Writing Difficulties

I've uploaded a copy of Scary Mary for the Kinlde and like the iPad I have to charge .99 for it. It's still free on Smashwords so I'm worried that someone becomes annoyed that they purchased this book when it's free elsewhere. (I've sold a grand total of one copy.) I don't know if I should remove the Kindle version from Smashwords or not.

I've gotten my first review over at Smashwords. That's nice. The reviewer was very fair. I hope she comes to my website to read Stalking Shadows. I'm still seeing sluggishness at Smashwords. Right now, I can't get the site to load. Over 300 copies have been downloaded.

I'm very annoyed with Microsoft Word. It is making it nearly impossible to edit Unicorn Bait. The display goes wonky whenever I change anything. The cursor appears on different lines after I type something and lines repeat or disappear. It's maddening. It's all in the display. The lines don't actually repeat or disappear. They just appear to. It's very difficult to keep track of where I am or to keep any sort of flow going when I have to page up and down to refresh the screen. I've spent way too much time searching for a fix to the problem. I thought it was being caused by some images that were embedded in the text and removed all of them, but the problem persists. I'm downloading OpenOffice in the hopes it will treat me better. Scary Mary and Stalking Shadows don't have this problem in Word. I don't know if it's the length of the work that's causing it or not. Microsoft's website offered no help, only the chance to buy the latest version of the program.

Posted by S.A. Hunter on Saturday, August 28, 2010

2 comments:

  1. In my experience:

    - Some Kindle Users will happily pay 0.99 rather than get a free download from Smashwords.

    - People rarely get upset about having paid 0.99 when a book's free elsewhere.

    - OpenOffice is generally more predictable than Word. It still has its peccadilloes, and it does some things differently, but I find it much easier to work with.
    ReplyDelete
  2. Naomi/Nomesque, thanks for the tips. You're right about people being willing to pay for convenience.

    I still haven't opened OpenOffice to look at UB. Way too much going on to settle down and give it a try, but I plan to. My father, the IT guru, mentioned that just saving the doc through OpenOffice will often fix a glitch in a file. He thinks the file has some bad code that's causing my woes. Hope he's right.
    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)