Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Grimhilda! goes live

Been a busy week in which I've not only learned how to do the final processes required for getting my e-book, Grimhilda!, up onto Kindle, but also how to turn the original Word document into an .epub or .mobi file. I realised yesterday I had to have a copy in either one of these formats in order to fulfil my requirements with the National Library of NZ, which holds a copy of every e-book published in the country that's had an ISBN given to it by that library. The library acts as a kind of clearing house for ISBN numbers in NZ; it requires two copies of every printed book. Of course, it's difficult for a library to 'hold' a copy of an electronic book, soGrimhilda! has done her first 90 days on Kindle's promotional level, I'll need the book to be in those formats for sending it off to other devices, such as Kobo.
they have to have it in a format that's usable to them. .Epub and .mobi are the same formats public libraries use for their electronic books.  And, once

If you're still with me, that's great. Don't get too fussed, it's all a learning curve, for you and for me.

Anyway, Kindle says that the normal turnaround time for getting a book online with them is between 12 and 24 hours. I uploaded the final version of the book at 4.27 on Monday (I noted the time exactly!) and, when my wife came home told her she wouldn't be able to see it till the next morning. Nothing daunted, she checked anyway, and there, at 6.15, the book was up and running online. So of course she had to be the first to buy a copy, which rather puts our profits out of kilter, but at least it meant someone bought it. Later on, we were unexpectedly called over to my son's house to babysit, because my daughter-in-law had cut herself rather badly and was down at A&E. So Grimhilda! got its first 'reading to a grandchild' - or at least two or three chapters did. This same grandson, who'd seen the musical version back in 2012, and declared it 'awesome' at the time (so generous!), two years later struggled to remember it. Such is the price of fame. However, I gave him a few details to remind him, and he did remember actually going to it. I'm not sure that he realised the book was telling the same story. Well, that's the advantage of being able to take the same material and re-do it...

You can find Grimhilda! here.  Currently it's available for Kindle readers of all sorts, as well as Kindle apps on PCs and Macs, and on iPads and iPhones. And the Kindle apps on android phones too.





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