My Personal Bookshelf Needs More

This image represents my personal bookshelf, meaning my physical collection of books I've written.

One book--one actual book I can hold in my hands. 

As you know, I've published eleven, but only one as a paperback. It's not that I discounted my eight novellas, but as paperbacks, they'd be pamphlet-size. I never saw the point. The only idea that makes any sense would be to combine perhaps four of them into an anthology and then creating a paperback version. Then create a second one with the other four. At least I'd have something to show for all my work.

As for my two other novels, well, you know...

It's actually not a bad idea, but a TON of formatting work. It was so difficult formatting Running From Herself for paperback, I wanted to commit hara-kiri. Maybe it was KDP's template, but one's gotta use some kind of template and this was the free one.

For anyone who's looking for a paperback formatting tool, do NOT purchase Atticus. I threw away $147.00 on this app, which in the end didn't work for uploading to KDP. After attempting to upload my manuscript multiple times and getting the same error message over and over, I finally gave up. 

Here is what Google recommends:

Online Tools

Canva (? - no specific templates to be found, which means lots of trial and error)

Reedsy Studio (I have not tried)

KDP (hard to work with for a variety of reasons)

Desktop 

Google Docs (don't even get me started on Google Docs. Most non-intuitive doc creator ever)

Microsoft Word's "Book Fold" (Really? It has such a thing? I don't trust Microsoft ever since it ate part of my manuscript.)

calibre (This is misleading. calibre--no capital "C"--is great for converting to epubs and PDF's, but it doesn't have any sort of formatting template or option.)

I admit, I'm a bit intrigued by Microsoft's Book Fold, but I'm naturally suspicious, given my past experiences with Word as a whole. (Did you know it randomly deletes docs? Poof! Gone! Never to be retrieved.)

If I was to format again, I would give Reedsy' a whirl, at least to test its complexity. (I don't like complexity.) 

I once created an ebook anthology that featured four of my novellas, but I didn't keep it published for long. The worst aspect of it was its cover. I don't, for the life of me, know what I was thinking when I chose it from among Canva's templates, but it was ugly as sin. The back side of a woman with a suitcase, who for some reason had an oversized butt--and was wearing a mini-skirt, no less.

 

As you can see, I didn't think it through. Aside from the ugly cover, the title is all wrong, i.e., stupid. "Finding Home" would have been better, or anything else. Most unfortunate of all was that it included "Second Chance", which no longer exists and is now the beginning of Running From Herself. (Second Chance had a horrible second half.) Luckily, I never sold one copy of it.

To be clear, I wouldn't be creating a paperback or an ebook in the hopes of selling any. I want a paperback copy for me, for my bare bookshelf. I would even consider getting one of those $35.00 covers from GetCovers. $35.00 would be the extent I'm willing to pay for one book--again, for myself.

The more I think about it, the more I'm warming to the idea. It wouldn't involve any actual writing. It would be a nice diversion. Plus, I would have something tangible in the end.

Stay tuned.