Yes, that’s right – my ebook, Risky Issues, is finally out!
I’m jumping with joy over here! (Okay, I’m not, literally, but I AM pretty excited!)
During the past two weeks, I’ve been busy. As it turns out, there is A LOT I hadn’t considered doing, but did.
Let’s back up a moment, shall we?
First things first…
I tried to format my book for Amazon, but ran into problems. Most of you know already that I’m a self-proclaimed non-techie, so this shouldn’t surprise you too much!
But I AM resourceful.
So what I did was this: I went on Facebook and jumped onto a group for indie authors (to which I have belonged for a while) and simply asked for a recommendation to an inexpensive formatter. After several conversations, I ultimately got help from Rich Meyer.
Who the heck is Rich Meyer?
Rich Meyer offers services at a relatively cheap rate and does a great job.
He rambles on his blog, too. 😉 But amongst all the book reviews is a golden post about formatting for free.
So, yeah, Rich is a great guy.
And yes, yes, he’s an author, too. Check out his Amazon author page! It gives you some information about him and also lists the books he’s written.
Uploading Problems
I originally uploaded my ebook to Amazon with the ISBN I was given. (Because I live in Canada, I get ISBNs for free. I just had to apply for it.) But then, I noticed that there was a minor issue when I previewed my ebook. There was no space between two words, but there should’ve been. So I had to correct it and then upload a new file. But then, in the same sentence, a space was deleted again. I know that these issues were caused as a result of the formatting, as my Word document was perfectly edited. So, I uploaded it again, after fixing the problem.
However, because the two files were technically “different,” my ISBN would not be accepted by Amazon. So I emailed the person from CISS (the Canadian ISBN Service), who explained to me that “every time there is a change in format or a change in edition, a new ISBN must be assigned.”
Great. More work. And all because one file contained “thework” and the other, “the work.”
I took a deep breath, and requested a new ISBN. Because I was originally assigned a “block” (a set of sequential ISBNs that are assigned to a publisher or self-publisher), this was easy to obtain.
(FYI, ISBN blocks come in different sizes. They can contain either 10, 100, 1000, 10 000, 100 000 numbers. All ISBNs found in the block start by the publisher prefix and are followed by other numbers to identify a publication and validate the ISBN. A publisher prefix identifies the publisher and the country of the publisher, and my prefix showed that I am a Canadian publisher and that I was assigned a block of 10 ISBNs.)
Because I was changing my ISBN, I decided to add a P. S. to the Special Note From The Author section of my ebook. I added my special poem, which I wrote when I was fifteen. (I would have added it to the table of contents, but I didn’t know how to format it properly!) I then uploaded my new file to Amazon with the new ISBN.
Adding Books to Goodreads
Once all that was complete, I added my book to Goodreads. Again, I had some problems with this. (Big surprise… I am a non-techie, remember?)
I ended up speaking with someone from Goodreads who explained that once books are added to their database, they cannot be removed. Apparently there are strict rules for this, too. So my book is listed twice instead of once. But really, I’m assured, it’s not a big deal. I will know for next time, though, to make sure everything is perfect and to only do it once.
Sigh.
Secondly, the things authors need to do…
Then the real work began. By “real” I mean “time-consuming” and “tedious” but necessary.
What did I do?
- I set up an Author Central profile page.
- I had my account on Goodreads switched to that of an author, and set up my author profile.
- I set up a Google+ author page. (Please follow me!)
- I set up a Facebook author page. (Please LIKE it!)
- I added all these links to my about.me profile and my Google+ profile, and some to my LinkedIn profile, too.
What a pain in the butt this all was! But kinda fun, too. 😉 However, I’m grateful they are all done.
I was interviewed, too…
It seems like things happen really fast sometimes. Shortly after Risky Issues went live, my good friend and indie author Melissa Bowersock sent me an email asking me some questions, which she turned into a blog post: Author Interview: Lorraine Reguly on Reaching a Milestone.
I’d recommend reading it if you want to pick up some tips. 😉
Then there was the birth of a new site… free of charge!
During the past year, many people told to me to snatch up a website with my name as the domain. Their urgency was unnecessary, in my opinion, as I’m the only Lorraine Reguly in this world. (Yes, it’s true!)
But now that I’m an officially published author, I figured it was about time to set up an author website.
So I did.
In fact, about 16 days ago, I purchased my domain name. With my hosting plan with Abivia, I’m allowed to have four other websites free of charge!
I also purchased a premium theme, which I had a few problems with, but which I eventually ironed out.
I installed plugins – including a new one I just found out about (and which I also installed on this site, which has worked wonders!) called Anti-Spam. This plugin is free and I highly recommend it!
My new author site is called Lorraine Reguly: Laying It Out There. I even set up a place where people can subscribe to my Author Newsletter!
Commenting on the new site is not yet available
While I was setting up my new site, I disabled the ability for people to leave comments. So far, I have published three posts, all visible from the home page.
The posts are:
They are all very short posts, so I’d encourage you to give them a read.
What’s Next?
Next I have to get my book up on Smashwords. Then I have to begin marketing it.
I’m going to be asking others to help, too, so if you are a blogger and want to help me with this, please let me know via email. You can interview me, simply feature my book on your site, whatever… I’m open to anything, and appreciate all the help I can get. 🙂
And if you want to buy Risky Issues and/or leave me a review of it, you can do that, too!
Regardless of what you choose to do, could you please share this post on your social networks? I’d love it if you did!
Thank you, and see you soon!
Option 3 
