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Last September Valerie was in the final stages of writing her novel. She was ready to send the manuscript to our editor for a final edit. She was spending hours on the internet looking for agents and publishers. I was building the web site and searching POD options and prices in case we decided to publish the book ourselves. I had mentioned starting our publishing venture with an e-book. A few years back I bought an audio seminar on the internet and e-book possibilities. I built my first web site and created an e-book on the problems of caring for our older parents, it was informative and offered lots of information that I had learned about after finding out I was the person designated to take control of my mother’s affairs. She'd broken her hip and suffering from Alzheimer’s disease would finish out her life in a nursing home. I sold some copies, not a bunch but enough to pay the expenses of hosting a web site. Valerie told me if I could find a way to make an e-book look like a real book I could give it a try. Great, hey what’s wrong with a PDF file like everybody else’s? Being the wonderful and considerate husband that I am, grumbling under my breath, off I went on a new internet search. After refining my search, I found something that might work. DNL Reader, Desk Top Author? Click here on this thumbnail, up pops book looking thing. Wow looks like a book to me! Let’s see click on the corner of the page. Hmm? Look at that the book opens and turns to the left just like opening a real paper book. Eureka! Okay problem solved as I hit the free trial download. How cool is this I found Valerie a book looking e-book program builder thingy and only spent about an hour searching on the web. “Hey Val, do we have $245.00 to spend on a program? I found a book looking e-book builder program. I think will do the trick.” So, Wife takes a look and with her usual encouragement asks. “You sure you can do this? Looks like a lot of work. Yeah Honey, piece of cake, no problem, where’s the credit card?” With credit card in hand, I log on to the web site and follow the directions. I typed in my card number and rechecked for accuracy; cool got right the first time. Downloading went smooth, no problems. As always, I’m eager to open the program. I’m ready to start building the greatest e-book ever. A former purchaser wrote, “I built my first book in two hours with this program.” Hey, piece of pie easy as cake, I’ll be done in no time. Two hours later, I’m back reading the help file. At least the help file is helpful; must not have anything to do with Microsoft. Okay let’s see I have a blank white rectangle, about twelve inches wide and about eight inches high. Help says add a template from the template folder. I click on the template pop -up box. “Hmm two hundred templates, blue ones green ones, ones that look like a cook book. Aha, book template looks like a 3-D image of book pages. I like that and copy and paste to the white rectangle. Why is the image smaller than the rectangle? Oops just drag it around to the proper size, got it. “Val, look at this I made it look like a book!” “Where’s the words?” “I haven’t gotten that far yet, this is just the page lay-out.” “Okay, let me know when your finished. You’ve been at it for three hours. You told me a couple hours and you’d be done” “I can’t help it; they didn’t mention the learning curve. I’ll get it in no time, I promise.” What’s this button on the right side? ‘Insert multi-page text flow.’ Click. Cool, a text editor box, copy and paste text here. I minimize the program and start Microsoft Word selecting the book file. Well I can’t hurt the book from copying and pasting. Select copy all- restore program-click-paste-zip. Well look at that all the text appeared in little boxes. It’s on the left page I wanted to start on the right side. Back to the help file, oh delete first box and it will move to the next page, Minimize help-click on the box-click delete. Hey it worked! Let’s see the red arrow advances to next book page, click. What nothing moved I’m still on the first page! Slowing down a bit and re-reading the help files I soon learned to add pages as I needed them, installing page numbers and text. After a weeks worth of evenings of copy and pasting, and deleting and redoing, I had built a passable e-book. I’m ready to show Wife the blood sweat and tears I’ve shed for her aspirations to becoming the next great novelist. “I like the cover. How come the paragraphs aren’t indented can you fix that?” “Well anyway it works and it looks like a book doesn’t it?” I protested. “Don’t you like the page numbers?” “I like the way you laid it out, I’m sure you’ll get it perfect, you always do, thanks Honey. After a few more tries I developed an e-book that looks like a real book and best of all, Wife likes it too. Overall, this is a great program, which will develop an outstanding e-book. It does require some study and a lot of trial and error. Like anything worthwhile, the more effort you put into it the better your rewards. Bill |
The Building of an E-book
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| Bill's Corner |
It was a few years ago my nephew Kevin was studying to become a minister. During spring break, he decided to go in to the city and preach in the park. Holding a small American flag and preaching to a small crowd, he noticed a young man standing nearby. The man looked downtrodden and had only socks on his feet and no jacket. He defiantly wasn’t dressed for the crisp spring weather. Kevin approached the young man after he finished his sermon and asked him, why no shoes? The young man told him he had just arrived in the city and was promptly robbed of everything he had with him; they even took the shoes off his feet. He was in a new city without his suitcase or shoes and lost all his money. Kevin told him he had an extra pair of shoes in his car and would be glad to offer them to the young man. With thanks, the young man left the park, with at least something to wear on his feet. After returning home to get ready to go back to school, my sister asked Kevin why he was wearing ratty old sneakers after she had bought him that new pair of expensive Nike's. Kevin told her about the young man and giving him the new Nike's. Of course, my sister was irate. Raising five children - three in college, - every dime needed stretching. Kevin returned to school without any new shoes. A week later, my sister received a phone call from a neighbor down the street. The neighbor asked what size shoe Kevin wore. My sister wanted to know why. She knew no one had mentioned Kevin giving away his new pair. The neighbor told her he'd closed an account with a major shoe manufacturer and as a gift they had sent him three pairs of their top of the line tennis shoes, size 11 ½. He wore size 9. He wondered if Kevin could use them. It just happens Kevin wears size 11 ½ God certainly works in mysterious ways.
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Minor Miracles
