Katy McDermott

As I work on the manuscript for my second book (1/3 of the way done!), I continue to promote my first book, Meeting Murder. Recently, a co-worker mentioned that I should consider making it available to Amazon Kindle owners.

“Great idea!” I said to him when he suggested Kindle, and I read through the directions.  I’m a self-published author (this time around), so that means I’d be solely responsible for uploading my manuscript into the Kindle system. I was a little leery, but the directions made it sound incredibly simple – “just a few clicks.” Even I could manage a few clicks, I thought…

Enter HTML code.

Amazon suggests – strongly suggests – that manuscripts be uploaded as HTML files. Mine is saved as a Word document, and converting it would involve special software, and (more important) knowledge that I clearly don’t have.

Thankfully, my co-worker (the wonderful – and patient – Brian Gould) is both a computer whiz and an independent artist in his own right (music’s his thing – he produced his own CD). Also thankfully, he took pity on me.

“I’m just not sure about this HTML conversion thing. Could you tell me how to do that?”

Brian managed not to laugh directly in my face, saying gently that it “might be easier” for him to handle the conversion himself. All I’d need to do would be send him the files.

So I did, and Brian took care of it. When I previewed the Kindle version of my book, however, there were neither scene divisions or chapter divisions – key elements to the way the reader experiences the story. So Brian went back to work inserting spaces and breaks via “HTML tags” of which I know nothing. (Bear in mind too that he has a busy and demanding job just like I do.)

Bottom line? By next weekend, Meeting Murder will be available for Kindle owners to download, and hopefully more people will read it.

And I’ll owe Brian Gould a bottle/case of the beverage of his choice!