Welcome to Elakand

Welcome to Elakand. There is my life where I pay bills, check e-mail, visit with friends, read, watch movies, and snuggle my cat. Then there is the life of my life where I have adventures in the medieval kingdom of Elakand with my troubadour, Sir Loriano of Vayne, and his whitewood kitarra.

Monday, November 10, 2014

New Book Cover: Redux

Yesterday I drank my coffee, dusted off my hands, booted up my computer, and went to tackle the cover upload again. Open Firefox (check). Log into Create Space (check). Find Dashboard/Replace Cover (check). Browse (check). Choose file ...
How come all the Print cover art files are greyed out? I just uploaded one yesterday. I squint at the file menu and see that the other Print covers are .PDF and this new one is .JPG.
Merde!
Back to Square 0 and contact the artist.
The gods do not want me to use this new cover!
Or maybe it's Mercury Retrograde or something.

Saturday, November 8, 2014

New book cover - Aarrghh!!


I really love the original yellow and red cover on DARK LADY'S STONE with Loriano playing to the Stone with the image of the Lady. Many people have commented favorably on it, but many others said it wasn't a good cover and would turn readers off.
So I finally got a new one to see what will happen and went to upload it to Create Space. It was endless frustration! I think The Gods are firmly against that new cover! Or maybe it's my resistance to change. First I couldn’t figure out where, on Create Space’s setup/ cover screen to input the new file. So I phoned them, and their representative quickly pointed it out. (Why I hadn’t seen that in the five times I’d looked???) So I hit “Upload cover." “Browse.” And I got a message to update Adobe on my browser. I don’t WANT Adobe on my Safari! Why did I get Firefox & Chrome except to have a browser with Adobe? And why do I need Adobe to upload a .PDF anyway? I kept hitting "Later" and "No." Create Space wouldn’t let me proceed. Update Adobe or else!
Back to Square 0. Open Firefox. Log into CS again. Find Cover Setup. Hit Browse. Choose File. I choose the file. Hit upload. And it starts loading—Ta-Da! Two-thirds of the way through a message flashes: Upgrade Firefox. Screw it! I hit Later. And thank the gods my cover file keeps loading. When it finally finishes it looks just like the old cover. I go back to my folder, double-check my artwork files—and it is the old cover!! And furthermore CS is reviewing my submission and I can’t make further changes until they finish. 
Aarrghh!