Expedition Report: Return From Amazon

In April, The Pen And Ink Blog brought you the cutting edge in content delivery by traveling down Amazon. Our intrepid explorer has returned from Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing to recount his chilling, thrilling, harrowing tale of uploads, downloads and HTML code. 

Warning: The following narrative contains technical profanity and intense computer situations.

My Journey To Amazon

by Lupe Fernandez

I was tasked by The Management to voyage into the cyber wilderness of Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. Gathering my courage, I used a short story about a boy who encounters ancient beings from a Quiche Mayan myth. I used my knowledge of Amazon - I have an account with them - and signed up for a Direct Publishing account. Little did I know what hair-pulling, teeth gnashing predicaments lay in store for me.

I filled out two sections. 

1. Details about my book.

2. Choices about Rights and Pricing, including royalty amount.

   The most vital part of the expedition was uploading my book file. Kindle Direct accepted .DOC formats. All would have been well, except my story had .jpg images embedded in the text.

Curses!

Kindle Direct displays images in black and white. Though Kindle Direct allows the user to preview the book, my images did not remain in their original placements.

So I downloaded the HTML file from Kindle Direct and revised the code myself.

Thus, began my descent into madness...

I cursed the day tags, anchors and WYSIWYG entered my life. So forgone was my sanity that I picked up a 100,000 Gauss strength magnet and attempted to cast out the infernal demons of my accursed machine.

Fortunately, the Management of The Pen And Ink Blog, swayed me with rational arguments to stay my vengeful hand, seek solace in ice cream and try another day.

I gathered the dregs of my resources, attempted another HTML rewrite and uploaded the file to Kindle Direct. This time fortune and excellent punctuation won the day. Once the book was acceptable to these tired eyes, I filled out information on the Amazon's author's page and communicated my success to those interested parties who had heard but scant rumors of my expedition.

Now safe in my abode, I present the bounty of my voyage to the expedition sponsors:

Thus ends my tale that I only survive to tell thee.

Here's what critics are saying about "The Wooden Men":

"Sheesh, what a waste of 99 cents." - Hip & Trendys
"What? No naked women?" - Macho Times
"Can I get a mocha latte with 10% skim milk." - Caffeine Monthly
"The most downloadable e-book of the year." - Mr. F's Therapist

The Management would like to note that our intrepid explorer plans another voyage to Amazon Kindle Direct.

Stay tuned to this blog.

The Espresso Book Machine Is Here

by Lupe Fernandez

Sorry, the Espresso Book Machine doesn’t make cappuccino mocha lattes with skim milk. The EBM, manufactured by On Demand Books, prints books. The Flintridge Bookstore in La Canada uses an in-house database to access 3 million titles from Google Books and Lightning Source. The EBM downloads a title, transmits the pages to print on either cream or white paper, and then binds and trims the resulting book.

The Flintridge Bookstore has had the EBM for 8 weeks. Grant Paules, the in-house technical expert, has been taking time to get the EBM into a “comfortable state” of readiness. At a demonstration on Sunday, April 10th, Grant downloaded Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine by William Carew Hazlitt, via the Mac Mini, transmitted the file to the Kyrocera printer.

The 166 cream colored pages - nicer and thicker, though paper choice depends on the type of book spine – shot through out of the printer via air pneumatics into the EBM where the pages and color book cover were bound with hot glue heated to 349 degrees Fahrenheit. 

After gluing, the book was trimmed to its dimensions of 9.2” x 6.14”. The finished product was deposited into a plastic bin. The time from download to completion was 8 minutes, including several minutes for Grant to allow the demonstration attendees a proper view. The pages were warm to the touch. The noise was similar to a low humming copy machine.

Currently, the EBM prints only black and white, however, Grant said the Flintridge Bookstore may acquire a color printer within the year, depending on demand. 

The titles from Google Books are out of print or in public domain and all titles have to be on the bookstore’s database. The bookstore pays royalties for the book and no titles are obtained off Amazon, yet. Since Google originally scanned their books for digital archiving and not printing, many of the pages retain fingerprints, handwriting, smudge and other marks.

The Flintridge Bookstore has several price options for self-publishing authors. Among the services are proof copies, formatting, obtaining ISBN, store placement (in the Flintridge Bookstore), and cover design.

“We’ll tailor the package to the customers’ needs,” said Grant. There is no minimum for the number of books printed.

Eventually self-published books will be attached to the bookstore’s website, so customers can buy self-published books from the Flintridge bookstore on demand.

Right now there are 12 to 15 machines in the United States. Only two EBMs exist in California. One machine is in Los Angeles and the other at UC San Diego.

The Pen And Ink Blog would like to thank Grant Paules for demonstrating the Espresso Book Machine and answering numerous questions.

If you have questions about the printing books or self-publishing on the Espresso Book Machine, contact Grant Paules at grantp@flintridgebooks.com

The Pen And Ink Blog Travels The Amazon

"And instantly the figures were made of wood. They looked like men, talked like men, and populated the surface of the earth. They existed and multiplied; they had daughters, they had sons, these wooden figures; but they did not have souls, nor minds, they did not remember their Creator, their Maker; they walked on all fours, aimlessly. They no longer remembered the Heart of Heaven..."

- The Popul Vuh/Creation of the Quiche Maya

The Pen And Ink Blog brings you the cutting edge in content delivery. We present our first E-Book via Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. The Wooden Men is a chilling tale of a boy lost in the woods, written by that Mexican Muse, that Homeboy of Hyperbole, that Vato of Verb, that Latino of Letters, that...you get the idea.

It's only 99 cents.

"The deuce you say!"

It's true! It's true!

"99 cents is almost a dollar!"

But it's not.

"Doesn't self published mean it's crap?"

Come on, give the kid a break. 

He doesn't get out much.

The Wooden Men - You'll never think of Show & Tell the same way again. 

Now available at Amazon.com: Kindle Store http://amzn.to/fVP3P8

No Kindle? No problem.
To download a free Kindle app for your: Windows PC, Mac, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, iPad or Windows Phone7 - Journey down The Amazon

I got mine. Now you get yours.