Reformatting Can Be a Nightmare

For the conclusion of deciding to reformat my first three books for some design cohesion (took out the pain in the ass illustrations and went for text-only-- I'm going to publish the images on other platforms instead of in the books), I've thoroughly decided I'll more carefully consider what platform I ever do print illustrations again. KDP's interface is just not self-pub friendly for that. I might looked into it for any comic publishing, but honestly, I'd rather trad-pub comics and let some formatting masochist do what they do best and stick to the creative there.

In case you do want some basic tips on formatting (the easier text-only kind), you can always check out my Formatting 101 post. It uses Word and I'm on a Mac but the options should be pretty similar on any word processor. If not, drop me a line on the difference and I'll edit the post with your discovery. Please provide screenshots if this is something I can't test with my software. If I add it, I want it to be repeatable for anyone else. (I have not yet tried to publish outside of using Scrivener for my current WIP, but if I run into hiccups there, I will do a future post on what to look out for).

So, what was a nightmare with KDP? That's what I wanted to get into. First off, I had to get into the original .docx (saved as PDF once final) and remove pictures, update table of contents, etc. At first, I attempted to just set the image to Bleed and repaste the pictures. Word is kind of a pain for that and the change in size from 6x9 to 5x8 meant it totaled my page count for any resizing of fonts, making realigning page breaks and pictures a chore not worth doing. It also meant I had to redesign/resize the covers once I got the new page count regardless of whether I kept the images or not. Here's the thing-- the templates are kind of crap for covers. I downloaded the appropriate cover template for the page count and almost every single time, it gave me shit about the 1/8 of an inch in length I was off. I would much rather that each template (kind of throwing you in a ten page RANGE, not exact) would also give you the exact spine measurements to adjust the template. I do believe you can find the calculations, but it's not direct linked to the reviewer so more digging. Really, the system could auto-stretch it, let me decide if I'm okay with that (I would be-- it never distorts it when I do it manually) and we'd be good. Why? Because the page reviewer is a necessary step in approval and both uploading content and the page reviewer is SO SLOW.

So redoing all three books took the better part of two days and I'm awaiting review to make sure it actually took. Sometimes they create a new problem like 'hey, this is already on CreateSpace' or 'did you mean to change a few things?' and I have to verify all that before it's good to go. So If I decide to go the image route in the future, I'm going to pore through their pages, ask a shit-ton of questions and make sure I have the right measurements from the onset so I'm not uploading 30+ images to Photoshop to file through the Action menu and do batch resizing like a mo-fo. I'm pretty damn tech-savvy but some of the things that are supposed to be 'easier' tend to just make the user redo things that would have better been done with a simple sizing table. Because I can do that too. I can do things pretty damn well with just simple measurements from scratch. You don't get into digital design if you're not good at math and visual problem-solving.

I did manage to get some doodling done while waiting for that process. Playing around with the design for my alien dude. Realizing I made his suit a bit complex, but he's not going to be sporting it very long. I mean, he is going to have to 'blend in' on Earth so unless he's planning on milling around cosplay cons, raves, or Halloween parties, he's SOL in space gear. It'll make his appearance in the first episode cooler though. You have to get people in with a draw, not just to your style, but your effort. I've always wanted to do an alien story though, so should be fun. And yes, I've already been researching where I plan to publish and looking at templates. So before I do ANY actual drawing for it, I will know what it's going to do to my images! Right now, I'm just on concept. I'm supposed to be 'relaxing' anyway, but I clearly don't understand how that works. I always end up poking at something. Sorry, but relaxing, in all the ways I try it, just creates boredom, which is not a fun concept for me at all. Anyways---

Format. Is so. Important.