My Anthology's Progress - Day ??

It seems I missed a day...or three...of working on my anthology series. I still totally want to do it (I think), but the project isn't exactly scintillating. It's compiling and formatting and other clerical tasks that I hated even when I did clerical work for a living. But at least back then, I was getting paid to do them.

My GetCovers first mockup arrived, and I need to take responsibility for the way it turned out. GetCovers works from stock images, and I picked out three from its go-to repository, Shutterstock, that I thought would work the best. I'm not sure why I'm paying $35.00 to have some text slapped atop a stock image, but there you go. I think I had a misconception about the site; I assumed I'd at least end up with something more professional than what I could create myself. Anyway, the die is cast--I already paid them. Overall, the job they did is "fine", and now I'm stuck having them create a second cover, because I want the two books to look like they belong together. My responsibility in the matter is that I found a photo that contained the colors I wanted, but I neglected to take into account that the overall veneer of it is dull. It's more like a painting than a photo.

As for the second book's contents, I've already corrected two of the stories in order to (mostly) remove some objectionable words and to fix the one typo I found, but as for formatting, I have yet to begin. I'm still questioning the layout of Book 1 and whether I should add a preface to the paperback version with (essentially) the blurbs for each of the four stories. That was easy enough to do for the ebook, but I'm a little scared of the paperback template, since I finally managed to get the right formatting, and by adding a blank page I may well blow the whole thing up. (Yes, keep the original copy and experiment with a new one--duh; I know.)

With the first cover all done except for the final version landing in my in-box, I know I'm going to need a blurb for when I publish. I have no idea how to do that for a compilation of four stories. I suppose I'll start by viewing other anthologies on Amazon and then winging it.

To be clear, it's not that I expect to sell any copies, but I also don't want to present myself as a hopeless dolt. As for pricing, who cares? Again, no one's going to buy it; I'm only doing this project so I can have a physical copy. 

I have nothing else to report. But never fear, I always finish what I start, so my updates will hopefully be more fulsome in days to come.