A long time ago, I learned computer stuff at work on a PC. It took me a couple of years to totally understand some of it (hard drives, servers, internet, file organizations, etc.), but once I did, I was hooked. The rest of my jobs included working on PCs and even at home, our computer was a PC. I’m very comfortable with it (please don’t hate me, Apple lovers).
About 6 years ago, I bought an old, refurbished Apple computer so I could format my own books using a program called Vellum. The company who puts out Vellum has vowed to never make a version for a PC so I had no other choice. I could have paid someone to format for me, but it cost more than this old Apple did, and I had big plans for multiple books.
Long story short, I hate Apple. It’s not intuitive for me, and I’m easily frustrated trying to figure it out; however, I loved Vellum and the way it formatted so I pushed through. When Vellum came out with a new version, my old computer wasn’t big enough or have the proper codes to allow it to load. I had to look for another option.
I found a PC program online called Atticus that formats books and had good reviews on its ease of use. Atticus is fairly easy to use and is getting easier the more I use it, but it’s not perfect. It has a tendency to delete hard returns in my documents or add them in strange places. Any manuscript I put in there, I have to reread to make sure paragraphs are together and where they belong. It increases the time spent on formatting, but it teaches me to be patient.
This past week, I loaded a Vellum file onto Atticus that I didn’t realize was corrupt because its programmed format is outdated. Atticus added chapters and paragraphs and returns all over the place. It was a mess! Thanks to my experiences as a technical writer, I know how to strip the formatting off a corrupt file and make it okay again. It takes a long time, but it’s not hard, only tedious.
I loaded the clean file back into Atticus and it looked much better but still had the occasional hard return where there was none and paragraphs together where they were supposed to be apart. To make sure everything was where it was supposed to be, I reread my book, Finding Love in the Snow, and really enjoyed it. It’s a good book!
The reason for reformatting it was to make that book available to many different eBook platforms including Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and others and also have my print book available through Barnes & Noble. It’s my new business plan that seems to be working well. Now that I have that one done, I’m on to the next. I’ll know what to do this time and not knock my head against the wall so much. Thus goes this writer’s life.
Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither you go. I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the strong, neither yet the bread to the wise, neither yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all. Ecclesiastes 9:10-11