I, A Reasonably Intelligent Woman...

Cover design done?  Check!...Manuscript formatted?  Check!...Short synopsis ready?  Check!...Author bio complete?  Check! After I had gone through my little checklist, I figured I was ready to join my esteemed colleagues before me and jump on the Kindle publication bandwagon.  Unfortunately, that's not exactly the way it turned out...

I pretty much sputtered and died at the starting gate when I signed into KDP and couldn't add a new title.  I kept getting an error message and couldn't figure out why.  So much for easy-breezy!  Thank goodness for Amazon's help desk.  They suggested that if I was using Internet Explorer, I should try using Firefox instead.  Thankfully, that did the trick.  Step 1 down...

My next stumbling block came when I tried to upload the cover design and I kept getting an error message that the design I was trying to upload did not meet the pixel parameters required.  I tried reformatting the pixels - keeping in mind that I'm a non-computer-savvy chickie.  I finally managed to upload the altered image...but let's just say the cover didn't look anything like the cover was supposed to look when I previewed it - not by a long shot.  Uploading the formatted manuscript was no problem and I quickly received confirmation that it had uploaded properly.  Only one problem, though.  There was nothing there when I tried previewing it!  At this point, I didn't know what to think.  How was it that I, for the most part a reasonably intelligent woman, couldn't seem to upload two professionally-prepared items in what was supposed to be a straightforward, seemingly foolproof process??  Arghhhh!!

A quick - and somewhat panicked email to FormattingExperts followed.  They assured me that they had sent the right pixel count image but promptly sent me another sample with a larger pixel count.  I decided to delete the current publication effort and try again.  Let me tell you - there's absolute truth to the old adage that second time's the charm.  It was and everything worked tickety-boo.  Chalk one up to reasonably intelligent women everywhere...this one was suddenly on a roll...