The front cover is ready thanks to the input of my cover designer Jonny Gillard who is a fabulous young artist and a pleasure to work with. He managed to take a few vague pointers from me about the novel and turn them into what you see above, save for some minimal changes. I was just amazed when I saw the first version as he has captured the feel of the story, a tale of an expatriate who is kidnapped while on vacation in the Philippines, not only with the picture but also with the colors he used.
This week I started work on formatting the interior. This requires two versions, one for the print copy and another for the e-book. The print version requires page numbers and headers indicating title and author. These are not required for e-books as the page layout will vary according to the font size and the e-reader will automatically calculate page numbers when it uploads the novel. The e-book does require a linked table of contents however, to allow easier searching of the book, while much of the formatting in the body of a print copy is not used in e-books, again because of font issues.
Despite having already been through this process with my first novel, I feel apprehensive about my ability to repeat the experience easily. While practise might make perfect, unfortunately it has been a year since I last produced a kindle version of my book Silent Lies, and over six months since I did the print copy, so I'm now wondering whether I can remember how I did it! I vividly recall some frustrating days as I battled with my inept technological skills, and computer programs which seemed determined to thwart me, memories which do not exactly inspire me to get going and tackle this second bout, but at least this time I do have the knowledge that, somehow, I got through it all.
No comments:
Post a Comment