Easy peasy lemon squeezy
Indie publishing is great fun. We get to see our baby take shape, totter its first steps, and, in the midst of updates, changes and design decisions, we can really see the potential of a new product, our new product.
So why, when the process – which is like taking a hundred small steps on spider-web silk – is such fun (easy peasy lemon squeezy…) , and so interesting, do I also find it knackering? I think I may have found an answer.
It’s because there are so many processes to go through for the first time.
To open an account on Amazon KDP takes a few minutes; and that process repeated on CreateSpace, IngramSpark and Draft2Digital also takes a few minutes each time. Even so, the dashboards and their requirements are subtly different; and becoming used to the nuances of each, takes mental effort and patience.
Each step is ‘obvious’ when we know how. Which translated, means, when we have done it before. But setting up accounts, uploading books, images and information for the first time in a host of different contexts is sometimes fraught and occasionally terrifying, if only because every single screen terrain is new and different.
I am well used being exact and precise when it comes to uploading information. Though it doesn’t come naturally to me, I do check and double check my dots and commas, and the host of data that is collected and stored to enable book production and promotion.
Though practice makes blasé, for novice runners a first time for everything turns a timetable for publication into a marathon. Seeking answers to obvious questions, (‘How do I upload an image?’) I don’t often get replies, and so have to google for answers and yes, when I see the button on the ‘front page’ marked ‘upload image file’ that then gets filed away in the ‘Can do’ folder.
So I’m glad I have learned to appreciate what I have learned, and to give myself credit for persevering. It has been worth it, and will continue to be, if only because of what I learn.
Please share:
June 7, 2017 @ 4:50 pm
totally agree and once you’ve learned it you wonder how come you could ever get it wrong. Top marks for persevering.
June 7, 2017 @ 4:58 pm
YAY! It’s funny how people say, ‘It’s easy, nothing to it!’ but – not when we haven’t done it before. Now I know, I feel as light as a feather, and so relieved. 😀 😀 Thanks for commenting, Diane.