One Down…

[ursulav]

I spent today in the bowels of the beast, by which I mean Amazon and Smashwords. Most of the Amazon time was spent trying to figure out how I tell it that I don’t want to be exclusive to Kindle and just hitting “Save” until it told me it was in review and I couldn’t poke anything any more. I guess that’s how that works.

Theoretically the Goblin

Comments

Hooray!

[ext_5398]

I am about to read the EPUB version. I will keep an eye out for errors.

As a reader I really, really appreciate the effort you've gone to to put this up on Smashwords. :)

Re: Hooray!

[ext_5398]

Is there a central place to report typos without spamming the comments? I have found one instance of "Corp" instead of "Corps" so far.

Re: Hooray!

[ursulav]

Ah...hmm, no, haven't set one up yet! If you just want to post here, that's fine by me--this won't be the primary "Rah Rah New Book!" post done by Author Wearing Pants.

If you can give me the chapter it's in and a rough location (1/3rd, halfway, whatever) that's actually more useful than page number because devices.

Re: Hooray!

[ext_5398]

Right. Here is my grand total of two typos:

* Chapter 1; ebook reader says 7.2 / 253 (?!) "Mechanics Corp"
* Chapter 2; 16.3 / 253 "Gob­lin di­vorces are no­tably for"

[derakon]

Speaking as a technologist, it is amazing how much rage modern technology can bring out in even the most mild-mannered of people. I think it's something to do with there being Rules that you must Follow that are not spelled out anywhere, and when you break them things just sort of fail to work right with at best a cryptic error message telling you what went wrong.

[ursulav]

Exactly. It's like being the rat in the maze and nobody's telling you why you keep getting the electric shock.

[archie_c]

This is because programmers are not wired correctly (I was one once - I had the extra wiring removed but I still twitch and get the nightmares). What they think is useful and intuitive would have anyone who spends more time in the sun and doesn't live in SecondLife (I'm guessing) screaming and clawing at their own face.

[silly_swordsman]

I wouldn't say programmers aren't wired correctly; I'd say they live in a different world. What they see as useful and intuitive often is, to someone who, like them, have an intimate understanding of the underlying structure of the system. Decoupling the user's experience from the architecture underneath is a special skill that is both hard to acquire, and of little use to the majority of programmers, who develop things (applications, frameworks, APIs etc) that are aimed at other programmers.

Mind you, in my 20 years as a programmer, I've never been tempted to play SecondLife or HabboHotel or what have you, so what do I know?

[telophase]

I cannot tell you what the problem is, but the MOBI version that I just bought from Smashwords doesn't work with the Kindle document delivery service when I try to email it to my Kindle. The error email I got is not particularly helpful, but I can forward it to you if you'd like to read it (just let me know what email address).

I'm about to try manually moving the file to the Kindle and see if that works, but I have to go dig up the cable from whereever I put it when I was unpacking. Will update and let you know.

(If that doesn't work either, I've got an iPad and will read the EPUB version there, or read the HTML version on my computer. I am sanguine about this experience, having seen other friends experience ebook-conversion hell!)

[ursulav]

That's interesting (in a bad way...) Have you gotten Smashword files transferred successfully before? Since I just upload a .doc and they do the .mobi conversion, there's a limit to how much troubleshooting I can do on that part, but if you want to forward it to ursulav (at) gmail.com I can at least stare at the unhelpful code and shake my head!

[telophase]

The only one I've purchased before didn't have a .mobi version, so I hadn't tried sending that. I sent the PDF file of it to the Kindle and that seemed to work.

Manually moving the file to the Kindle worked fine, and I note that Smashwords' documentation doesn't mention emailing at all, just downloading files to the Kindle directly, so it may be a known problem.

I'll forward it on on the off chance that you can figure it out. If not, no harm, no foul, since it'll get onto the Kindle in some way!

[ursulav]

I'm glad you managed to get it onto the Kindle in some fashion! (There's a bit where the PDF tells you that the author is Ursula Vernon, which I can't fix, but eh, it's not like my name's not on the copyright page and the About the Author...)

[dancingcucumber]

Yup, that was an Ursula Vernon book alright! It was a fun read, in the way that the older Discworld books were before they started getting all metaphysical. Thanks for the new book.

[keleri]

I'M EXCITED :DDD I have a kindle so I'll wait for amazon as per your ETA.