Backlist Soon to be Up Front Again!
So, I’m behind, as usual.
I’ve been slowly scanning and editing my five out of print books (otherwise known as the OOPs). The first one, The Fairy Tale Bride, is almost ready for me to upload to Smashwords and Amazon. I envisioned this process being much smoother. On the other hand, I’ve learned a lot (going over a book that you wrote ten years previously is very instructional). I did not make a lot of edits, but I did take out most of the exclamation points (I didn’t use many, but I don’t use any in my writing any longer — and I always tell my students to let the words do the work 99% of the time).
I have spent a goodly amount of time wishing I had the digital files for these books, because scans are messy and time consuming. And, as is my luck, everything that could go wrong, has gone wrong.
Since misery loves company, I’ll share just a bit of my attempt to hurdle the obstacles to getting my backlist book up as e-books this week, in preparation for releasing The Fairy Tale Bride next week (ish — depends on Smashwords and Amazon).
First Hurdle – one of my daughter’s friends scanned in two and 3/4 books using our flatbed scanner (yes, that was as much fun for her as it sounds). Basically, she spent several days over several weeks taking apart my books, scanning one page, then flipping it to scan the other side. At least she could listen to music and take texting breaks.
My amazing scanner-printer-copier-fax
Then…the scanner made a hideous grinding, screeching sound and stopped scanning. Work stopped while I contemplated what to do in between all my other work.
Enter the amazing multi-purpose machine — with a double sided paper feeder option, to boot. Unfortunately, the pages of the book were too small and fragile.
Hurdle #2 will be discussed next — the attempt to find a way to scan more than one page at a time.
Kelly
