SquarePeg Books

So.

I’ve gone through videos for how to use Atticus, to generate epubs and format PDFs, and I’m already grumpy.

I knew that I would have to twist and beat my manuscripts into submission to comply with industry standards, but I hadn’t realized it would be so involved.

I remember, back in the late 1900’s, when we were promised so much about technology: It was going to make things easier–we wouldn’t have to stretch out brains to make the computers do the thing, whatever that thing was. The Jetsons promised us flying cars and home cleaning bots for 1999, but has thus far only delivered carpal tunnel syndrome and embarrassing FaceTime calls.

I should be grateful that I have an opportunity to learn new things like this. I should be thankful that I have the ability to learn. I should be hopping with joy that there are so many resources out there to help with my questions when learning a new thing.

So what have I learned thus far?

I have learned that even though Atticus works on Linux, it only accepts .docx files.

Which I do not have access to save to, because reasons.

I have learned that while every author has their own checklist of whatwhenwherehowwhy for prepping a file to upload, the vast majority aren’t terribly interested in sharing it. Though there are formatters who have made YouTube videos, you have to sift through to find the one that doesn’t drive you nuts because they stop just short of answering your question.

I’ve learned that drilling the Internet and YouTube specifically for advice on how to work with OpenOffice documents to prep them for upload to get them into ANY kind of publishing format, is a wee bit of a bitch. Not impossible, just unpleasant. (This is actually a personal phenomena–I can find anything for anyone on the Internet, so long as I’m not looking for something for me.)

I guess Open Office users aren’t supposed to be writers, because we don’t bow to the current software overlords.

OpenOffice can format a document into an epub, but when done, the only way I can view it is in html code. That could be user error, but it’s been 30 years since I hand-jammed html code. No thank you.

I’m researching Scribus as an alternative to Adobe InDesign, but there’s a learning curve, there as well (it would be a learning curve either way, really). I would like to thank M.K. Williams on YouTube (that’s her channel) for her video on the subject. It’s long, but it is almost exactly what I was looking for.

Though I am taking notes as I find nuggets of information, I am also staring at these notes and wondering if they work in my particular case, should I ever get the damn things to the next step.

I was hoping to have the first MS out at least by Yuletide. No sales or marketing reasons, just to get the process figured out and then we move on to the next step, kind of thing.

That does not appear to be happening, right now.

Perhaps I should just count my blessings that I don’t have to host or cook this year for Thanksgiving, and just call it good.