I Was Seduced

Grasping for help easily happens to authors pushing to get their work globally discovered by readers.

This time the smooth voices of representatives from companies that convert manuscripts into eBooks kept luring me to use their converter. “It’s nearly magic. Just provide your manuscript and in an hour or two you will have a beautiful ebook layout. A little easy editing and it will pop out ready to be enjoyed on any electronic-book reader anywhere in the world. Trust us. Our no-problems-converter will solve your conversion needs so you can quickly get back to writing. People will think Michelangelo helped you.”

Even though I had heard complaints from across the industry that people were struggling with converters I pressed on. It was the pitch from one rep that sealed my fate. “Hi big boy. Come on in. We love authors.”

It really became interesting a few hours later. In the dark of night we were alone, my converter and me. It was quiet, even the conversion company had closed its phone-support office. By then I was satisfied with my attractive design and layout of Gold Lust’s front and back matter. I even included hyperlinks to carry the reader to my website and to purchase sites. I was doing so well that I knew that in one night I was going to convert three thrillers into eBooks. Lesser men would only try a one book conversion, but not me. Then the invisible converter controls sensed my tiredness, vulnerability, and uneducated bravado.

I confidently pushed the convert button. When the spinning wheel appeared on my computer screen, signaling the first conversion had started, I heard an evil soft cackle. I thought, I’m just tired.

Wrong! When the wheel stopped spinning all the blank lines on every page in my front and back matter had disappeared. Now, I’m looking at pages of mashed together crap! WHAT? Since Gutenberg invented the first printing press authors have been inserting blank lines in their text. What sick, evil, low-life would do this to a struggling author?

demon converter monkey makes life hell for author Ed Mitchell — I’ve got you now my little pretty!

Demon converter monkeys — that’s who!

Over the next hour I tried modifying the manuscript in different ways, followed by performing all the convert steps, and then repeatedly failing. Desperate, I typed a period where I wanted a blank line. It worked! But little ugly black droppings stood out in each blank line. Now my pages actually look like crap was deposited over them. Think black measles.

I moved on and found within my 272-page book other weird formatting changes inserted by the demon converter monkeys. Soon it turned into a battle of wits. I waived my fist at the screen and began hacking my own manuscript conversion to get the layout that I’ve had in my physical books for years. Sometimes I won. Other times the DCM’s gave me the international single-finger signal.

Two days later twilight started filling my office. After another strong cup of coffee, I dialed the support office and casually asked the rep about the blank line problem. “Oh, yes,” a sweet female voice answered. “We’re working to eliminate that issue.” Seconds later she gave me the simple workaround. So I contained my urge to say why didn’t the company alert first-time users about tiny conversion issues that might EAT HOURS OF THEIR LIFE.”

But with the help of a caring support group, joy returned. I overcame the last few converter glitches and stepped into the eBook world. As you read this blog, my award-winning adventure-thrillers are in eight major online bookstores in North America, Europe, Spain, Germany and Japan.