I look Very Hard For Nothing.

I swear I am getting square eyes.

I have been doing final preparation of my manuscript and cover of Veiled in Shadows.
I have decided to run with Lightning Source as my printer. They are more than competitive in terms of cost per book and they give some advantages in terms of distribution.

Like CreateSpace, the Amazon subsidiary, they have an easy path onto Amazon listings. A presence on Amazon is a vital part of my planned marketing campaign, and my main target will be the American market because it is so big in comparison to anywhere else.

Yet, if I want to sell Veiled here in Oz (or in the UK) Amazon is too expensive. It can cost as much (or even more) than the price of a book to airfreight a paperback from the US to Oz. Lightning Source is an Ingram International subsidiary, which means the potential of international distribution.

I don’t really expect many (if any) shopfront resellers will pick up Veiled, not unless I can get some real sales and interest happening. More to the point, from my perspective, is if Veiled is available at Ingram (which it will be) I may get it listed by the Book Depository. The big advantage of the UK based Book Depository is they don’t charge postage for air freight. And that’s anywhere in the world!

They are well worth checking out, I buy nearly all my books from them. Their prices are competitive with Amazon and no freight cost.

Now I am digressing from my square eyes. I have to submit my MS to Lightning Source (LS) as a PDF. No problem I thought, I already have converted it to PDF using some open source software.
Wrong! LS will only accept PDFs formatted on Adobe Acrobat.

So after a lot of hassle I manage to organise a copy of Acrobat. All good.

Wrong again!
My MS, which happily converted to a PDF using the other software, wouldn’t convert with Acrobat. One of the fonts I have used wouldn’t embed in the PDF using Acrobat (fonts have to be embedded so the printer can access them and I was using an odd one for a few pages of “letters” in the book) .

OK change the font to something similar that will embed.
Still won’t work. Acrobat reports the dodgy font is still in the document.

Much rending of clothes and tearing of hair!

When I calmed down I began a search of the MS to find wherever the font was hiding. No luck on a hard copy. So I begin trawling through an electronic copy. I can’t find it anywhere.

I realise with dismay I am probably looking for a few stray characters (of the font variety, not even Acrobat has taken a dislike to my villains).

No luck. I break the MS into separate chapters and test the most likely (the ones where I know I used the font).

Hallelujah I narrow it down to one chapter and scour that with a fine tooth comb.

Still no luck.

Then, as I contemplate retyping this chapter in a blank document, I look one last time.
I find it, a single solitary space in the wrong font. No wonder I couldn’t see it. I was effectively looking for NOTHING.

Just for your enlightenment I have included the offending space. Here it is. See there? There in front of the last carriage return. See it?

No, neither could I.

So finally last night I got the whole MS into an Acrobat PDF.

Ahh, sighs of relief all round.

Except now, I have to do another line by line check to make sure no errors in formatting have crept in with the change of font and PDF software.

At least this time I’ll be looking for things I can see.

I hope.



Now a totally random piccie, this time from my archive.
Another variety of Banksia
From the leaves I’d never guess this was a banksia, but these beautiful flowers are very distinctive.