Patience is a Virtue.

by Louis Bertrand Shalako

c2010

All Rights Reserved


After practically giving up on getting my books into Google Books shortly before Christmas, I screwed up some guts and tried again. And again, the uploads kept failing. What I was getting was 'file name error' in the reports, time and time again.

Here is how you get into Google Books: make a nice clean pdf, with cover images, etc.

Now name your file: 012345678901.pdf

What this means is that you take your ISBN and remove the hyphens. Remove your name and your title. Essentially, the machine didn't care if my book was 'The Case of the Curious Killers, by Louis Bertrand Shalako.' When I uploaded it as, 978986687129.pdf the machine ate it right up.

***

So now I have a fairly well-formatted POD file, in Open Office, of my book 'Core Values.'

I just did this a week or two ago...but I cannot figure out how to get page numbers on opposite sides. I have them all nice and sequential. They seem to start on the right page...what the heck? It has to be some small thing...why go nuts over it?

Is it really important for me to jam out another POD tonight? Is it absolutely vital to spew out another three paperbacks by the end of the month?

What is all this for? Is it going to get me cut off of ODSP and nothing more? Changing one's life might er; take a little time. Bleep! I'm simply in no position to handle it right now...yikes!

Problem solv-ed, as Clouseau would say. Patience is a virtue, and a little perspective doesn't hurt either.

***

By clicking on account settings in 'Lulu,' I noticed that I can send an automatic e-mail thanking customers for their purchase. What an amazing feature! Awesome. What I need now is one of those product coupons.

Now, on Amazon, I have noticed that my books have no write-up in terms of a blurb.

There must be some way...right? Why can't I see that? There are times when I am not writing a thing and I still manage to keep busy. I need to dispose of about a hundred bogus and spurious versions, inevitably spawned during the learning process.

***

Sorry, I keep updating things. But if you check your e-mail settings, you may see something in there that says 'options.' This is where you go to make a 'signature' for your custom e-mails. I simply haven't found the time, right? But you could stick a product coupon-code into your thank-you note. Give them a break on the next purchase, you know the theory. People think signature means as in pen and ink. The way to do this is still a mystery, but I have been tempted to sign a full-size sheet of paper with a big magic marker. Then simply scan it and save it as a .doc. After that I kind of get lost, but it should be possible, er; somehow. Save it as an 'object,' or something.

Oh, yeah. Photoshop failed to install. I should have turned off antivirus, but oh, well. No one man can know everything.

But you have to admit, I'm getting pretty good. Not bad for an old bald-headed guy.