Something Wicked Awesome This Way Comes?

Create Space has just made an announcement that has me pretty hopeful and excited. New options for digital proofing are being offered, and they could be the answer to many, many prayers.

Check out the screen shots and more info

HERE

One of the heart-breaking things about reading reviews of indie books is the unfair standard to which they are held. But formatting is very, very often the culprit. I have often argued that I find just as many typos/research mistakes/grammar issues in NY pubbed books, and this is absolutely true. Formatting? No. No, we get our butts kicked there, and I have been guilty of missing that stuff, too.

The frustration for some of us has been nearly crippling. We write the book, we revise the book, we edit the book, and call in additional troops to do the same. Then we format the book and publish…

Only no, we don’t. I don’t, anyway. I usually have no issues with Kindle Direct Publishing. Once I discovered that HTML was the better format, it was a pretty quick conversion for me… I just move my manuscript into Dreamweaver, hand-code the chapter links and what-not, and I’m good. Smashwords and I are currently in a dysfunctional relationship. If not for Barnes and Noble I would very likely give up on them all-together, since the “grinder” is a POS. And since BN has been such a hostile little brat lately, I am likely going SELECT with Cry Uncle. Amazon has been good to me, and none of the others have. I sell on Amazon, and they respond to questions quickly. I’ve been ignored by BN over a rather important issue for six months, so I’ve more or less written them off, since they’d written me off before we started. There you have a quick summary of Amazon’s war on competitors: the competitors suck and Amazon doesn’t. (How dare they? Fascist bastards!)

Okay, yeah, that was a rant, huh?

Create Space is offering authors a way to save a lot of money by giving us this tool to get it right quicker, see it more clearly, and avoid getting slammed for copies of physical proofs. I will still order a proof before pubbing, but this will most likely make that a singular process. Being able to pre-view the cover and the entire manuscript? Genius.

Someday soon a clever developer is going to launch a stand-alone program like Dreamweaver for e-publishing. I know people will suggest they exist, but they don’t. The day is coming. I’m hoping that, soon, I will be able to spend $100 on a piece of software—EpubbIt by Pubalooza or something—and simply convert a word document, look at a WYSIWYG interface, tweak and play. It will happen.

In the mean time, this is a huge step forward.