Novels do not take place on a regular day!

My new novel is underway, a delicious stage where anything is possible. It's a good time to consider that readers crave exciting experiences and extraordinary insight. They want to be taken on a journey. I'm trying to ask a lot of What if? as I go.

What if the ice on the lake isn't as solid as my narrator thinks it is? Or a question like this: What's the worst thing my narrator could do? Remember that novels do not take place on an ordinary day. They pull together all the extraordinary bits in a year or ten years and distill it into something full of tension and intrigue, and yes....even in a literary novel. Especially in a literary novel.

My Mother's Dress -- second ebook "short"

If you have ever crocheted or been given a blanket (poncho, vest, hat, sweater) crocheted by a loved one, you will enjoy My Mother's Dress. Besides being about a dress, it's a story about surviving Ontario winters. When my family moved from the city to the country, my mother wasn't exactly prepared for the adventure, especially the isolation of winter. You'll find the story on Amazon.com.

My ebook is for sale on Amazon.com

What a great feeling to post my first ebook. The collection is called Back to the Land and the first 2000 word memoir is called My Father's Parrot (available at Amazon.com).

I'm already hard at work on my second one, My Mother's Dress, which will be published by the end of the summer. I'm hooked on the idea of presenting them as ebooks. I like having input into the cover concept. I like seeing the books for sale on Amazon. I've been working on them for the last ten years, so it feels wonderful to publish them.

I hope you enjoy the books.

My Father's Parrot

Lately I've been blogging about my first ebook, a memoir called My Father's Parrot. I thought I'd post a picture from the 70s of my father with Lapa. He's feeding the bird a grape.

Parrots only bond with one other person (usually it's another bird but a person will do). My father brought out the best in our parrot. He could flip the bird over on his back and tickle his belly, he could get Lapa to dance an old-man shuffle, and he could get him to talk and imitate the noise of the vacuum.

Becoming an Indie Author

In order to publish my own books, I've established a company called Wildwood Ebooks. I've registered it with British Columbia. Name Search: $14.00 and Cost of Registration:$ 72.00 (You can do your name search for free, but I didn't know this at the time.)

I've applied for an ISBN number for my ebook.

Now onto preparing the manuscript!

I'm following the requirements as specified by Kindle Direct Publishing, but I've decided to upload an html document, rather than a .doc file. It's a bit more complicated, but I've gone this route because various people said that it will yield a better result.

Cover Art: I've given the following information to the designer:

Horizontally: minimum of 500 pixels
Vertically: minimum of 1280 pixels

Be sure to Save at 72 dots per inch (dpi) for optimal viewing on the web.

The cover will be delivered to me as a JPEG and then I'll insert it into my document.

So far so good!!

Converting your file to an ebook.

One of the biggest questions I had at the beginning of the process was how to convert my file to an ebook. Was it something I could do myself? Did I have to hire a company to convert the file for me? If so, what company? Who was offering a file conversion service?

Short answer: there are companies who will convert your file for you. The charge seems to be around $150-$200. Remember, you're just paying for file conversion. You don't have to give up any royalties or control over the process. One such company is eBook Architects (Joshua Tallent) who came highly recommended to me. Wait time for your converted file: 10 weeks.

Joel Friedlander has put together a list of eBook conversion service providers but when I try to put the link in here, it always disappears. Not sure what that is all about, but I'd suggest you Google ebook conversion directory and see what turns up for you.

But I decided not to go with a conversion company. I decided to create a Kindle ebook and distribute my ebook through Amazon. The site is Kindle Direct Publishing. Now, if you watch the Youtube video, it looks really simple and maybe it is. You just load up your doc file (not docx) and Kindle Direct Publishing converts it for you.

Trouble is, some people say you are better off loading an html document into Kindle Direct Publishing. I decided to create an html document rather than run the risk of poor results. I used something called Emerald Editor, also called Crimson Editor, to create an html document. Then I used Mobipocket Creator to edit my html document and preview it. Then I uploaded this version to Kindle Direct Publishing.

So this route is more work than handing over your file to a conversion service, but it doesn't cost anything. It makes sense to do the conversion myself since I'm going to be putting up a series of short ebooks. Thankfully, you can get help from the Community -- a discussion forum on Kindle Direct Publishing. Also, I'm learning about html simply by googling questions like: How do I centre text in html?

It's been a steep learning curve, but at least I found a way that worked and didn't cost me anything.

Ebooks -- Covers

Moving ahead on my ebook cover. The designer asked me to go online and have a look at feathers since I wanted a feather on my cover. Not that the designer will use these feathers, but they will give her some idea of what I have in mind. I wanted a feather that looked like it had been through the wash and I wanted a parrot feather. The name of the memoir is My Father's Parrot.

I sent Dee two feathers from Google Images that are not the right feather but had qualities I was looking for. One was all rumpled but too pointy. Another had the right attitude but was too stubby.

Next, I looked at thumbnails. I went to Amazon and had a look at ebooks and chose three that I liked and two that I didn't. Surprisingly, because I consider myself a minimalist, I liked a book cover with big type on the front. I liked it because I could read the title so easily. Another one I chose on the basis of colour. I liked the warm, sunset red colour. The third I chose because of the whimsical image and how it drew me in to want to know more.

Out of the two covers I didn't like, one had type that was so small I couldn't read the title or author's name. Why else are you looking at a cover? The second one was a cover that I kept seeing again and again as I scrolled through the ebooks, which I thought was really odd. Was it some sort of commercial cover available through a program? It wasn't the same author and the topics seemed to vary wildly. Anyway, I just wanted to steer away from anything that looked similar.

In addition to these pics which I emailed to Dee, I gave her the title and author name and a request for no caps and a round font. "Round" is not very specific but I wanted a font that didn't take itself too seriously.

Dee wrote me back asking me what size I wanted to see in terms of a proof. Right away, I knew I wanted to see a thumbnail size (1 inch x 1 1/2 inches) and I requested to see an e-reader size. My ereader is a Sony and the screen measures 3 1/2 x 5 inches. I'm not sure if it costs any extra to see two sizes, but I thought these two sizes were important to preview.

That's all for covers!