Self-publishing

I should have named this post: The Whine of Self-Publishing!

I love writing... I don't like the headaches of self-publishing. The e-book is finally available at Amazon & Barnes & Noble. I'm working on All Romance & Google Books. The cover images looked great on my computer and pretty much sucks online... I am so NOT a graphic artist.

On with my whining... Once I finished writing Forbidden Temptation of a Vampire, I thought: Oh, boy! Now comes the easy part. - Yeah, right, well, maybe next time it will be easier.

Hopefully, you can learn from my experiences. First, if you don't have MS Word, download OpenOffice.org. This is a FREE software similar to MS Office suite. Before downloading OpenOffice.org, download Go-OO. Why? Because OpenOfffice is a power hog, but it does not eat up as much power if you use Go-OO. No, I have no idea why. I just know it works. ;-)

For the ease of converting files (which is necessary to publish an e-book) don't save as a .doc save as .odt - if you don't, the end document/file comes out a bit off/wrong.

You can also create an e-book cover with OpenOffice.org/draw. Though, I hope you have better luck with the final image. I'd use Photoshop, but I don't have several hundred dollars just sitting around. ;-)
Another fantastic software is Calibre. This will take your document (.odt, .doc, or a dozen other file formats) and convert the file into MOBI (Kindle), E-pub (Nook), Lit (Microsoft Reader)... around a dozen conversion options. http://calibre-ebook.com/ - FREE download.

Calibre is great if you have an e-book for a Kindle, but just purchased a Nook. It will convert the e-book file!