’s okay.  My mom is getting on in years with more than her fair share of ailments, but she maintained a fairly steady pace and I was able to visit her during the Austin Marathon and on Mother’s Day as well as Christmas – which is more than usual.

I had some personal achievements though.  Top of the list was completing the 500 mile Colorado Trail with my buddy Rob, and it wasn’t even on my calendar at the start of the year.  Second was finally trading options.  I consider investing/trading as much a hobby as anything because I enjoy it and trading options is something I’ve read numerous books on but had never done until 2011.  I’m not a day trader by any means – I might do several trades per month – but I spend a great deal of time reading financial news and books.  I maintained decent fitness in 2011 which was a goal.  I ate healthy foods.  I would argue I didn’t accomplish my exact goals on running.  I wanted to increase my speed but instead opted for hiking.  I also gained a few pounds after having lost weight in each of the preceding four years.  Lastly, I didn’t start on another 2011 goal of writing a book.  Most of my new year’s resolutions will be to further unfinished 2011 objectives.

I want to spend more time with my mom so I’m considering living and working from her home in Round Rock for a month or so.  She can make do on her own but it’s not wise and my brother lives with her now.  Of course Steve has his own house and maybe he’d appreciate me giving him some time to live there.  Ideally, I’ll do this in the late winter / early spring.  I just returned from Austin yesterday – the picture above is of Karen and me checking out the Tree at Zilker Park.

As for running, my plans are to run a series of half marathons – mostly trail runs in the mountains.  I’ll start with Moab in March.  I still need to correct my plantar fasciitus, but I don’t expect that to limit me too much.  And I’m going to make a concerted effort to trim down my abdomen.  Enough is enough.  I’m also going to move our elliptical into my office to work out on during conference calls.  The idea being this will replace the snacking I do currently.  I might do that tomorrow.

I’m going to increase my trading focus on options.  All I actually did last year was sell covered calls which is easily the least risky type of options trades.  The only risk is that you can’t sell a stock that is losing value until the expiration date.  And you won’t likely recognize gains over the strike price.  This isn’t important to me because I generally sell stocks after 10% gains and I set strike prices at 10% for my covered calls.  This has worked out well for me as I handily beat the market in 2011.  For 2012 I intend to begin buying options rather than simply selling them.

My last big goal will be to write a book.  At least start a book.  Blogging keeps my writing skills exercised but I haven’t written much fiction lately and would like to tell a story.  This is going to take discipline.  I could be wrong but I suspect I’ll get a great deal of satisfaction from writing a book.  I don’t care about the publishing aspect – I’m not trying to become a novelist.  I’ll just upload it to Amazon.  Related to writing is reading and I’ve already downloaded a series of books to my Kindle to keep me busy in that area.

I am happy with 2011 and feel pretty good about 2012.  At least I have plans.  One of my neighbors told me last night he intends to make quarterly resolutions for 2012 thinking they will be more obtainable.  Interesting concept.  I’m going to ask my friends and neighbors at the NYE party tonight what their goals are.  I usually find I’m not very unique and expect to hear numerous goals on health and fitness.  I’m curious as to what people’s work and career goals are.  I need to put some focus on that as well.  I had a really cool project in 2011 and have an idea of what my primary task will be for 2012, but it’s not well defined yet.  I like to manage my own career versus being tasked and I need to put some focus in that area.

For all my plans, 2012 is still unknown and whose to say what will happen.  I actually like the prospect of the unknown.  It’s exciting.

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