Sharkbait Writes

A Hard Day of Work Paid Off

After a long day of final editing and formatting, I am pleased to announce that “Pursuit of a Dream” (Book One of Victory Lane: The Chronicles) is now available for download on Smashwords.com! I was originally only going to submit the book to Amazon.com for launch day, but I liked the idea of having the book available in several formats on Day 1. Plus, I was able to submit and test the file conversions very easily on Smashwords. Getting the formatting right was another issue altogether!

Tabs Are Evil!

When I wrote “Pursuit of a Dream” several years ago I had no idea that there would be devices such as the Kindle and Nook to publish my work on. So, when I tapped away on the keyboard I naturally hit the TAB key for paragraph indents. Oh, how I regret that now! I have learned that tabs are evil! They are a complete nightmare when it comes to publishing an e-book. While the process of fixing those dreaded tabs wasn’t complicated, when you have a 155,000 word manuscript and about half of it is littered with tabs, it becomes a literal headache. When I write Book 2, I’m not only going to utilize auto indents in my word processor, but I’m also going to remove that blasted TAB key from my keyboard! Okay, maybe I won’t go that far, but you get my drift. After surviving the dreaded formatting process I decided that I was going to reward myself with publishing my book today.

Publishing Jitters

After getting the tab situation under control and setting up my account on Smashwords.com, I began to get a little nervous. This was it. I’m finally going to publish this puppy for e-readers. It took several upload attempts, further formatting adjustments, and testing on my Kindle, PC, and iPhone to finally step away from my computer and consider the job complete. The book is priced, all of the formats were ready, and now it’s time for marketing. Oy! I didn’t think I was going to be this nervous after hitting that PUBLISH button, but here I am, shaking like a leaf. Did I find all of the errors? Is the formatting going to work? Did I catch ALL of those blasted tabs? Did I… well, you get the point. Seriously, though, I am very excited that I finally have my book ready for purchase on Smashwords. It’s been a lengthy but rewarding process. It’s another goal that I can mark as complete.

A Special “Thank You”

In closing, I want to express my appreciation for all of you who have been so supportive of me during this publishing process, particularly all of my friends in the #PubWrite Network. Your words of encouragement, guidance, and cheering me on has meant more to me that you can imagine. I absolutely could not have completed this project without you. You are all absolutely the most incredible people I have ever met. I mean it truly from the bottom of my heart. If it wasn’t for you, my lovely peeps at #Pubwrite, I never would have followed through the process of releasing “Pursuit of a Dream” in e-format. I also never would have created SharkbaitWrites.com. You all are awesome!

Until next time, thank you for visiting and if you are interested in reading my first book “Pursuit of a Dream“, please click on the image below and download a sample (or purchase, of course) and let me know what you think.

Cheers!